Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in Postmodernity and Tradition
by Michael M. J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi
University of Wisconsin Press, 1990 Paper: 978-0-299-12434-2 Library of Congress Classification BP192.7.I68F56 1990 Dewey Decimal Classification 297.820904
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
In a world of multinational commerce, satellite broadcasting, migration, terrorism, and global arms dealing, what is said and how it is said in one society can no longer be isolated from what is said and how it is said in another. Debating Muslims focuses on Iranian culture, Shi’ite Islam, and Iranians in the United States, offering an experiment in postmodern ethnography and an invitation to think in a multifaceted way about Islam in the contemporary world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Michael M. J. Fischer is professor of anthropology and director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mehdi Abedi is research associate in the Anthropology Department at Rice University, where he teaches and lectures on Islam and Iran.
REVIEWS
"An engaging and illuminating account of Islamic culture in the Middle East and in the West. . . . The word ‘ethnography’ can hardly describe the many subjects this book broaches, from a seductive account of Abedi’s passage to America from a small village near Yazd, Iran, to an illuminating discussion of crucial Islamic practices such as the Qur’an and the hajj, to inquiries into the ‘autographics’ of Islamic popular art in Iran."—Ali Behdad, International Journal of Middle East Studies
"Describes a modern culture torn apart by the conflict of resurging Islamic fundamentalism and emerging secular intellectualism. . . . Debating Muslims is an important reader for the serious student of modern Muslim society, as it explores daily life inside Iran and in exile, politics intertwined with religion, multiple voices of Islamic ideology, and media graphics and the Rushdie phenomenon."—Library Journal
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Note on Transcription
Calendars
Chronology of Significant Dynasties
Preface: Notes Toward Anthropology as Cultural Critique
Part 1:
Oral Life Worlds
1.
Shi′ite Socialization in Pahlavi Iran: Autobiographical Sondages in a Postmodern World
Scenes of a Village Childhood
Scenes of an Urban Childhood: Class Distinctions
Secondary School, Sexual Purity, and Marriage
Tehran: Ideological Crucible
Lawrence, Kansas
Part 2:
Texts, Con-texts, and Pre-texts
2.
Qur′anic Dialogics: Islamic Poetics and Politics for Muslims and for Us
Con-texts to Dialogue
Dialogue and Presence Iqra! (“Recite!”): The Sounddance, the Oral, Performative Qur′an
The Graphics of Absence Guides through the Woid: Plain Meaning, Prolepsis, the Knowledgeable, the Hadīth Game
The Politics of Interpretation Exposing the Unbewised: The Hadīth Game, [Blind] Followership, Rule by Faqih/Amir, and Islamic Economics
Conclusion: Dialogue, Ethics, Politics
3.
Fear of Différance: The Hajj “Rodeo”
Hajj Pretexts and Re(rites): Ethics and Politics in the Play of Nationalism, Class, and Gender
Hajj as Primal Scene
The 1968 Hajj, the Rise of Islamic Ideology, and Renewable Shi′ism
Conclusion: Giving Hagar Voice
4.
Social Change and the Mirrors of Tradition: Baha′is of Yazd
Introduction
Yazd: Mirrors of Diversity
Nurullah Akhtar-Khavari
Part 3:
Shifting Ritual Grounds (To Houston)
5.
Diasporas: Re-membering and Re-creating
Exiles and Immigrants, Authenticity and Identity
Prologue: Negotiating Death and Marriage in a Loose Social Structure
A Month among the Believers: Ramadān in Houston, 1984
Voices of Hagar: An African-American Muslim Woman Talks to an Iranian Muslim Man
Part 4:
Visual Projections
6.
Concluding Notes: Autographically Changing Iran—Minor Media and Bicultural Graphics
Emergent Ethnographic Subjects
Minor Media as Reminders of the Postmodern Condition: Posters, Cartoons, Emblems
Truth in Tulips: Emblems, Arabesque Design, Allusive Graphics
Revolutionary Operatics and Cartoons for Export
Revolutionary Posters and Cultural Interférences
Hypertextual Feints and Constraints
7.
Postscriptural Parergon: Bombay Talkies, the Word and the World: Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses
They Shoot Novelists Don't They?
Beyond the Text
Qur′anic Sources and A–maze–ments
Reading the Novel: Highjacked Souls
Literature to Think With
Appendix 1.
Alternative Traditional Orderings of the Qur′an
Appendix 2.
The Ring, Octagon, or Eight Propositions of Political Wisdom
Appendix 3.
