Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature, Arts and Humanities now accepts articles in English
Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature, Arts and Humanitiesis an open-access, double-blind, peer-reviewed publication published by the University of Birjand. This journal is a semiannual publication that publishes original and relevant scientific articles in connections and interactions between literature and other fields of study in the humanities, sciences, and fine arts (Seejournal scope). This journal follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and complies with the highest ethical standards by ethical laws. All submitted manuscripts are checked for similarity through Samim Noor/Hamyab software to ensure their authenticity and then rigorously peer-reviewed by expert reviewers.
Journal Features
Journal Title: Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature, Arts and Humanities (ISLAH)
Abstract Comparative literature, which developed in late nineteenth-century France, emerged to cross the geographic, linguistic, and political boundaries of European national literatures. The discipline's rise coincided with the growth of national identities across Western Europe. During this period, widespread nationalist ideologies fueled a fierce competition for cultural supremacy among European nations, including France. There, the emerging field of comparative literature developed as an extension of traditional literary history, greatly dominated by the era's positivistic philosophy. Influence studies were the dominant rhetoric of the French school of comparative literature, emphasizing multilingualism and historical documents. The research methodology was rigorously demanding. In essence, the French school was interested in what European literature had learned from others and had, thus, enriched their respective cultural heritage. However, this benign goal deviated from its original path and became Eurocentric. In the second half of the 20th century, opposition arose on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. René Wellek criticized the French school for its historical approach and offered a new theory that emphasized literariness. To him, literature was a totality which included all national literatures, embracing the whole of humanity.
Abstract This interdisciplinary study examines the role of literary translation in responding to socio-political reforms in Iran during the Second Pahlavi era, particularly after the White Revolution. Three English novels, translated into Persian within five years following the White Revolution, were analyzed to explore references to women’s rights, employing Marshall’s model of citizenship rights. The examination of Persian translations revealed that all instances of women’s civil, social, and political rights were preserved, with a majority remaining unaltered and a minority altered for further endorsement. Translators intervened to oppose women’s rights in only 3% of cases. While policies aimed at enhancing Iranian women’s quality of life, particularly concerning health and family rights, garnered support in these translations, those geared towards aligning women’s social roles and lives with Western modernization standards, rather than societal cultural norms, encountered resistance and changed. These findings underscore the impact of the White Revolution on societal attitudes in Iran and highlight the role of literary translation as a potential platform for reacting to socio-political developments, shedding light on the complexities of modernization in Iran during this period.
Abstract The relationship between the text and the reader has been greatly influenced by the emergence of new forms of narration. These new forms are created by adding interaction to the text. By adding interaction to a narrative, these new forms create more opportunities for readers to control and shape the narration, resulting in a heightened level of immersion. Moreover, this type of narration opens up new possibilities for developing narratives that can serve various purposes beyond entertainment. This study aims to compare interactive forms of narration, such as FMV (Full Motion Video), ARG (Alternate Reality Games), escape rooms, interactive books, and plays, while examining the relationship between immersion and interactivity in these formats. While the reader will be a crucial point of focus, we will employ a qualitative method alongside quantitative measures to illustrate how variations in interactivity within a narrative can alter the readers’ immersive experiences across different modes of interactive narration.
Abstract This article explores the complicated interaction of artistic expression with cultural identity through two novels by Orhan Pamuk: My Name is Red and The White Castle. The analysis will lean upon an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that brings together Stuart Hall’s view on cultural identity as a fluid entity, Homi Bhabha’s theory of cultural hybridity, and Arjun Appadurai’s work on global cultural flows. This research demonstrates how Pamuk’s narratives contest given binary oppositions between East and West, and also tradition and modernity, through close textual investigation, reflecting upon questions regarding cultural change within the Ottoman framework. The study shall show how Pamuk’s characters negotiate the multiplicities of cultural influence through artistic utterance and personal metamorphosis with a view to creating new identities beyond borders. While tension in My Name is Red between Ottoman miniature traditions and Western portraiture is in itself a vehicle toward cultural adaptation, The White Castle presents an identity exchange between an Italian scholar and his Ottoman captor, which shows, through time and interaction, the permeable nature of such a boundary. This study focuses on how globalization equally amplifies traditional binaries and creates opportunities for their transcendence, enriching our understanding of Turkish literary modernism. It holds the view that cultural identity can be jointly created not simply by negating or fully accepting foreign influxes but by being in creative interaction with both the traditional and the new, and thus provides an important insight into the understanding of cultural change in societies experiencing rapid globalization and modernization.
Abstract The present interdisciplinary qualitative study aims to analyze James Joyce’s “Araby” based on Hegelian dialectic. This seminal story from Dubliners has received immense critical reception over the years and has been studied through various critical frameworks. However, its potential for analysis based on Hegelian dialectic has been largely overlooked. Considering the last episode of the story as a moment of epiphany and self-realization, the study seeks to discuss how the protagonist’s development of consciousness can be interpreted based on the three stages of Hegelian dialectic: Understanding (Idealization of Mangan's sister and the bazaar), Dialectical (faced with contradiction at the bazaar), and Speculative (the final epiphany). The analysis demonstrates how the narrator’s initially fixed determinations and alienated consciousness in the understanding stage face their contradiction at the dialectical moment, resulting in the final epiphany, which mirrors the last stage of the dialectic where contradictions are resolved and self-realization is achieved. Further, based on the principles of Hegelian dialectic rooted in philosophical idealism, the study not only asserts that the narrator’s consciousness evolves through a process driven by contradiction, but it also interprets the narrator’s journey from naïve idealization to self-realization as a universal process of maturation. To avoid a mechanical and rigid application of the dialectical method, the analysis relies on close textual reading to identify the elements that contribute to each moment of the dialectic and deeply contextualizes the argument to deviate from oversimplification of the text.
Abstract Children and adolescent literature in Iran is still a developing field. Studies in the field of children's literature are interdisciplinary and include fields of psychology, social sciences, Persian literature, and educational sciences. Limited studies exist on the challenges of children's literature in Iran. The aim of this study is to extract the components of "content challenges in children and adolescents’ fiction" considering the current situation.The current study was conducted using qualitative content analysis. The study is an applied research and adopts an inductive approach and employed the interview method for data collection. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 people who were subject experts, authors, and key informants. After documenting the interviews, semantic units were extracted as codes, then were grouped and categorized. Initially, 186 codes were collected. After removing duplicates, the total number of codes decreased to 117. Finally, by merging and combining the codes, the final number reached 48. These 48 codes were classified into five main components and 24 sub-components The content analysis of the interview texts showed the challenges of children's fiction in five main components, these components are 1- translated stories; 2- content production; 3- Author or Authorship; 4- The role of governance; 5- social and cultural conditions of society. Analysis and review of the opinions of experts in the field of children and adolescents’ literature showed that, despite the fact that the number of copies of books published in the field of children and adolescents in the country is increasing, and there are numerous challenges in the field of children and adolescents’ fiction. The challenges in various areas such as the content of works, the role of governance, writing, and translated works require attention, planning, and policy-making of the major authorities. Given the intergenerational role adolescents play in both receiving and transmitting social and cultural concepts, any indifference in this process can lead to numerous future cultural and social challenges. Therefore, knowing that the youth fiction in Iran is evolving, there is a need to pay more attention to the challenges found out in the research.
Ali Zare Zadeh, Hossein Sabouri, Leyla Rezapour Kalajahi
Abstract This article examines how identity, nostalgia, and belonging impact Nicolas Urfe in John Fowles’s The Magus (1965). Drawing upon Homi Bhabha’s “Hybridity”, Stuart Hall’s “Cultural Identity”, and William Safran’s “Myth of Homeland”, the objective of this article is to recognize the futility underlying Nicolas’s relentless endeavors to establish a sense of belonging and reconcile with his inner turmoil and inherent desire in order to reveal the origins of his internal conflicts, such as anxiety, restlessness, and rootlessness. The significance of this article lies in its endeavor to analyze the diasporic experience on an individual ground that does not align with the typical paradigms of Nicolas’s relocation. This article also explores whether Nicolas feels a sense of belonging to a particular place that he can consider as home. We try to respond to two fundamental questions, namely what influences exist behind the adoption or rejection of a new self-identity by Nicolas in Fowles’s The Magus?, and does Nicolas with multi-layered identity associate with both native land and hostland, namely England and Greece, respectively in Fowles’s The Magus? In order to fill the existing gap, we explore how Nicolas’s identity oscillates between pre-immigration and post-immigration spaces, namely England and Greece, respectively.
