- Aliso Viejo, California, United States
babak rahimi
University of California, Irvine, Global Cultures, Faculty Member
as ‘‘forever foreigners’’ or lumped into a panethnic identity—mistaken for some other national-ethnic group or asked ‘‘where are you really from’’—earlier in life. Many attended highly selective colleges, which suggests that they likely... more
as ‘‘forever foreigners’’ or lumped into a panethnic identity—mistaken for some other national-ethnic group or asked ‘‘where are you really from’’—earlier in life. Many attended highly selective colleges, which suggests that they likely spent a lot of time around white peers. One can only cover so much in one book, but this seemed like an opportunity to further highlight the important role that Pan posits for graduate education and professionalization—the crucial context of her study—as compared to other institutional venues. If nothing else, it was a question I kept returning to in my mind. Readers focused on institutional effects may also wish for more meaningful analysis of the two campuses her respondents attend. Pan includes some discussion of differences, but highlighting them more systematically could have added another useful dimension. Pan sometimes uses the comparison to illuminate particular factors, like background, life course stage, or pathway into the profession, opening the analysis up even further. However, the comparisons were inconsistent, sometimes highlighting differences between the campuses and their populations and sometimes treating the whole sample as undifferentiated. Overall, the book makes a strong contribution to longstanding sociological discussions about professionalization, racialization, and identity. It’s also an important addition to contemporary conversations about how people make it to the proverbial top of the ladder—or, just as importantly, how they seek out ways of supporting their communities by using the tool kits that come with a high-status credential. As we see legal challenges and corporate responses to the continued dearth of people of color and women at the highest levels of white-collar jobs, Pan’s book helps us understand the perspectives of students who may be on their way into that world, their choices to enter or leave the profession, and what may await them. Democracy in Iran: Why it Failed and How It Might Succeed, by Misagh Parsa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. 406 pp. $45.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780674 545045.
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(subject of her second book) was powered mostly by those who did not find Islam incompatible with modernity (principal thesis of the earlier one). Taking a close look at the politics of the provinces, Martin makes a compelling case that... more
(subject of her second book) was powered mostly by those who did not find Islam incompatible with modernity (principal thesis of the earlier one). Taking a close look at the politics of the provinces, Martin makes a compelling case that not all who campaigned for reform, nor all those who opposed it, were necessarily committed to either cause from any ideological conviction. Frequently, local factional preoccupations at the level of elite politics propelled individuals or groups to move toward or away from the direction of reform (particularly if their rival was not in that camp to start with), as it seems to have been the case in Shiraz or Esfahan; there were even occasions, as in Bushehr, where serious engagements with the reform agenda began only after the drift of developments in Tehran became clear in the provinces. There were still others, such as the more radical elements in Tabriz, who joined the fray in order to capitalize on opportunities that had suddenly become available in pressing the demands of the city’s underclass. The question that is left tantalizingly open by the author is no less important than the ones she chooses to address: What made the “Islamic” agenda of reform (or politics) “Islamic”? Is it simply the involvement and the agency of the ulama that made some concerns of 1906 “Islamic”? Clearly not, for, as Martin herself shows, there were as many ulama who made their peace with the mashruta option as those who clamored for mashru a. Should that not qualify even the secularist mashruta agenda as an Islamic option? Similarly there were many outside the ranks of the ulama who solicited for mashru a—how does one categorize them? Or is it merely the use of Islamic terms of references (i.e., the notion of instrumental use of religion) for mobilization of popular support—even when protagonists of such Islamic agenda might be involved in local elite power struggles that are patently unrelated with the cause of the faith, such as Haji Mirza Hasan in Tabriz, Haj Aqa Nurullah in Esfahan, and Mu tamid-i Divan in and around 1906? Is it both of these considerations together—the agency and the language—or maybe something altogether different? Towards the beginning of her book, Martin is quite emphatic that contrary to what Ahmed Kasravi and others like him used to believe, the secular agenda was neither clearly formulated nor clearly understood at the time of the Mashruta revolution. Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that neither was the “Islamic” agenda clearly formulated or understood, except in an instrumental way.
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The author of this article discusses the experiences of Iranian Shiite pilgrims to a mosque where a special connection to Mahdi is expected. In this article, he focuses mostly on the representations of this pilgrimage in the Iranian... more
The author of this article discusses the experiences of Iranian Shiite pilgrims to a mosque where a special connection to Mahdi is expected. In this article, he focuses mostly on the representations of this pilgrimage in the Iranian social media. He shows how social media, in the case of Jamkaran mosque, contributed to the networking of pilgrimage and how this digitized pilgrimage is embodied in different digital scopes. Therefore, a strong relationship between digital technology and pilgrimage appears as a set of individual and social experiences.
