front cover of Exile and the Nation
Exile and the Nation
The Parsi Community of India and the Making of Modern Iran
By Afshin Marashi
University of Texas Press, 2020

Honorable Mention, Hamid Naficy Iranian Studies Book Award from the Association of Iranian Studies

In the aftermath of the seventh-century Islamic conquest of Iran, Zoroastrians departed for India. Known as the Parsis, they slowly lost contact with their ancestral land until the nineteenth century, when steam-powered sea travel, the increased circulation of Zoroastrian-themed books, and the philanthropic efforts of Parsi benefactors sparked a new era of interaction between the two groups.

Tracing the cultural and intellectual exchange between Iranian nationalists and the Parsi community during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Exile and the Nation shows how this interchange led to the collective reimagining of Parsi and Iranian national identity—and the influence of antiquity on modern Iranian nationalism, which previously rested solely on European forms of thought. Iranian nationalism, Afshin Marashi argues, was also the byproduct of the complex history resulting from the demise of the early modern Persianate cultural system, as well as one of the many cultural heterodoxies produced within the Indian Ocean world. Crossing the boundaries of numerous fields of study, this book reframes Iranian nationalism within the context of the connected, transnational, and global history of the modern era.

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front cover of Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity
Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity
Edited by Kamran Scot Aghaie and Afshin Marashi
University of Texas Press, 2014

While recent books have explored Arab and Turkish nationalism, the nuances of Iran have received scant book-length study—until now. Capturing the significant changes in approach that have shaped this specialization, Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity shares innovative research and charts new areas of analysis from an array of scholars in the field.

Delving into a wide range of theoretical and conceptual perspectives, the essays—all previously unpublished—encompass social history, literary theory, postcolonial studies, and comparative analysis to address such topics as:

  • Ethnicity in the Islamic Republic of Iran
  • Political Islam and religious nationalism
  • The evolution of U.S.-Iranian relations before and after the Cold War
  • Comparing Islamic and secular nationalism(s) in Egypt and Iran
  • The German counterrevolution and its influence on Iranian political alliances
  • The effects of Israel’s image as a Euro-American space
  • Sufism
  • Geocultural concepts in Azar’s Atashkadeh

Interdisciplinary in essence, the essays also draw from sociology, gender studies, and art and architecture. Posing compelling questions while challenging the conventional historiographical traditions, the authors (many of whom represent a new generation of Iranian studies scholars) give voice to a research approach that embraces the modern era’s complexity while emphasizing Iranian nationalism’s contested, multifaceted, and continuously transformative possibilities.

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