Archive - May 2012 - Article

Outflanking Washington

There is an interest that both Iran and the United States hold in common: staving off military action, whether by the U.S. or Israel. From there, however, U.S. and Iranian motivations diverge; understanding this divergence is key to understanding why the talks thus far have failed. Iranian officials publicly dismiss but likely privately worry about the consequences of war, while U.S. officials often seem more worried about the consequences of military action>>>

«درست گفت» و «درست نوشت»

زبان فارسی در طول قرن‌ها شکل گرفته و تحول یافته است. ولی این تحولات در چهارچوب قواعدی صورت می‌گیرد که از آن‌ها تحت عنوان «دستور زبان» یاد می‌کنیم. دستور زبان نیز (در مورد زبان‌های طبیعی) از گویش مردمانی که به آن زبان سخن می‌گویند استخراج می‌شود و قراردادی نیست. به طریق اولی، نمی‌توان زبان طبیعی را با امر و نهی ساخت یا تغییر داد>>>

Persian "Capital"

This paper examines the new features of Hassan Mortazavi’s new translation of Marx’s Capital Volume 1 and the responses which it has received inside Iran. I argue that what led to this translation was both a dissatisfaction with the failure of the Iranian left during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and an interest on the part of a new generation of Iranian youth in philosophically based, non-dogmatic and constructive alternatives>>>

Things We Left Unsaid

Zoya Pirzad is a renowned Iranian-Armenian writer and novelist. She has written two novels and three collections of short stories, all of which have enjoyed international success. Things We Left Unsaid has been awarded multiple prizes, including the prestigious Houshang Golshiri award for Best Novel of the Year and her most recent collection of stories, The Bitter Taste of Persimmon, won the prize for Best Foreign Book of 2009 in France. She grew up in Abadan, where this novel is set, and now lives in Tehran>>>

Conceptualizing Gender (6)

Freud’s description of women as genitally defective and morally inferior to men, his concept of “penis envy” and his Oedipus complex that gave the highest position to the father, have been criticized by countless feminist writers. They have maintained that theories and methodologies of the psychoanalytic systems are patriarchal, misogynistic and anti-feminist. In Freud’s time, these ideas were also meticulously criticized for the first time by German psychiatrist / psychoanalyst Karen Horney and Austrian-British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein>>>

I am the change that I want to see

An impressive range of activists and scholars, artists and well-wishers had turned the venue into a Mecca to explore various nuances of change and its preludes from 18 to 21 May 2012. The discourses of the inaugural conference of the Society for Studies in Persian Culture and History ran the gamut. They ranged from health and literature to human rights and media. The conveners, performers and panelists included homeopathic doctors, poets, specialist in Islamic studies, television producers and rappers>>>

Black Saffron

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Give in? I won't do that

Najafi: I was a very devout boy and one day I heard the music of an Egyptian Koran singer in the mosque. The melancholy of this music touched me so deeply that it brought me to tears. So I asked a boy there what kind of music this was, and he told me. Funnily enough, I ran into him again not too long ago; he lives in southern Germany, plays guitar and listens to Pink Floyd. I find it very moving that one of the people who kindled my interest in Koran singing has ended up taking a path that is similar to my own.>>>

Hasn’t the time finally come?

Culturally we Iranians have a big problem with accepting our errors and that is the main reason behind our failures over and over again. So instead of facing our responsibility, accepting our errors, learning from our mistakes and moving on, we resort to the game of heroes and villains. So depending on our political orientation we either make a saint and an unquestionable hero of Mosaddegh or the Shah by moving them beyond any criticism and then conveniently hide behind them>>>

Damn it, Are You Still Alive?

Would you be outraged if someone called you every once in a while and asked you if you were still alive? It is perfectly permissible in this country for someone to lure you into signing a contract that gives you a lump sum of money in exchange for your life insurance policy, and then the person waits impatiently for you to die so that he can cash in and collect on your death benefits. The sooner you die, the higher the return on his investment>>>

Car Crash

Numbing needles,
Potion of modern-day gods,
Dry-up sorrow
On the brim of a mother’s eyes,
Drown grief
In a father’s throat.
>>>

مرگ دوم سلطنت

در شرایطی که وارث تاج و تخت به فرض تمایل هم نمیتواند نقشی متناسب با پادشاهی مشروطه بازی کند، این «سلطنت طلبی» در حکم طرفداری از بازگشت نظامی است که در آن پادشاه نقش سیاسی بازی می کند و به این ترتیب اصلاً مشروطه و دمکراسی در آن جایی نخواهد داشت. مسئله به مقاله نوشتن راجع به لیبرالیسم ارتباط ندارد، مطلقاً مربوط به حسن نیت سلطنت طلبان یا حتی خود رضا پهلوی هم نیست>>>

Choice vs Constraint

A piece of news out of Iran informs us that the country’s government, never particularly benevolent, is starting a more vigorous campaign against women who, disrespectful of Islam, choose to be fashionable—imagine!—rather than turn themselves into the subservient shadows of their lords and masters. (Converts and fanatics in the West might want to take note of what happens when covering up is an obligation rather than a whim.)>>>

Iran's Epic and America's Empire

Following a brief survey of Iranian history from its beginning in the 7th century B.C. to Ferdowsi s time in the 11th century, Mahmoud Omidsalar's Iran's Epic and America's Empire (Afshar Publishing, 2012) provides a history of the poem and a biography of its author. It offers an explanation of the Shahnameh as a national icon and considers the implications of the poem for the present political tensions that mark Iran's relationship with the West>>>

اشتراک احساسات

فصل چهارم مجموعه اشعاری است که بین ژوئن 2010 و 2011 در این سایت چاپ شده. آینه زندگی و احساساتم در عرض چهار فصل آن سال است و فکر کردم که زمان آن باشد که بر کاغذ چاپ شود. شاید به اشتراک گذاشتن احساسات شخصی با غریبگان کاری خودخواهانه باشد ولی من در این سایت خودم را میان دوستانم میدانم و این کتاب را به همه دوستان تقدیم میکنم>>>