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Research Interests: Iranian Studies and Blues
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Research Interests: Iranian Studies and Islam
"Social Media in Iran" is the first book to tell the complex story of how and why the Iranian people including women, homosexuals, dissidents, artists, and even state actors use social media technology, and in doing so create a... more
"Social Media in Iran" is the first book to tell the complex story of how and why the Iranian people including women, homosexuals, dissidents, artists, and even state actors use social media technology, and in doing so create a contentious environment wherein new identities and realities are constructed. Drawing together emerging and established scholars in communication, culture, and media studies, this volume considers the role of social media in Iranian society, particularly the time during and after the controversial 2009 presidential election, a watershed moment in the postrevolutionary history of Iran. While regional specialists may find studies on specific themes useful, the aim of this volume is to provide broad narratives of actor-based conceptions of media technology, an approach that focuses on the experiential and social networking processes of digital practices in the information era extended beyond cultural specificities. Students and scholars of regional and media studies will find this volume rich with empirical and theoretical insights on the subject of how technologies shape political and everyday life."
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... Tigris. However, Sistani's presence will also create problems for various secularist groups in Iraq upon which both the stability and the inclusive structure of the elected unity government, led by Nuri al-Maliki, depend.... more
... Tigris. However, Sistani's presence will also create problems for various secularist groups in Iraq upon which both the stability and the inclusive structure of the elected unity government, led by Nuri al-Maliki, depend. Although ...
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Research Interests: Religion, History, Historical Sociology, Middle East Studies, History of Religion, and 15 moreReligion and Politics, Central Asian Studies, Sociology of islam, Islamic Studies, Islam in Central Asia, Islam in the Southeast Asia, Islam, Comparative and historical sociology, Comparative Historical Analysis, Islam and Modernity, Islamic History and Muslim Civilization, Comparative Historical Sociology, Historical Studies, Historical and Comparative Sociology, and Religious and Islamic Studies
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Pilgrimage is one of the most significant ritual duties for Muslims, entailing the visitation and veneration of sites associated with the Prophet Muhammad or saintly figures. As demonstrated in this multidisciplinary volume, the lived... more
Pilgrimage is one of the most significant ritual duties for Muslims, entailing the visitation and veneration of sites associated with the Prophet Muhammad or saintly figures. As demonstrated in this multidisciplinary volume, the lived religion of pilgrimage, defined by embodied devotional practices, is changing in an age characterized by commerce, technology, and new sociocultural and political frameworks. Traveling to and far beyond the Hajj, the most well-known Muslim pilgrimage, the volume’s contributors reveal and analyze emerging contemporary Islamic pilgrimage practices around the world, in minority- and majority-Muslim countries as well as in urban and rural settings. What was once a tiny religious attraction in a remote village, for example, may begin to draw increasing numbers of pilgrims to shrines and tombs as the result of new means of travel, thus triggering significant changes in the traditional rituals, and livelihoods, of the local people. Organized around three key ...
Research Interests: History, Anthropology, Middle East Studies, Anthropology of Pilgrimage, Pilgrimage, and 15 moreIslamic Contemporary Studies, Cult of Saints, Pilgrimage Routes, Islamic Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Islam, Middle East Politics, Pilgrimage and Tourism, Anthropology of Islam, Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, Hajj Pilgrims, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Near and Middle Eastern Studies, Anthropology of Religion, and Hajj
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Classical Muslim exegetes, drawn from both Quranic and non-Quranic sources, have described the exodus as an illustration of divine punishment imposed on the Israelites for their transgression against God. This study, however, understands... more
Classical Muslim exegetes, drawn from both Quranic and non-Quranic sources, have described the exodus as an illustration of divine punishment imposed on the Israelites for their transgression against God. This study, however, understands the Quranic accounts of the exodus in terms of a salvational drama. The revelation of Torah, central to the exodus story, is about the deliverance of God’s will in the act of law giving. Moses as both a prophet and a legislator plays a key role in manifesting God as the word in the citation of an authentic divine intention through the Torah. Divine presence is also found through miracles when God orders Moses to return the sea to its original form, and so the Israelites would be saved from Pharaoh. For their lack of gratitude for God’s help, the Israelites are punished for their transgression against his command. In 5:20–25, God commands the Israelites to enter the “holy land,” but they refuse because of giants. In turn, God condemns the Israelites with 40 years of wandering (5:26). In 7:148–158 and 20:80–98 the Israelites are described to transgress God’s command for worshiping the golden calf when Moses was absent for 40 nights. In turn, Moses orders the killing of those who worshiped the golden calf. However, while the Israelites are punished for their disobedience, they are also blessed with God’s mercy and generosity. When Moses’s anger subsides after throwing down the tables after finding the Israelites worshiping of the golden calf, he took up the tablets for “those who fearful of their Lord” (7:154). Throughout the Quran, the exodus narrative provides numerous instances when God would provide numerous blessings to the Israelites. Beyond punishment and blessing, however, the exodus identifies a metanarrative of spiritual liberation. In such account, the Israelites partake in a redemptive experience of a trial through adversity that ultimately reveals divine grace, a self-reflexive reference that unravels the God it cites into existence, and hence a promise for salvation. The exodus story therefore becomes a chronicle about God’s presence in the enactment of his will through the performance of delivering the laws, even as he appears to abandon his people, even as he appears to be invisible to all.
