Framed Memories: The Politics of Recollection in Mana Neyestani’s An Iranian Metamorphosis

This essay examines the graphic memoir An Iranian Metamorphosis, by the acclaimed cartoonist Mana Neyestani, in the context of Iranian diaspora literature, particularly the genre of comics. Neyestani’s book is analyzed for its engagement with the politics of exile literature, and its attempt at challenging a two-dimensional view of the political discourse, in which the ethical boundaries of pro- and anti-government are overtly simple. The essay focuses on the book’s narrative techniques that exhibit a complex awareness of what is anticipated from a representative work of Iranian exile memoir, and the way it negotiates its own narrative politics. To clarify the arguments, several comparative examples are drawn from two well-known graphic narratives by Iranian diaspora authors, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, and Amir and Khalil’s Zahra’s Paradise.     

Weapons,words, politics: the three seasons of the post-unification exile of the Bourbon Monarchy (1860–1866)

ABSTRACT

This article reconstructs the ‘three seasons’ of the exile of the Bourbon rulers of southern Italy after 1860. Unlike the previous periods of exile suffered by the dynasty (in 1799 and between 1806 and 1815), the Bourbon exile after Unification took the form of a ‘hierarchical’ emigration government, ruler and diplomatic corps, and numerous foreign volunteers ready to fight for the monarchy. Between 1860 and 1866 this ‘control centre’ organized armed expeditions against the Kingdom of Italy, while deploying a variety of political strategies that through propaganda offered the promise of modernization in the shape of the concession of a constitution for the Mezzogiorno and the ‘nationalization’ of southern Italy. This propaganda campaign was combined with diplomatic pressures on the European powers. Sicily played a crucial role in these projects and became the principal Mediterranean platform for the attempts to restore the Bourbon monarchy. But although the war of 1866 between Italy and Austria brought these strategies to an end, many of the arguments set out by the Bourbons in exile would later be absorbed into the debates on the ‘Southern Question’.     

The Frankish tradition and new perceptions of the monarchy: Louis XV—the new pharamond?

During the last century of the ancien régime in France, perceived notions of history, the rediscovery of the past, and the recourse to tradition were closely linked to each other as well as to political considerations or implications. Notions about the past and interpretations of tradition had relevance and meaning for the political élites, enabling them to explain the origins of the monarchy as well as its nature. The purpose here is to explore these links and to show how, in one particular instance, they came to affect the artistic representation of the monarch himself.     

Flirting with Neutrality: The Shah,Khrushchev, and the Failed 1959 Soviet–Iranian Negotiations

Despite the Eisenhower administration's strong support for the Pahlavi monarchy, tensions simmered under the surface of Mohammad Reza Shah's relationship with the United States throughout the 1950s. Following the Qarani coup attempt and the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958, the shah sought to diminish the Soviet threat to his regime and reduce his dependence on the United States by exploring Moscow's offer of a non-aggression treaty. Drawing on American, British, and Iranian sources, this article provides the first detailed history of these secret Soviet–Iranian negotiations that ended in disastrous failure for the shah in February 1959.     

George VI in cartoons: the king vanishes

ABSTRACT

This article examines the depiction of George VI in cartoons. These important hybrid journalistic/artistic forms reflect a subtle shift in understandings of the monarchy, from emphasising the individual personality of the incumbent (e.g. Edward VIII), towards a focus on the crown as an impersonal institution, symbolic of Britishness. Prince Albert’s low profile prior to his accession continued as a vehicle for the new manner of imagining the monarch in cartooning. Symbols of office, national and imperial allegories of monarchy, became more common in cartoons than depictions of George’s own features. Comparison to non-British cartoons underscores the findings of the research.     

Restoring Spanish Hispaniola,the First of the Indies: Local Advocacy and Transatlantic Arbitrismo in the Late Seventeenth Century

This article examines a group of restorationist proposals for Spanish Hispaniola from the late seventeenth century in the context of peninsular arbitrismo in order to understand the participatory nature of reform throughout Spain's empire. While their aims were more limited than those of arbistristas across the Atlantic, colonial advocates' idealized visions of the island and claims about the major threats it faced represented a shared local imaginary, and their proposals found a receptive audience in metropolitan authorities, who agreed that Hispaniola had strategic value but were constrained by limited resources. Taken together, the recommendations of overseas advocates and the responses of royal councilors illustrate a transatlantic conception of the Spanish monarchy and an active desire for restoration during the reign of Charles II, despite the supposed decadence of Spain under the last Habsburg monarch.     