Abstract Pirzad's novel A Day Before before Easter, delves into the evolving identity of Iranian Armenians, highlighting their diasporic and transnational identities, despite acknowledging historical roots. Based on the ideas of “hybridity” and “translation sites” as the framework, this study explores at how translation sites as symbolic spaces influenced the development of multiple and hybrid identities of Armenian and Muslim characters as well as the possibility of linguistic and cultural interactions between them. Three distinct translation sites, the church, the school, and the graveyard, were identified in this study. These sites revealed how the characters' identities were developed based on their interactions with Muslim Iranians, affecting their language, religion, and society. The school functioned as zones of connection and communication between Muslims and Armenians where some Armenians display hybrid, multiplied identities while the church functioned as a site of “counter-translation,” where Armenians maintained a solidified and diasporic identity, enclosed by their religious and ethnic boundaries. The study suggests that identity conflicts at the translation sites in the story created a space for negotiation, fostering reconciliation and the blending of national and Armenian heritages among the characters.
Abstract This essay discusses the political dimensions of Omar El Akkad's American War and Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, exploring their distinct yet interconnected critiques of governance, authoritarianism, and global cooperation in times of existential crisis. Drawing upon diverse political theories, such as Hobbesian social contracts, Arendtian distinctions between power and violence, and Marxist critiques of systemic inequality, the analysis situates these novels within the broader context of speculative fiction’s role in reimagining political systems. By examining themes of climate change, radicalization, systemic reform, and international diplomacy, this study illuminates the enduring relevance of speculative narratives as blueprints for understanding and addressing contemporary global challenges. These narratives not only critique existing power structures but also offer innovative perspectives on the possibilities of systemic reform. Ultimately, the essay positions speculative fiction as a vital tool for envisioning alternative trajectories for a just, inclusive, and sustainable future, emphasizing its transformative potential in shaping political and ecological discourse.
Abstract Masculinity, unlike femininity, have long been left understudied by the scholars. This originated from the essentialist idea that men and masculinity are natural, and subsequently had been taken for granted. They were, not required to be studied. Men, were deemed as the agents who gazed and studied. However with the advent of structuralist and poststructuralist ideas in humanities and specially in social theory, masculinity attracted attentions. No longer was masculinity considered natural, God-given. Now the new theories regarded masculinity as a constructed phenomenon subject to cultural, structural, discursive, and material forces. Therefore it was inevitably subject to change, It was no longer seen as an essential entity. These theoretical inventions spread, though belatedly, into the realm of literary studies. Literary works, especially fiction, provides a very rich material to explore the dynamics and nuances of theory. The present article sets to apply the theories in the field of masculinity studies from social theory to a novel by the British-Syrian writer Robin Yassin Kassab. The Road from Damascus could be useful text to investigate how masculinity produced and reproduced, how it constructed and changed as men experience different social structures. The novel, successfully, takes masculinity as a sign whose significance alters as it moves from one structure to another. A significant aspect of the novel is its focus on immigrant people in the cultural space of England. The article would investigate how the two “modalities” masculinity and immigration would invite new meanings into the previous studies done on the work.
Abstract In Bird Cottage by Eva Meijer, the main character blurs the dualistic dichotomies between humans and animals by applying ethical practices, morality, and emotion. Ecofeminists stand against the Western reason/emotion dichotomy, and they mutilate human/animal dichotomies by cherishing ethics and morality. In literature and environmental concerns the traces of Ethics and Ecofeminism should be followed. Hence, in this article, by referring to theoreticians like Carolyn Merchant, Gwen Hunnicutt, Lori Gruen, and other eminent critics, Bird Cottage by Eva Meijer is analyzed through an ethical-ecofeminist perspective, not only to show the influence of ethics on deforming dualisms between humans and nonhumans, which is a purpose of ecofeminism, but also to show the social influence of dualistic and non-dualistic relations on humans by following and not following ethics. Considering ecofeminism and its scope in this analysis, it is concluded that Meijer in Bird Cottage emphasizes utilizing ethics and environmental justice in seeking non-dualistic coexistence with nonhumans and, in the interim, she deforms Western human/animal dualism by referring to Len’s attitude and her actions toward wild birds.
Abstract This article reconceptualizes the concept of failure through a decolonial lens, arguing that failure is not a deficit or lack, but a form of resistance against colonial, capitalist, racial and patriarchal systems. Rethinking failure by adopting theories of Jack Halberstam, decolonial theories of Walter Mignolo and Ramon Grosfoguel, and the key concepts of Critical Race Theory, this paper presents a comparative reading of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1947) and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1997). Both novels resist dominant narratives of success and visibility through characters whose failed form of being disrupts the rigid societal hierarchies rooted in class, race, and gender. The unnamed narrator of Invisible Man embraces invisibility as an agentive act of nonconformism, while the decolonial love of Ammu and Velutha undermines the caste-oriented, patriarchal norms. Through these narratives, this study aims to reveal how literary failure can be employed as a strategy to delink from the colonial system of values and a new form of being, or re-existence. Integrating African American and postcolonial narratives, this article argues for a decolonial comparative literature that privileges relationality over universalism and makes space for subaltern ways of being and knowing.
Abstract This paper examines how patriarchal control impacts both women and nature in Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments in light of Val Plumwood’s environmentalism. Plumwood critiques dualistic thinking that privileges masculinity and culture over femininity and nature, outlining five mechanisms of domination—“backgrounding,” “radical exclusion,” “incorporation,” “instrumentalism,” and “homogenization”— that create a hierarchy of superiority and inferiority. Drawing on this framework, the study investigates how The Testaments portrays the intertwined oppression of women and the environment in the male-dominated society of Gilead, highlighting their shared struggle for survival. The novel not only depicts how dualisms sustain oppression but also reveals moments of resistance and survival that challenge these binaries. By bringing ecological and feminist concerns into dialogue, this paper highlights the interconnectedness of environmental degradation and gendered violence. It ultimately argues for dismantling oppressive dualisms in favor of an alternative worldview based on intrinsic value, mutual respect, and symbiosis between all genders and nature.
Abstract Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) consistently oscillates between the roles of sociologist and novelist throughout his works, and, unlike many other sociologists, he makes conscious and deliberate use of metaphor. The aim of this article is to examine the metaphorical concepts in Zygmunt Bauman’s imagination by employing the “metaphor identification method” and drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Lakoff and Johnson as well as Paul Ricoeur. The findings of the study reveal that Bauman employs metaphors at both the ontological and methodological levels. For Bauman, metaphor is not merely a descriptive tool, but a research strategy for examining abstract and intangible aspects of human life such as inequality, globalization, ethics, suffering, love, solidarity, and oppression. The overarching and central metaphor in Bauman’s thought is liquidity. His other metaphors are subordinate to the metaphor of liquid modernity and are coherently interconnected within this conceptual constellation. He believes the old order is collapsing in the transition from solid to liquid modernity, but the new has not yet been born. Moreover, many of Bauman’s metaphors exhibit temporal, spatial, and binary characteristics. These metaphors allow Bauman not only to describe the complexities of modern society but also to make them experientially accessible and intellectually comprehensible. Bauman’s notion of a liquid society can be seen as a metaphorical extension of concepts such as Giddens’s “late modernity,” Ulrich Beck’s “risk society,” and Lyotard’s “postmodern.” However, Bauman reconfigures and re-narrates these ideas through a distinct theoretical framework inspired by Paul Ricoeur.
Laleh Atashi, Zainab Ibrahim Alvan Alkaeebi, Azra Ghandeharion
Abstract This paper is a comparative study of two war novels, namely The Book of Collateral Damage by Sinan Antoon and The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers. Both Antoon, an Iraqi-American author, and Powers, an American writer, describe war critically but from very different points of view. In Antoon’s novel, an Iraqi scholar living in the U.S. during the conflict tries to review the war, collect newspaper pieces of war news, and create a catalogue of the people, the land, and the human and non-human entities he knew before and during the war in Iraq. In Powers’ autobiographical account, the narrator is a young soldier struggling with war trauma and trying to express his bereavement for his dead friend. Both novels address war trauma, but the dimensions of trauma and the way memory and remembering operate in the lives of the narrators are very different. This paper argues that the positionality of the authors determines the way they narrate war. The Iraqi scholar tries to revisit the past and finds recollection a therapeutic act, while the young American soldier is haunted by the memory of his lost friend, and forgetting often becomes a survival strategy for him. The approach used to answer the question—How is war trauma experienced differently on the two sides of the same battlefield?—is a postcolonial one. The study borrows some ideas from postcolonial theoreticians such as Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak to analyse the two novels comparatively.
Abstract This article proposes habeas narrativum: a translation protocol that treats literary form as procedural evidence within legal discourse and converts scenes of injury in Kafka’s The Trial into administrable minima for decisions in informational regimes. Rather than reading Kafka as allegory or doctrine, the method isolates recurrent formal injuries (non-notice, non-reasons, secret files, and credibility theater) and renders them as four predicates that make authority answerable: (1) prospectively intelligible notice identifying the items at issue, the operative rule text, and the time window; (2) review-ready reasons that are case specific, traceable to the disclosed record, falsifiable by counterevidence, and timely; (3) access and rectification through a contestable record bundle; and (4) a standard of review that prefers evidence over demeanor heuristics and specifies remedies keyed to missing predicates. Read this way, The Trial functions as a forensic archive whose scenes document which minima are absent and, therefore, what a reviewer must be able to demand on the record. To demonstrate portability beyond the literary court, a brief platform-moderation mini-case shows how these predicates reorganize routine review: requiring itemized notices, record-tied reasons, and rectification channels without demanding model transparency, thereby turning literary diagnosis into enforceable review practice in contemporary legal discourse.
Abstract This study examines the reciprocal relationship between urban transformation in Mecca and the constitution of identity in Raja Alem’s contemporary Saudi novel, The Dove's Necklace (2010). While existing scholarship frequently addresses the marginalization of women or the sociocultural erosion resulting from Mecca’s urbanization, it often overlooks the mutually constitutive dynamic between the city and its inhabitants. This paper argues that the rapid redevelopment of Mecca precipitates simultaneous and interconnected transformations in both its physical landscape and its characters’ subjectivities. The analysis employs a chronotopic framework, drawing on Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope to demonstrate how Mecca’s space and time and the characters' sense of self are intrinsically linked and co-productive. By operationalizing the chronotope within a tangible, physical context, this study addresses a critical gap in literary scholarship. Consequently, it not only elucidates the complexity of Alem’s narrative but also positions The Dove's Necklace within global discourses on urbanization, cultural heritage, and the negotiation of identity, thereby underscoring the significance of contemporary Middle Eastern literature for an international readership.
Abstract This article reads Stephen King’s The Waste Lands through affect theory, drawing primarily on Brian Massumi’s account of affect as intensity, something that emerges in the body before it emerges in cognition or interpretation. From this perspective, the article argues that sensation in The Waste Lands is not a secondary layer of meaning but it is one of the principles through which meaning begins to form. In King’s Mid-World, bodies often respond before minds can understand. Pressure, vibration, hesitation, and sudden stillness shape how characters usually experience time, danger, and action. Drawing on Massumi’s understanding of affect as a pre-cognitive force, the article develops the concept of affective rhythm to describe how patterned intensities organize perception and behavior in the novel. At certain moments, this approach also touches on Deleuze’s reflections on time, where disrupted action allows duration and sensation to appear more directly. Rhythm does not simply occur with events; it directs attention, delays explanation, and makes survival uncertain. The article shows how King repeatedly creates moments in which understanding occurs late. Characters do not act based on what they know, but they act based on what they feel and then knowledge follows, if it comes at all. Thus, The Waste Lands does not invite complete interpretation. It asks, instead, for a gradual attunement to a world whose meanings remain unstable. Based on Massumi’s affect theory, TheWaste Lands emerges as a narrative guided by sensation, where rhythm becomes both a fragile continuity and a way of knowing.
Abstract The theory of decolonized trauma deviates from the western definition of trauma, which is based on occurrence and non-representation. In this regard, this article aims to address how trauma is represented in the novel The Lowland of the American-Indian author, Jhumpa Lahiri, by focusing on some narratological concepts such as order, frequency, delay and state as theorized by the narratologist Gerard Genette. These features are used in this research in order to demonstrate how the three impasses of classical trauma studies (representation, repetition, and belatedness) are refused and how the main characters Gauri and Subhash’s painful experiences and memories are discovered under diasporic circumstances. Also, they recount their terrible recollections with an honest description of their experiences as individuals who have been able to overcome the negative impacts of traumatic memories. The results also illustrate that Lahiri uses various flashbacks, repetition of events, and a diversity of views to underline the trauma’s influence on the characters’ day-to-day lives as well as its being narrated as a non-sudden occurrence. Furthermore, the study points out how the idea of double focalization gives immigrant characters a strong platform from which to discuss their painful experiences, which in turn will help reestablish a new community.
Abstract Abdulrazak Gurnah, Nobel Laureate in Literature (2021), explores postcolonial migration as central theme in his fiction to highlight how displacement reshapes voice, agency, and belonging. Focusing on Admiring Silence (1996) and The Last Gift (2011), this study examines the interrelation of migration, subalternity, and silence as prominent elements in the construction of migratory subjectivity. Drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s concept of the subaltern voice and Kevin Olson’s theory of subaltern silence, this article argues that migratory subalternity as a distinct condition generates silence that is a contextually responsive practice whose function changes across time, institutions, and generations. Through a chronological perspective, the two novels reveal an evolution in Gurnah’s view of migratory experience. In Admiring Silence, silence performs a strategic function by which the migrant narrator is allowed partial agency and narrative self-fashioning within the hegemony of the host culture. By contrast, The Last Gift presents the internalization and institutionalization of silence, shaped by shame, trauma, medical discourse, and post-9/11 securitization of immigration. Analysing silence through an intergenerational lens and as a form of postmemory, the article reveals how the protagonist embodies somatic muteness and epistemic erasure, while his children negotiate inherited silence through writing, anger, and demands for articulation. This study invites the reader to regard migratory subalternity as a re-formulating condition, distinct from colonial and postcolonial marginalization.
Abstract Award-winning novelist, cultural anthropologist, and environmental advocate, Amitav Gosh is well known for his Ibis trilogy: Sea of Poppies (2008), River Smoke (2011), and Flood of Fire (2015) wherein he dramatizes the First Opium War between England and China in the first half of the nineteenth century. His nonfictional Smoke and Ashes (2023) is the fruit of his research notes collected while writing the trilogy providing good background information for the trilogy’s intricate world. Besides Gosh’s scholars, the book will prove worthwhile for postcolonial historians and anyone interested in the complex machinery of the British Empire in nineteenth-century India and China. The book’s great intellectual charm and strength lie in its genre-defying quality. It synthesizes historical analysis with travel narrative, personal memoir, socio-cultural investigation, and the examination of artistic works related to the opium industry. In addition, it does not confine its analysis to the colonial past since it tracks the vicious consequences of the opium trade in modern times, in particular America. Indeed, the book is a scholarly endeavor to expose not only the fictionality of Western capitalism but also the depth of the British Empire’s gross injustice to subjugated people and their world through critical engagement with extensive colonial archives. He achieves his goal thanks to his lucid prose, powerful arguments, thorough research, and ethical stance.
Abstract The issue of nation branding as an interdisciplinary concept has been popular in the field of marketing and international relations for several years and has attracted the attention of governments. Given the importance of nation branding in promoting and enhancing Iran's image both internationally and domestically, this article analyzes Hakim Abolghasem Ferdowsi's Shahnameh using a historical-narrative approach. It explores the concepts and themes associated with the name Iran in Ferdowsi's perspective, and examines the meanings and connotations that the audience of the Shahnameh encounters when hearing the name Iran and its derivatives. For this study, narrative analysis was conducted using content analysis tools in MAXQDA software. The findings indicate that the Iranian brand rests on five pillars: Iranian tradition; characteristics of Iran and Iranians; the constituent elements of Iran as a nation-state; the concept of Iran as a nation-state in comparison with other states—particularly Turan; and the perceived failures of Iran and Iranians, which will be elaborated on later. These results not only lay the groundwork for developing new constructions of national identity but also provide a basis for organizing media campaigns aimed at promoting Iran’s nation branding both domestically and internationally. The results of this research, while laying the groundwork for achieving new constructions in the field of national identity, can be used to organize media campaigns in the field of nation branding of Iran inside and outside the country.
Abstract Since classical times, philosophy has maintained an inseparable connection with literature. This relationship is not confined to the application of philosophical theories in interpreting literary works. Numerous philosophers have argued that literature can serve as a medium for philosophization and the conveyance of knowledge. However, within many university curricula, literature is often regarded merely as a form of art, the primary function of which is the creation of beauty or the expression of emotions. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, employing the method of conceptual analysis, and drawing upon the theory of Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen, two contemporary analytic philosophers, the present qualitative, library-based study investigates whether knowledge can be conveyed through literary discourse. The study contends that serious literary works, by concretizing abstract philosophical concepts, offer readers a distinctive perspective through which to view the world and its problems in a new and different light. In doing so, literature provides a particular kind of insight or understanding that can be regarded as a form of knowledge/cognition. After the theoretical discussion, Anton Chekhov’s short story “Misery” is analyzed as an example to illustrate the potentials of literary works for philsophization and the quality of philosophical thoughts in literature. According to the findings of the present inquiry, since literary discourse possesses significant cognitive and ethical value, it ought to receive greater attention in discussions concerning the transformation and indigenization of the humanities in Iran.
Abstract This study employs an interdisciplinary approach and an analytical-comparative methodology to examine shared psychological characteristics in the poetry of Forough Farrokhzad and the paintings of Vincent van Gogh. The primary objective is to determine points of convergence and divergence between these two artists' works in their expression of emotions, their use of symbols, and cultural influences. Utilizing van Gogh's paintings as tangible manifestations of inner turmoil, the research investigates how both artists articulate universal human experiences, such as love, solitude, and the search for meaning, through distinct artistic media (poetry and painting). The findings reveal that Farrokhzad's psychological impulses, which evolve from personal anguish to existential suffering, find visual representation in van Gogh's works. By establishing a dialogue between literary and visual texts, this study uncovers latent psychological dimensions in both artists' oeuvres, proposing an innovative interdisciplinary framework for art and literary studies. Furthermore, the analysis of shared symbols (night, trees, wind, and stars) demonstrates their aligned perspectives on modernity's defining themes: alienation, suffering, and the quest for transcendence.
Abstract The short story "The Pear Tree" by Goli Taraghi (1996) and its film adaptation directed by Dariush Mehrjui (1997) have been examined through various interdisciplinary approaches. Most analyses emphasize the presence of semantic oppositions, particularly the binary of fertility/infertility. The core argument of the present research is that the short and its film adaptations cannot be interpreted solely by drawing on conceptual binaries, as the complex and dynamic structures of meaning emerge through narrative movement between opposing and contradictory categories. Therefore, this descriptive analytical study adopts the analytical model of the Semantic Square developed by Algirdas Julien Greimas within a structuralist semantics, which demonstrates how discourse generates meaning through dynamic oppositions. The findings show that both the literary and cinematic discourses demonstrate the struggle of a symbolic character (the tree) to escape a state of suspension. At first glance, this seems to be a conflict between concepts of fertility and infertility, but a deeper semantic analysis reveals a movement among the four concepts of fertility, sterility, non-fertility, and non-sterility. In Taraghi’s story, meaning is shaped through literary and linguistic techniques, while in Mehrjui’s film, it is conveyed through cinematic codes and signs.