The Imām's Blasphemystic Ghazal
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
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Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in Postmodernity and Tradition
by Michael M. J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi
University of Wisconsin Press, 1990 Paper: 978-0-299-12434-2
In a world of multinational commerce, satellite broadcasting, migration, terrorism, and global arms dealing, what is said and how it is said in one society can no longer be isolated from what is said and how it is said in another. Debating Muslims focuses on Iranian culture, Shi’ite Islam, and Iranians in the United States, offering an experiment in postmodern ethnography and an invitation to think in a multifaceted way about Islam in the contemporary world.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Michael M. J. Fischer is professor of anthropology and director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mehdi Abedi is research associate in the Anthropology Department at Rice University, where he teaches and lectures on Islam and Iran.
REVIEWS
"An engaging and illuminating account of Islamic culture in the Middle East and in the West. . . . The word ‘ethnography’ can hardly describe the many subjects this book broaches, from a seductive account of Abedi’s passage to America from a small village near Yazd, Iran, to an illuminating discussion of crucial Islamic practices such as the Qur’an and the hajj, to inquiries into the ‘autographics’ of Islamic popular art in Iran."—Ali Behdad, International Journal of Middle East Studies
"Describes a modern culture torn apart by the conflict of resurging Islamic fundamentalism and emerging secular intellectualism. . . . Debating Muslims is an important reader for the serious student of modern Muslim society, as it explores daily life inside Iran and in exile, politics intertwined with religion, multiple voices of Islamic ideology, and media graphics and the Rushdie phenomenon."—Library Journal
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Note on Transcription
Calendars
Chronology of Significant Dynasties
Preface: Notes Toward Anthropology as Cultural Critique
Part 1:
Oral Life Worlds
1.
Shi′ite Socialization in Pahlavi Iran: Autobiographical Sondages in a Postmodern World
Scenes of a Village Childhood
Scenes of an Urban Childhood: Class Distinctions
Secondary School, Sexual Purity, and Marriage
Tehran: Ideological Crucible
Lawrence, Kansas
Part 2:
Texts, Con-texts, and Pre-texts
2.
Qur′anic Dialogics: Islamic Poetics and Politics for Muslims and for Us
Con-texts to Dialogue
Dialogue and Presence Iqra! (“Recite!”): The Sounddance, the Oral, Performative Qur′an
The Graphics of Absence Guides through the Woid: Plain Meaning, Prolepsis, the Knowledgeable, the Hadīth Game
The Politics of Interpretation Exposing the Unbewised: The Hadīth Game, [Blind] Followership, Rule by Faqih/Amir, and Islamic Economics
Conclusion: Dialogue, Ethics, Politics
3.
Fear of Différance: The Hajj “Rodeo”
Hajj Pretexts and Re(rites): Ethics and Politics in the Play of Nationalism, Class, and Gender
Hajj as Primal Scene
The 1968 Hajj, the Rise of Islamic Ideology, and Renewable Shi′ism
Conclusion: Giving Hagar Voice
4.
Social Change and the Mirrors of Tradition: Baha′is of Yazd
Introduction
Yazd: Mirrors of Diversity
Nurullah Akhtar-Khavari
Part 3:
Shifting Ritual Grounds (To Houston)
5.
Diasporas: Re-membering and Re-creating
Exiles and Immigrants, Authenticity and Identity
Prologue: Negotiating Death and Marriage in a Loose Social Structure
A Month among the Believers: Ramadān in Houston, 1984
Voices of Hagar: An African-American Muslim Woman Talks to an Iranian Muslim Man
Part 4:
Visual Projections
6.
Concluding Notes: Autographically Changing Iran—Minor Media and Bicultural Graphics
Emergent Ethnographic Subjects
Minor Media as Reminders of the Postmodern Condition: Posters, Cartoons, Emblems
Truth in Tulips: Emblems, Arabesque Design, Allusive Graphics
Revolutionary Operatics and Cartoons for Export
Revolutionary Posters and Cultural Interférences
Hypertextual Feints and Constraints
7.
Postscriptural Parergon: Bombay Talkies, the Word and the World: Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses
They Shoot Novelists Don't They?
Beyond the Text
Qur′anic Sources and A–maze–ments
Reading the Novel: Highjacked Souls
Literature to Think With
Appendix 1.
Alternative Traditional Orderings of the Qur′an
Appendix 2.
The Ring, Octagon, or Eight Propositions of Political Wisdom
Appendix 3.
The Imām's Blasphemystic Ghazal
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE