Identities in Crisis in Iran

Politics, Culture, and Religion

Contributions by Ronen A. Cohen Ariel University, Moshe-hay S. Hagigat, Farhad Rezaei, Harold Rhode, Ofira Seliktar, Ladan Zarabadi, Raz Zimmt Edited by Ronen A. Cohen Ariel University

Publication date:

18 March 2015

Length of book:

198 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

240x163mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781498506410

Identities in Crisis in Iran aims at finding answers to the questions about the puzzling character of the Iranian identity. The contributors acknowledge that identity, especially when it is faced with fundamental tensions as in the case of Iran, is a phenomenon that is constantly developing via factors involving the private self and common social components. This book addresses the tension many Iranian people face that lie between the Persian culture and the Shi’a religion, women versus men, and culture versus traditions.

Acknowledgments
Introduction, Ronen A. Cohen
Section One: Historical and Current Perspectives on Persian, Islamic, and Contested Religious Identities
Chapter One: The Unending Battle between the Persian and Islamic Identities of Iran, Harold Rhode
Chapter Two: National Identity or Political Legitimacy: The Reconstruction of the City of Bam, Ladan Zarabadi
Section Two: An Islamic-National Identity and Nuclear Program
Chapter Three: The Islamic Identity Project: Between Coercion and Voluntarism, Ofira Seliktar
Chapter Four: Iran’s National Identity and the Nuclear Program: A Rational Choice Theory Analysis, Farhad Rezaei
Chapter Five: Overcoming “the –isms”: Iranian’s Role in the Modern World, from the Perspective of Mahmūd Ahmadi-nezhād, Moshe-hay S. Hagigat
Section Three: Sexuality, Beauty, and Social Networking—Between the Private, Self, and the Public Sphere
Chapter Six: The Identity Designers of the Self in Sexuality, Beauty, and Plastic Surgery in Iran, Ronen A. Cohen
Chapter Seven: Iranians against the “Other”: Iranian Identity in the Social Media Era, Raz Zimmt
Conclusions
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index

This collection of articles aims at the complicated character of the Iranian identity and provides interesting case studies for it. Lucid in both arguments and expositions this volume will be essential reading for anyone engaged in the study of Iran.