Seminar: 28 April 2010
Series :
'Intergeneric' translation,
Iranian Modernity and the West
European Liberalisms and Modern Concepts of Liberty in Iran
Dr Homa Katouzian
St Antony’s College; Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, more ...
Venue: Roberts Building, Sir David Davies Lecure Theatre (G08), Malet Place, London, WC1E 6BT, more ...
Abstract
One hundred years ago there was a massive revolution in Iran primarily for the establishment of law and lawful government. This may still come as a surprise to some who are nurtured and versed in the history of modern Europe. Modern European revolutions, or indeed fundamental reforms which succeeded in averting revolutions, did not aim at establishing law in society. On the contrary, they intended to replace the existing law by one which would extend the rights and freedoms of the less privileged. Apart from that, in the classical liberal age revolutions and reforms also aimed at limiting the law, that is, at drastically reducing the scale of state intervention in the private sphere. Indeed, the liberals of the 18th and 19th centuries virtually equated an increase in liberty with a decrease in legal restraints. Yet Iranian constitutionalists campaigned for law itself in order to attain freedom. My talk aims to discuss and explain this apparent dichotomy, with reference to the basic differences in the social and historical realities of Iran and Europe.
Biography
Homayoun Katouzian is an economist, historian, political scientist and literary critic, with a special interest in Iranian studies. His formal academic training was in economics and the social sciences but he concurrently continued his studies of Persian history and literature at a professional academic level. He began studying the life and works of the greatest modern Persian writer, Sadeq Hedayat, as well as that of Iran’s Prime Minister in the early 1950s, Mohammad Mosaddeq, while still a faculty member in the department of economics at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Having taught economics at universities in Britain and other countries for eighteen years, he took voluntary retirement in 1986 to devote his entire time to Iranian studies. In recent years, he has been teaching and writing on classical Persian literature, in particular the 13th century poet and writer, Sa‘di. Currently based at the University of Oxford, Katouzian is a member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies and the Iran Heritage Research Fellow at St. Antony's College, where he edits the quarterly journal Iranian Studies. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
More ...
Further Reading
Books in English
Homa Katouzain, The Persians, Ancient, Medieval and Modern Iran, (London and New York: Yale University Press, 2009).
---------------------, Sadeq Hedayat, His Work and His Wondrous World, ed.,( London and New York: Routledge, 2008).
---------------------, Iranian History and Politics, the Dialectic of State and Society, (London and New York: Routledge, paperback edition, 2007) (original edition, 2003).
---------------------, State and Society in Iran: The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Rise of the Pahlavis, (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, paperback edition, 2006) (original edition, 2000).
---------------------, Sadeq Hedayat: The Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer, paperback edition, London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2002; original edition, 1991.
Mohammad Tavakoli-Targhi, Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism and Historiography (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).
Books in Persian
Fereydoun Adamiyat, Fekr-e Azadi va Moqaddamat-e Nehzat-e Mashruteh (The Idea of Liberty and the Beginning of the Iranian Constitutional Movement), (Tehran, 1961)
--------------------------, Andishe-ye Taraqqi va Hokumat-e Qanun (The Idea of Modernity and The Rule of Law), (Tehran: Kharazmi, 1972)
---------------------------, Ideolojhi-ye Nehzat-e Mashrutiyat-e Iran (The Ideology of the Iranian Constitutional Movement), (Tehran: Peyam, 1976)
Nazemal-Islam Kermani, Tarikh-e Bidari-ye Iraniyan, (The History of the Awakening of Iranians) ed., Ali Akbar Sa'idi Sirjani, (Tehran, 1970)
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