Iranian Zoroastrians in Canada: Balancing Religious and Cultural Identities

Canada, now the number-one destination for Iranian migrants, is home to one of the world's most dynamic Zoroastrian communities, in which Iranians are increasingly represented and are playing ever more visible roles in maintaining and transforming the tradition. While exile has in some ways reunited Iranian and Parsi (South Asian) Zoroastrians after more than 1,000 years of separation, cultural and in some cases religious differences mean that they continue largely to live in separate spheres even while sharing their places of worship. Iranian Zoroastrians in Canada participate in some social settings as Iranians, in others as Zoroastrians, and in still others as Canadians, but to a large extent they remain a community unto themselves separate from these other three. Even so, their generally progressive interpretations of Zoroastrianism are having an influence on Parsi communities worldwide as well as on Zoroastrians in Iran, and being often recognized as “original Iranians” they are playing important roles in promoting awareness of Iranian culture within the broader community.     

The African Queen? Republicanism and Defensive Decolonization in British Tropical Africa, 1958-64

This article focuses on a neglected aspect of the transfer ofpower in British tropical Africa from 1958 to 1964. It suggeststhat, from around 1962, the British government actively encouragedAfrican states to move straight to republican status on independence,rather than retaining the Queen as their head of state. Ministersand officials feared that the subsequent adoption of republicanconstitutions by states that had initially retained the monarchymight prove an embarrassment to the Queen. This determinationto shield the monarch from embarrassment appears to have beenthe overriding factor in British calculations. In this respectthe monarchy was, perhaps, an excessively fragile instrumentfor the promotion of Britain's relations with its former colonies.     

Memoir as Iranian exile cultural production: A case study of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis series

In this essay, Iranian exile cultural production is examined via a cultural studies approach, applying Hamid Naficy's work on the concept of liminality and its productive potential to analyze the Iranian women's memoir phenomenon of the past eleven years. Focus is placed primarily upon Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel Persepolis, which is analyzed as part of this larger memoir phenomenon. I will argue that Persepolis is a prime example of exile cultural production—as a site for experimentation within various genres (here, that of the memoir and graphic novel), and also for identity negotiation, self-reflection, and cultural translation—thanks to the liminality and hybridity of an artist and author who feels she is “in-between.”     

The Democratic Islamic Republic of Iran in Exile

This paper examines the political, organizational, and ideological shifts necessitated by the chief Iranian oppositional group, the progressive Islamist Mojahedin-e Khalq (People's Mojahedin) organization, beginning with its exile from the Islamic Republic starting in June of 1981 through the present day. An analysis of these shifts is presented as a chronological series of evolving relationships including the Mojahedin's collaboration with a broad-base of oppositional groups and individuals during its Paris exile and founding of the National Council of Resistance (NCR); the Mojahedin's relocation to Baghdad and subsequent foundation of the National Liberation Army (NLA); and the Mojahedin's courtship of Western governments and international organizations to promote its cause. Following the depiction of the transformations undertaken by the Mojahedin throughout these three phases is an analysis of both the status of the organization as a result of these changes and an assessment of the price of exile.     

论戊戌维新派反专制、兴民权的政治思想

戊戌维新时期,维新派对封建专制主义进行了猛烈的抨击,并对封建专制主义的理论基础——“君权神授”和“君权至上”进行了批判,在此基础上提出了倡民权、建立君主立宪政体的主张。     

Mixed Constitutionalism and Parliamentarism in Elizabethan England: The Case of Thomas Cartwright

