From the Biblical period and Classical Antiquity to the rise of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, aspects of Persian culture have been integral to European history. A diverse constellation of European artists, poets, and thinkers have looked to Persia for inspiration, finding there a rich cultural counterpoint and frame of reference. Interest in all things Persian was no passing fancy but an enduring fascination that has shaped not just Western views but the self-image of Iranians up to the present day. Persophilia maps the changing geography of connections between Persia and the West over the centuries and shows that traffic in ideas about Persia and Persians did not travel on a one-way street.
How did Iranians respond when they saw themselves reflected in Western mirrors? Expanding on Jürgen Habermas’s theory of the public sphere, and overcoming the limits of Edward Said, Hamid Dabashi answers this critical question by tracing the formation of a civic discursive space in Iran, seeing it as a prime example of a modern nation-state emerging from an ancient civilization in the context of European colonialism. The modern Iranian public sphere, Dabashi argues, cannot be understood apart from this dynamic interaction.
Persophilia takes into its purview works as varied as Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Handel’s Xerxes and Puccini’s Turandot, and Gauguin and Matisse’s fascination with Persian art. The result is a provocative reading of world history that dismantles normative historiography and alters our understanding of postcolonial nations.
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[text] => "A leading cultural observer."
Washington Post
"Our most prominent intellectual."
Shirin Neshat
"Renowned Columbia University scholar on Iranian culture."
Boston Globe
"Spectacular, important, and incisive. Dabashi's work is crucial for our times."
Zillah Eisenstein Ithaca College, NY
"Hamid Dabashi lovingly writes about the history of Iran that teaches us how to understand a people overshadowed by the grand narratives of political (mis)representation."
Gayatri Spivak Columbia University
"You are with a humanist who deeply loves his country, and invites you to feel very much at home."
Susan Buck-Morss Cornell University
"Superb authority... Dabashi provides a tour de force on Iranian art, politics and culture."
Shirin Neshat
"Great erudition and imagination... bringing out rich aspects of Iranian culture that are little known or not recognized."
Vanessa Martin, Royal Holloway University of London
"Hamid Dabashi, is one of the most significant intellectual voices outside of Iran since the Islamic revolution."
Shirin Neshat
"A leading light in Iranian studies."
The Chronicle of Higher Education
"Cuts through the myths, past and present, that Americans have been told about Iran... presenting Iran's history through the lens of its literary cosmopolitanism."
Susan Buck-Morss Cornell University
"Magisterial."
Houchang Chehabi Boston University
"An important man in New York."
Sir Ridley Scott
"Much-needed in our troubled times."
Gayatri Spivak Columbia University
"Exemplary of a new Leftist discourse that is undogmatic and non-sectarian... open and intimate."
Susan Buck-Morss Cornell University
"Hamid Dabashi beautifully lays out the alluring dynamic between Iranian art and politics."
Shirin Neshat
"A rare cultural critic."
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
"Dabashi's passion and extraordinary vision, gives us the knowledge and commitment to stand against war and build the possibilities for peace and global justice."
Zillah Eisenstein Ithaca College, NY
"Hamid Dabashi's piercing revelations have been as instrumental in fashioning my own films as have Scorsese, Rossellini and Bresson."
Ramin Bahrani
"Superb and brilliant."
Bruce Lawrence Duke University
"Fresh, provocative and iconoclastic."
Ian Richard Netton University of Leeds, UK
"Learned... sparkles with verve and a sometimes punishing wit. Hamid Dabashi is the perfect guide."
Edward W. Said
"There are few better places to begin than with Dabashi's subtle and vividly presented wealth on Iran."
Said Amir Arjomand SUNY, New York
"Objective and empathetic... unlike many others on contemporary Iran."
Ervand Abrahamian Baruch College, New York
"Enthusiastic... clear and accurate... impressive."
Oliver Leaman Liverpool John Moores University, UK
"Original, creative and insightful."
John L. Esposito Georgetown University
"Extraordinary."
Daniel Brumberg Georgetown University
"Dabashi has an astonishing ability to range over some of the most complex issues of modern intellectual life."
Sudipta Kaviraj Columbia University
"If anyone can lay claim to Nima Yushij's statement that this world is his home, it is Hamid Dabashi. I want a very broad readership to know the quality of his writing and thinking, of his immense epistemic and historical scholarship."
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Columbia University
"Dabashi is learned, poetic, ranging from philosophy to film, every word written with a commitment to the possibility of a just world. I have worked with him in the past and will work with him again in the future."
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Columbia University
"Hamid Dabashi is one of the foremost exponent today of postcolonial critical theory, whose work deserves to be called post-colonial with all the multivalence of this description."
Sudipta Kaviraj Columbia University
"Hamid Dabashi's writings on Iranian culture and politics brilliantly re-imagine the rich heritage of a shared past and a conflicted present. His reflections on revolution and nationhood, poetry and cinema, philosophy and the sacred, are urgent, provocative, complex, and highly original."
Timothy Mitchell Columbia University
"Equally fluent in philosophical reasoning, literary interpretation, visual hermeneutics and writing with a rare combination of penetration and lyricism, Dabashi's work continues values of both modern critical theory and the highly sophisticated and subtle intellectual traditions of Iranian... reflection -- for both of which he is an wonderfully sympathetic reader."
Sudipta Kaviraj Columbia University
"Hamid Dabashi belongs to a marvelous tradition of poetic thinkers, whose deep insights are crafted in magnificent poetic prose."
Gilbert Achcar University of London
"Dabashi provides his readers with the wine of literary pleasure along with rich food for thought."
Gilbert Achcar University of London
"In Dabashi's work, post-coloniality does not mean a denial or denunciation of the modern European tradition of philosophy and social theory, but their effortless absorption into a larger, more complex reflection."
Sudipta Kaviraj Columbia University
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