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The article discusses the relationship between political satire and changing media practices in the context of Iranian political history. It argues how such practices produce distinct forms of publics with mediated modes of expression of... more
The article discusses the relationship between political satire and changing media practices in the context of Iranian political history. It argues how such practices produce distinct forms of publics with mediated modes of expression of dissent. From print to the Internet, media technologies have enabled different forms of communication that, correspondingly, have led to the formation of different form of satirical publics of (sub)cultural variations. First, the study offers an account of political satire in its print cultural form and, second, its reconfiguration with the introduction of the Internet to Iran in the 1990s. With the Internet, I further identify three satirical practices: (a) prose, (b) cartoon, (c) and meme, with the last introducing a new form of satirical practice as a result of interactive communication in social media. The article finally discusses limits to studying political satire, especially in Iran, and argues that the impact of political satire on politics...
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The massive protests that rocked the streets of Iran’s major cities after the disputed 2009 presidential election have led to a new scholarly field of inquiry into the historic events, famously described by some as the first major... more
The massive protests that rocked the streets of Iran’s major cities after the disputed 2009 presidential election have led to a new scholarly field of inquiry into the historic events, famously described by some as the first major ‘Twitter Revolution’ in modern times. The publication of works such as Iran, The Green Movement and the USA: The Fox and the Paradox (2010) by Hamid Dabashi and The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran’s Future (2011) edited by Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel have introduced us to a new set of scholarship with a focus on the relationship between social media and social movements in a non-European context, yet seen in close connection with global processes. The recent publications of Media, Power, and Politics in the Digital Age, edited by Yahya R. Kamalipour, a professor of communication studies at Purdue University, Indiana, and Blogistan by Annabelle Sreberny and Gholam Khiabany, two scholars based in London with many publications on the politics of media in Iran, are welcome additions to this growing scholarly field on how the new information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially the internet, can shape new forms of political activism to challenge authoritarian regimes. In many ways, the two books under review may be used to reflect on each other, on their shared themes of the relationship between ICTs and politics in post-revolutionary Iran. The two approach this complex relationship through a set of overlapping and at times conflicting theoretical approaches. Media, Power and Politics in the Digital Age is divided into four sections with a total of 24 chapters, an introduction, a foreword and a brief segment that covers some basic facts about Iran. The first section, ‘Global Media Dimensions’, is the longest in the volume. The eight chapters in this section largely are papers on global coverage of the post-election unrest by academics and journalists. Mohammad el-Nawawy’s chapter discusses reports by CNN and Al-Jazeera English and argues how globalized media 421071 JOU13110.1177/1464884911421071Review EssayJournalism
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Introduction 2 Sistani and the Najaf Hawza 3 Sistani's Transnational Network 5 Sistani and the Transition to a Democratic Iraq 8 Sistani and the Iraqi Constitution 11 Sistani and the Post-December 2005 Elections 13 Post-Sistani Iraq:... more
Introduction 2 Sistani and the Najaf Hawza 3 Sistani's Transnational Network 5 Sistani and the Transition to a Democratic Iraq 8 Sistani and the Iraqi Constitution 11 Sistani and the Post-December 2005 Elections 13 Post-Sistani Iraq: Who Will Succeed Sistani? 17 The Younger Sistani ...
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Between carnival and mourning : the Muharram rituals and the emergence of the early modern Iranian public sphere in the Safavi period, 1590-1641 CE. DSpace/Manakin Repository. ...
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Since the collapse of the Baʿathist regime after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Shiʿi Muslim rituals, in particular the annual commemorations of Arbaʿin, have seen a revival in popularity. Based on two fieldwork studies conducted... more
Since the collapse of the Baʿathist regime after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Shiʿi Muslim rituals, in particular the annual commemorations of Arbaʿin, have seen a revival in popularity. Based on two fieldwork studies conducted during Arbaʿin in 2016 and 2017, the present study attempts to examine the changing characteristics of the rituals. It does so by studying the increasing digitization of Arbaʿin as a commemorative pilgrimage to Karbala, Iraq, to the shrine of the Prophet’s grandson, Imam Husayn. This ethnographic study argues for a mediated conception of Arbaʿin pilgrimage in that digital technologies serve as an embodied site of interaction in shaping shared experiences based on networked sociability. Examining the intimate connections between “physical” and “virtual” spaces, as in the case of Mawakib or gatherings shaped in the form of temporary lodgings in the course of walking processions, the study argues that various uses of digital technologies for pilgrimage...
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List of Illustrations Preface Introduction: The Turquoise Ring of the Emperor Jahangir 1. The Colored Earth 2. Turquoise, Trade, and Empire in Early Modern Eurasia 3. The Turquoise of Islam 4. Stone from the East 5. The Other Side of the... more
List of Illustrations Preface Introduction: The Turquoise Ring of the Emperor Jahangir 1. The Colored Earth 2. Turquoise, Trade, and Empire in Early Modern Eurasia 3. The Turquoise of Islam 4. Stone from the East 5. The Other Side of the World Epilogue: Indian Stone Notes Bibliography Index
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This chapter points to the ways that Safavid rulers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries created public “gaming” spectacles in their public square, called the “Image of the World.” Rahimi argues that this urban space was used as a... more
This chapter points to the ways that Safavid rulers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries created public “gaming” spectacles in their public square, called the “Image of the World.” Rahimi argues that this urban space was used as a ritual site wherein the king, his court, aristocrats, diplomats, travelers, and the population of the city of Isfahan could engage in communal play. Rahimi argues that this square in both joyful celebrations and solemn moments (such as the commemorations of al-Muḥarram) served as a vital performative space for the Safavid state.
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This article offers a new macrohistorical model of telecommunication and social relations with a focus on Iran as a case study. It shows how networks, as complex interacting forms of social associations, undergo historical changes through... more
This article offers a new macrohistorical model of telecommunication and social relations with a focus on Iran as a case study. It shows how networks, as complex interacting forms of social associations, undergo historical changes through developments in telecommunication practices. By reworking Marshal McLuhan’s notion of three ages of communication, we identify three forms of social associations with distinct communicative spheres: (1) oral-scribal networks, (2) tele-networks, and (3) digital networks. The three network models propose to explain how emerging technologies mediate social relations with multifaceted historical developments. Using Iran as a case study to expand on the proposed models, we aim to map out historical trajectories of distinct social networks, to underscore how interruptive telecommunication processes continue to shape history shared with vast regions around the globe. The network model, intimately tied with telecommunication practices, is proposed set of s...
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T he title of Misagh Parsa’s Democracy in Iran: Why It Failed and How It Might Succeed promises an explanatory analysis in historical sociology, but it delivers a descriptive account in historiography. The work unfolds in four parts. It... more
T he title of Misagh Parsa’s Democracy in Iran: Why It Failed and How It Might Succeed promises an explanatory analysis in historical sociology, but it delivers a descriptive account in historiography. The work unfolds in four parts. It starts with the premise that Iran, the only “officially recognized theocracy in the world,” is a historically unique case. How might one read the tea leaves of political change for such an idiosyncratic antimodern hybrid regime? The author suggests a binary choice: reform or revolution. He proposes comparing Iran to Indonesia, the Philippines, and Egypt (similar cases) and contrasting it with South Korea, which succeeded in attaining democracy and prosperity. Whereas Iran and South Korea’s GDP were similar in 1979 (the year of the Iranian revolution), South Korea’s GDP is now three times that of Iran. What went wrong? Parsa identifies a number of culprits: regime exclusivism, non-democratic ideology, elite intervention in the economy, state interference in cultural affairs, mounting social inequality, and lack of exit options for elites. The second part of the book, entitled “Revolution and the Political Economy of Theocracy,” argues that the Islamic Republic of Iran, far from being the result of a cohesive radical Shi’a movement, was a catalyst for the creation of such a movement (p. 61). The author demonstrates that the pre-revolutionary constituencies such as students, Bazaar merchants, and religious seminarians were divergent in their sensibilities and divided in their demands. It was the politicization of mosques, the suppression of moderate political opposition, and the ability of Khomeini to lead the movement from exile that led to the success of the Islamic revolution of Iran. Once in power, Khomeini shifted the revolution’s slogan from independence and freedom to “protection of the oppressed,” which he introduced on the day of referendum for the Islamic Republic (March 30, 1979). Khomeini then utilized this nebulous and populist slogan to push back against liberals and leftists alike. Several vigilante and militia organizations that enjoyed official sanction helped suppress the opposition. The regime subsequently proceeded to stifle ethnic movements, conservative clerics, and erstwhile allies. The hostage crisis and the protracted eight-year war with Iraq, while degrading Iran’s economy and political standing in the world, consolidated Khomeini’s