The Admonition Controversy (1572–1577), largely between Thomas Cartwright (1534/5–1603) and John Whitgift (1530–1604) has proven fecund ground for intellectual historians analysing the religious dimension to early-modern political ideas. This paper argues that the religious dimension of Cartwright's mixed constitutionalism needs better explanation, rather than just noting that his ecclesiastical mixed constitutionalism (Presbyterianism) mirrors his political mixed constitutionalism. This paper tracks Cartwright's progressive, dialogical unfolding of his mixed constitutionalism in response to Whitgift's attempt to derive episcopacy from the fact of English monarchy, effectively discrediting the Admonition to Parliament (1572). Furthermore, the essay outlines how the Cartwright–Whitgift debate led Cartwright to emphasise a parliamentarist mixed constitution when most of his contemporaries, especially the more famous mixed constitutionalist, Thomas Smith, portrayed the English parliament leaning noticeably towards the monarch. This analysis accepts that religious polemic was a major driving force in the normalisation of parliamentarism, yet seeks to show exactly how this worked out in one of the most important church–state disputes in Elizabethan England.     

DAVID AS A BIBLICAL ‘GOOD-FELLA’ AND ‘THE GODFATHER’

Abstract

Scholars search for analogies with which to better understand biblical texts. David has been compared to the “outlaw”, “refugee”, “vassal”, “renegade”, “guerrilla”, “bandit chief”, “fugitive” and “fugitive hero”. This article suggest that there are better cultural-social analogies, i.e., David as a “goodfellan”while in exile from Saul and in the land of the Philistines, and upon accession to the throne, “The Godfather”.

This article also has, as a part of its purpose, the intent to unmask some of the behavior of David and of monarchy for what they are: essentially organized crime maintained in large part by the use of indiscriminate violence-supported by nonsensical myths and obvious hypocrisy.

Cross-cultural comparisons are made throughout between the David stories, gangster movies and systems of monarchy—especially the ad hoc feudal type. Historical questions aside: The David stories can be “cross-culturally” compared with gangster films as “art”.     

Royal inauguration and liturgical culture in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099–1187

ABSTRACT

While modern scholars have often assumed that the models of liturgical kingship which prevailed in Latin Christendom during the Early Middle Ages became less prominent in the Central Middle Ages, more recent work has suggested that royal dynasties including those of France and England maintained practices of liturgical kingship between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. This article contributes to this recent wave of historiography by examining the image of monarchy which was adopted in the kingdom of Jerusalem between 1099 and 1187. It takes as its focus the inauguration ceremonies and associated royal rituals performed by the monarch during this period, considering aspects of each ceremony, including the various constituent rituals, the place or places in which the rituals were held, the prelates who presided, the identity of other individuals who were recorded as having taken part, and the dates upon which the ceremonies were held. It is suggested that the royal dynasty of Jerusalem was attuned to the liturgical potential of inauguration ceremonies, and that it adopted rituals which were aimed at fostering consensus among the political community of the kingdom. The monarchy created an image of liturgical kingship which combined Western practices with elements that were unique to Jerusalem.     

De-censoring an Iranian-American “Memoir”: Authorship and Synchronicity in Shahriar Mandanipour's Censoring an Iranian Love Story

In the literature of the Iranian-American diaspora, the memoir genre has become a predominant lens through which Western audiences “read” contemporary Iran. While many bestselling life narratives have relied on hostage crisis-era tropes of gendered repression and subsequent liberation in exile, new amalgams of style and theme, distortions of perspective, and complicated renderings of the “subject” are now beginning to cross borders. One of these is Shahriar Mandanipour's 2009 novel, Censoring an Iranian Love Story, which this paper examines as an auto-fictional commentary on the memoir genre that both arises from and responds directly to censorship using a self-referential and layered text. Through three central dialectics—ambiguous violence, encoded desire and resistance to diachronic historicization alongside the nation—this paper demonstrates how Mandanipour's auto-fictional and often magical realist attempts elude what Gillian Whitlock terms the transnational “economy of affect” that publicizes, protects and ultimately drives the reception of memoir across borders.     

Lost Palaces,Lost History: The Wang of Bangkok’s Rattanakosin

Siam’s practices of polygamy variously bemused and shocked European visitors to the kingdom in the nineteenth century; however, especially in the case of the early Chakri monarchy, there was always also a strong political rationale to such customs. Multiple liaisons would yield multiple sons who could subsequently serve as defenders of both realm and dynasty; later, as the nation evolved, they could form a pool of ministers and administrators. Multiple daughters, in turn, were always useful in shoring up support from a restive nobility. Sons in particular, however, presented a real estate challenge as they had to be housed in appropriate style and this called for a profusion of both small and large palaces, wang, throughout the old historic city of Rattanakosin. From the locations of wang and their degrees of splendour one might have been able to read the evolving politics and political economy of early Bangkok, also the always evolving role of the monarchy, except that most have been swept away for more mundane urban development. Yet enough evidence remains for the story still to be pieced together, thereby throwing some light on currently fraught debates over the political context and role of the monarchy.     

