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Showing 24 results for Modernism

Mohammad Jafar Yousefian Kenari, Mostafa Mokhtabad-Amrei,
Volume 17, Issue 2 (6-2010)
Abstract

Kiarostami’s unfinished cinema emphasizes the importance of audiences’ involvement in a movie by using postmodern images. Some essential points of critically reading his, so-called half-created cinema, could be summarized as self-reflexive style, diagrammatical perspectives, in-between narratives,and Individual minimalism. The main postmodern achievement of this cinema is focusing on the process of creating meaning through the experience of film. Furthermore, the close-ups function as separate independent units that are constantly generating their implicit affections. In this respect, Kiarostami’s unusual works are interpretable by Deleuze’ some neologism like affection-image. The films are some affective micro-dramas formed in a gap between the audiences’ receptions and the close-ups. Despite their postmodern reflections, unfinished movies have no strict disciplines that may limit the process of creating meaning. This paper attempts to present a new approach of reading Kiarostami as an increasing global interest.

Volume 17, Issue 66 (8-2024)
Abstract

Malakout is a postmodern novel, and what is important in the analysis of a postmodern novel is related mostly to the description of certain literary techniques, which are used to emphasize the futility of the old meanings. These works have characteristics that without paying attention to them, one cannot expect a logical evaluation of the work. Some of these postmodern features and techniques which are very important in this novel and will be discussed here are as follows: meta-fiction, intertextuality, fragmentation, black humor, pastiche, temporal distortion, minimalism, and finally grotesque.
Extended Abstract
Bahram Sadeghi first published his short novel Malkout in a journal in 1340/ 1961 (Sadeghi, 1961). He made some additions and corrections in it shortly after that publication, but he himself did not take any action to republish the work. About 10 years later, Abolhasan Najafi, Sadeghi’s friend and master, edited this novel and some other short stories by Sadeghi and published them all in the form of a collection of Bahram Sadeghi's works. Since then, this novel and other short stories have been published several times by various publishers.
The first chapter of the novel Malkout by Bahram Sadeghi has an epigraph that is in fact a verse from the Qur'an:فَبَشِّر هُم بِعذاب الیم  [Give them good news of a painful torment] (Q 84: 24). “فَبَشِّر” in Arabic means “give good news”, but in this verse, the word "good news" is used to express painful and tormenting news! Here we are dealing with a so called sarcastic metaphor, and the novel Malkout by Bahram Saldaghi (1340/ 1962) can be considered altogether as an extended form of this sarcastic metaphor (see also Aslani, 2019; 2021).
The fact is that Malakout is a postmodern novel, and neglecting this fact has caused many critics of the novel to pay more attention to its epistemological details rather than to its ontological nature. What is important in the analysis of a postmodern novel, rather than revealing its meanings, is related to the description of certain literary techniques, which are used to emphasize the futility of the old meanings. Malakout, like detective novels, has many secrets and there are many clues with the help of which one can unravel some of its mysteries and riddles (Shiri, 2005; S’edi, 1992). If the mysteries and riddles in detective novels are finally solved completely, the solution of many mysteries of Malakout, like many other postmodern novels, are due to the readers themselves. Each reader must solve the mysteries and riddles in his or her own way and gives his or her own meaning to the novel (Ebrahimi Fakhari, 2019).
Apart from the importance of the reader's role in the interpretation of the novel, these works have other characteristics that without paying attention to them, one cannot expect a logical evaluation of the work. Some of these postmodern features and techniques which are very important in this novel and will be discussed here are as follows: meta-fiction (Waugh, 1984), intertextuality, fragmentation, black humor, pastiche, temporal distortion, minimalism, and finally grotesque (Lehmann 2005; Barry, 2002; Imhof 1986; Imhof 1986).
Malkout can be seen as a satirical imitation of texts such as the Old Testament and the New Testament, and Ykolia and her Loneliness (Modarresi, 1334/ 1955). One of the most important features of postmodern novels is satire and ridicule of moral beliefs and social and cultural institutions ruling the society (Safi Pirludje, 2015; Hutcheon, 1988; Genette, 1980); Sadeghi by using techniques such as meta-fiction, black humor, pastiche and grotesque, mocked the images of mythological characters such as Jehovah, Satan, Ab (Father or Christian God) and Christ. He mocked the authority of the strongest cultural institutions of his time, which ironically and day by day were to take a greater importance and power so that they finally took the upper hand in Iran.
This novel is the first successful post-modern novel in the Persian language, and apart from its aesthetic values and literary importance, it shows the great power of the Persian language in expressing new mentalities and creating new spaces that have not had the slightest history in this language. The modern Persian novel started with the Blind Owl of Sadegh Hedayat, and Persian novel with Malkout Bahram Sadeghi stepped into another completely new stage called postmodern (see also Ghasri 2022; Nadjafi 2020; Honarmand 2011).
References
Aslani, M. R., 2019, Bzmnde-h-ye Qaribi Āshen…, Tehran, Niloufar Publisher.
Aslani, M. R., 2021, “Jvednegi”, Bahram Sadeghi; Trikh-e shafhi-ye Dastn-Nevisn-e Iran, edited by Hamed Ghasri, Tehran, Kettab-e Sarzamin.
Ebrahimi Fakhari, M. M., and Sharifnasab, M., 2019, “Barresi-ye Sdze-ye Modern dar Bouf-e Kour-e Sadegh-e Hedayat”, Naqd Va Nazari-je-je Adabi, vol. 4, Winter, No.2.
Genette, G., 1980, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, translated by J. E. Lewin Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press.
Ghasri, H., 2022, Bahrm Sdeghi; Trikh-e Shafhi-e Dstn-Nevisi Iran, Tehran, Ketb-e Sarzamin.
Honarmand, Saeed, 2011, “MALAKUT”, in: Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2011, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/malakut (accessed on 16 October 2017).
Hutcheon, Linda, 1988, A Poetics of Postmodernism, London, Routledge. pp. 202-203.
Imhof, Rüdiger, 1986, Contemporary Metafiction – A Poetological Study of Metafiction in English since 1939, Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag.
Lehmann, H. T., 2005, Post-dramatic Theatre, Rutledge.
Lewis, Barry, 2002, “Postmodernism and Literature”, in: The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism, edited by Stuart Sim, Routledge, pp. 121-134.
Modarresi, T., 1971, Yakoliy va Tanh’i-ye ’u, Tehran, Nil Publisher.
Nadjafi, A. H., 2020, Goft-o-go b Abol-Hasan Nadjafi, ed. By Omid Tabibzadeh, Tehran, Niloufar Publisher.
Sadeghi, B., 1961, “Malakout”, Ketb-e Hafte, No. 12, 7-100.
Sadeghi, B., 2000, Malakout, Tehran, Ketb-e Zamn.
Safi Pirludje, H., 2015, Ravyat Padzuhi dar Zamn; Sanjesh-e Ravesh-h-je Ghesse-Gu’I va Dstn-nevisi dar Frsi, Tehran, Padzuheshgh-e Olum-e Ensni va Motle’t-e Farhangi.
Shiri, Gh., 2005, “Pasmodernism va Maktab-e Dstn-nevisi-ye Esfahn”, Majale-ye Daneshkade-ye Adabijt-e Dneshgh-e Esfehn, Vol. 2, 43, Winter, 167-198.
S’edi, Gh., 1992, “Honar-e Dstn-Nevisi-ye Bahram Sadeghi”, Kelk, No. 32 and 33.
Waugh, Patricia, 1984, Metafiction – The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction, London, New York: Routledge.
Fazel Asadi Amjad,
Volume 18, Issue 1 (2-2011)
Abstract

Time and perception are two major concerns of Woolf in many of her novels and short stories. Woolf as a modernist writer often tries in her fiction to find an epistemological solution to the problems of mortality and immortality, appearance and reality and diversity and unity and she succeeds, I think, by taking on a kind of perception that is intuitive and temporal. For her, true perception is time-bound, but like Bergson she divides time into mechanical and organic one. In her writing, she often associates symbolically the former with death and aridity and the latter with life and fertility, presenting them in the images, to name but a few of keyboard of a piano or alphabetical letters and tree or green shawl and dress, respectively. Evidently, in her views and the solution, she finds to the problems of time and perception Woolf is influenced by Bergson whose theory of time has also influenced so many other modernists. This paper elaborates on the relationship between time and perception in the works of Woolf, especially in her two major novels To the Lighthouse (1927) and Mrs Dalloway (1924) and her short story “An Unwritten Novel” (1921).
Saeid Madani Ghahfarokhi, Mohammad Ali Mohammadi Ghareghani,
Volume 26, Issue 1 (8-2019)
Abstract

During the struggle against the Qajar tyranny, struggling leaders went to the Shah Abdul Azim Shrine to hold a sit-in against the Shah Mosque Case and foot whipping of Tehran sugar merchants. The demonstrators in Paragraph 4 of their demands, as mentioned by Nazem al-Islam Kermani, the initial demands of refugees, called for the establishment of a justice system. According to this report, and many other evidences, justice, always has been a lasting and permanent matter for the Iranian society. Recent surveys show that justice should still be considered as one of the main demands of the Iranian society. The debate about justice and social movements is constantly changing, and thinkers in this area are constantly revising their ideas. The aim of this study is to elaborate these changes and to discuss the place of justice in new social movements that refers to a range of collective actions with purpose of changing in one or all of the institutions. The emergence of new social movements brought about new ways of expressing demands and protests, and a wide range of collective behavior forms, which, in terms of goals, nature and method of struggle, had a fundamental difference with earlier movements. In fact, with the advent of modernity, the calculations of traditional society were collapsed and, with the advent of postmodernity, new demands were created largely due to development of higher education and autonomy of individuals. Accordingly, new social movements emerged in a broader context of discourses, subcultures, ideological straggle, and identity diversity, and were spread in the form of new discourses.  

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