Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran

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In the essays collected here, Abbas Milani uses an impressive array of cross-disciplinary Western and Iranian theories and texts to investigate the crucial question of modernity in Iran today. He offers a wealth of new insights into the thousand-year-old conflict in Iran between the search for modernity and the forces of religious obscurantism. The essays trace the roots of Shiite Islamic Fundamentalism and offer illuminating accounts of the work of Iranian intellectuals--both men and women--and their artistic movements as they struggle to find a new path toward a genuine modernity in Iran that is congruent with Iran's rich cultural heritage. Included are essays on "Kafi, a textual source of Shia fundamentalism, Sa'di's modernistic inclinations, Nasir al-Din Shah's travels to Europe, the neglected Iranian intellectual Shadman, Jafar Shahri and the city of Tehran, Sadeq Hedayat's tragic vision, Houshang Golshiri and and the Janus face of tradition, the polymathic Ebrahim Golestan, writer Shahrnush Parsipur's "Blue Logos: and Iranians in exile. These essays will reward the scholar and the general reader alike, and will go far toward explaining the enigma that is Iran today.