‘Moving a little with the tide’: Malay monarchy and the development of modern malay nationalism

From the early twentieth century, the ideological hegemony of Malay monarchy has been challenged by emerging Malay nationalism. Despite the more radical manifestations, however, nationalism has rarely sought to overturn monarchy. Indeed, monarchy and nationalism have co-existed, sometimes uneasily, until the present. This co-existence has been facilitated by a number of factors, not least the linkages between the two: during the colonial period and beyond many prominent nationalists came from aristocratic, even royal backgrounds, while the Malay Rulers themselves were prepared to give their patronage to conservative forms of nationalism. Mutual interest in maintaining political and religious conservatism, nevertheless, has not prevented periodic disputes between princes and politicians as the two have competed for the loyalty of the Malay community. Despite such controversies, the continuing hold exercised by monarchy over Malays has placed a limit on the extent to which the Rulers have been supplanted by alternative representations of loyalty and identity. The ability of Malay monarchy to ‘move a little with the tide’, moreover, has assisted its weathering of the nationalist challenge during Malaya's transition from colonialism to independence.     

Iranian Journalism and the Law in the Twentieth Century

Although the first Persian language newspaper was published in Iran 170 years ago, Iranian journalism is a twentieth century creation, indeed a product of the 1906 Constitutional Revolution. The press played a significant part in the revolution, especially by promoting the demand for the rule of laws enacted by parliament, rather than decrees issued by the king or the religious leaders. Once a constitution had been declared, many journalists felt relieved of all restrictions and engaged in bitter, personal attacks on their opponents, including the monarch and his family. Many papers also opposed a press law that was passed soon after the revolution, arguing that it was meant to suppress their newly-gained freedom. Five more press laws have been passed in Iran since then, but the debate over press freedom and the rule of law in the country does not appear to be anywhere near resolution.     

Thailand’s Traditional Trinity and the Rule of Law: Can They Coexist?

Abstract

Thailand has seen considerable progress in the rule of law since the seminal 1997 constitution. Yet persistent political instability suggests that as yet the country does not think of the rule of law as binding. What is likely to happen in Thailand with the rule of law, and with governance generally? The argument advanced here is that rule of law principles must contend with the realisation that the traditional Thai trinity – nation, religion and king – has become an inviolable state ideology. Political actors, often aligned with the monarchy, have been using each element of the trinity to undermine both rule of law principles and democratic institutions. Now that long-serving monarch King Bhumibol (Rama IX) has been succeeded by his son King Varijalongkorn, it seems an appropriate time to examine current battles about the meaning of the rule of law and broader struggles for control between elites and popular groups based on competing visions for the state – a problem not only in Thailand but in the region as a whole.     

Cuban Miami on the Air: Narratives of Cubanía

Radio has been a fundamental aspect of Cuban culture on and off the island since the first broadcast in Havana in 1922. When Cubans fled the island after the revolution of 1959 for the USA, particularly Miami, radio quickly became a vital medium for navigating a new country and for consolidating a Cuban exile identity. Politically, radio in Miami has been an effective means for articulating hardline exile politics. But with generational turnover and increasingly moderate stances on Cuba by more recent arrivals and US-born Cuban Americans, how is radio changing? How are narratives of what constitutes cubanía – Cubanness – shifting in an increasingly diverse Cuban Miami? This article takes up these questions through an examination of an immensely popular morning program that aired in 2009 in southern Florida called the Enrique y Joe Show. I examine how the Enrique y Joe Show, produced and performed by US-born Cuban Americans, utilized a form of irreverent Cuban humor called choteo to represent and satirize the hardline Cuban exile politics that have been dominant on Miami's radio waves for decades. Ultimately, their performances deploy choteo to articulate Cuban American identity divorced from a particular political orthodoxy. The coda reflects on changes in Miami's radio landscape since 2009.