Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
Hamid Dabashi tells an elegant and startling story about the significance of Persian culture in Western society, and how Western ideas about Persian culture shaped modern Iran's notions of its antiquity and literary history. Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, University of Pennsylvania
Review
Hamid Dabashi's scholarly investigation into Persophilia--the attraction that Iran's literary humanism held for giants of European culture including Mozart, Goethe, and Nietzsche--turns simplistic views of 'Orientalism' upside down. His penetrating account of a global conversation lasting centuries forces us to rethink tired old clichés about European cultural hegemony. Malise Ruthven, author of < i=""> Islam in the World <>
Synopsis
From antiquity to the Enlightenment, Persian culture has been integral to European history. Interest in all things Persian shaped not just Western views but the self-image of Iranians to the present day. Hamid Dabashi maps the changing geography of these connections, showing that traffic in ideas about Persia did not travel on a one-way street.
About the Author
Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.
Columbia University