Picturing the homeland: geography and national identity in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Iran

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in geography as an ideologically loaded discourse about the world and its inhabitants which has operated both within and beyond educational institutions. Particular attention has been paid to the complex relationships between geography and imperialism, militarism and nationalism. For the most part, these studies have focused on the development of a western geographical imagination in Europe and North America. This article considers the development of geography in Iran during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and charts some of the connections between this new spatial sensibility and an emerging Iranian nationalism. Based on rare and hitherto unexplored nineteenth-century Persian sources, including several newspaper images, this article examines the importance which Iranian statesmen and diplomats in the service of the Qajar dynasty attached to geography and to geographical reasoning in their attempts to protect their authority from external threats. The forms of Iranian geography which developed in this period sustained various myths and legends about Persia's historic importance and reflected both external, western ideas and concepts as well as indigenous, Persian traditions. Forged in a context of acute vulnerability to «Great Power» incursions, Iranian nationalism and Iranian geography both represented an intermingling of external, western and internal, non-western ideas.     

The Haves and the Have Nots: A Historical Study of Disability in Modern Iran

This essay provides a historical analysis of Iranian experiences with disability. I will begin by reviewing the literary application of the term in various contexts. Next, I will examine the social milieux in which local observers, medical professionals, and policy makers talked about and treated disability. As state-run institutions emerged to address disability needs, health professionals often drew a distinction between physical disability and intellectual or psychological disability, raising ethical and legal questions about the status of the disabled in modern Iranian society. Finally, an attempt will be made to situate disability politics in contemporary Iran, where the disabled population has increased significantly as a consequence of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88). Although this paper concentrates on Iranian experiences with disability, comparisons can be drawn with other Islamic societies.     

Portable XRF analysis of zoomorphic figurines, “tokens,” and sling bullets from Chogha Gavaneh,Iran

This study examines small finds from the site of Chogha Gavaneh, Iran, including zoomorphic clay figurines, geometric-shaped objects (often referred to as “tokens”), and sling bullets in order to investigate the possible social and economic functions of these artifacts. While Chogha Gavaneh has been occupied from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) (ca. 9000 B.C.E) period to the present, we focus on 87 small finds from the Early Chalcolithic period (ca. 5000–4000 B.C.E.). We explore how portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF) provides a new line of data with which to test the conventional wisdom about the uses of these small finds. Our findings suggest that local production is unlikely to account for the diversity in the elemental composition of the small finds. We argue that this supports claims that Neolithic and Chalcolithic people exchanged “tokens”. The presence of non-local zoomorphic figurines also raises interesting questions regarding their possible role in past societies.     

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1989 Edition)

On 3 December 1979, almost one year after Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi left Iran, the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran replaced the monarchical constitution of 1906. The new constitution was to guarantee that the monarchy was abolished and the Islamic Republic system of government was enforced in its place. The constitution was to observe the Islamic and the nationalistic aims of the revolution with regard to the demands of a public that came from various social, religious, ethnic, and political backgrounds. Thus the 1979 constitution included differing components, which necessitated the amendments and the modifications that were added to the constitution in 1989. The constitution and its development are subjects that have been discussed in detail by scholars of modern Iran, among whom Asghar Schirazi stands out for his comprehensive study of the constitution. The following translation of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran highlights the relationship between the 1979 text of the constitution and the 1989 amendments in an attempt to contribute to the ongoing discussions on this subject.