Abstract "Varagheh and Golshah" is an oldstory, written by a poet named Ayouqi.The origin of the story, as the poet says, is one of the Arab stories that happened in the past of the Arab tribes, and it is the story of two cousins (son and daughter of two brothers) named "Varagheh and Golshah" who grew up together in theirown tribe and the family. And they became interested in and fell in love with each other. The general similarities between this story and the story of "Orwa and Afra", which is also the love story of two lovers in Arabic literature and has its roots in Arabic sources, leaves no doubt that the story of "Varagheh and Golshah" is taken from the story of "Orwa and Afra". It is obvious that this romance, like the "Orwa and Afra" romance, has its roots in Arabic sources, but it is necessary to research from which source or sources this story is taken and which are its most important sources. The results of the researches done on the sources of the story of "Varagheh and Golshah" by Ayouqi and the accuracy in the era of composing of this romance show that Ayouqi could have used Al-Aghani by Isfahani and "Al-Sher va al-Shoara" by Ibn Qutaybah and "Muruj Al-Dhahab" by Masoudi.
Abstract Today, geographical criticism can be used as a tool for analyzing literary texts in an interdisciplinary field. Among literary texts, novels play an important role in giving spatiality to the narrative. As one of the most prominent French writers, Albert Camus created many works in which space and time play a key role in the unfolding of historical events. In fact, the form that the fictional world takes determines the fate of the narrator and the work itself. In this research, the aim is to examine how space and time are formed in the novel The Plague. For this purpose, a descriptive-analytical method will be used in the analysis of the data, and in particular, Bertrand Westphal's theory in the field of geographical criticism will be used. He considers three hypotheses for space: space and time, transgression and referentiality. Furthermore, the use of the three main axes of geographical criticism according to him, which include tangible space, perceived space and imaginative-imaginary space, allows us to analyze multiple aspects of spatial representation in the novel and understand its role in the construction of key themes. This research shows that space, as a fundamental element in the construction of meaning, is not a neutral place in the novel The Plague, but rather a place of encounter with new phenomena and becomes a full-fledged actor in history, where the fears, concerns and hopes of the city's inhabitants are shaped.
Abstract This study explores the representation of intergenerational silence of women within contemporary Iranian crime literature, a silence viewed as a symbolic act embodying collective psychic continuity and functioning as a cultural mechanism of survival. Grounded in trauma and intergenerational memory theories, and emphasizing the concepts advanced by Caruth, Hirsch, and LaCapra, silence is portrayed not as absence but as a complex narrative articulation of pain and re-enactment of suppressed memory. The research aims to investigate processes through which remembrance and the transmission of wounds redefine feminine identity against patriarchal and cultural hierarchies of power. Using a descriptive–analytical approach and an interdisciplinary method, the study examines the correlation between crime fiction and trauma psychology through feminist and generational lenses in the Iranian novels, The Young Skull and Jordan's Crime. Findings indicate that silence functions not as narrative closure but as a platform for the repetition of the unsaid and gradual recovery of wounded memory, an unseen language acting as resistance and reconstruction of collective identity. Ultimately, trauma, intersecting with silence and transgenerational transmission, opens the possibility of restoring feminine discourse and reconstituting fractured subjectivity, enabling repetition rather than cessation.
Abstract This study aims to explore the connection between meaning and form in the context of Iranian art, investigating the relationship between the structures of Persian literature and the principles of geometry and aesthetics in traditional Iranian architecture. In this approach, art is considered as the manifestation of unity in multiplicity, and the pattern of form emerging from meaning within the Iranian‑Islamic intellectual system is contemplated. This approach demonstrates that interdisciplinary studies are an effective tool for uncovering the hidden layers of connection between poetic language and the spatial organization of architecture, and can provide a new framework for a comprehensive understanding of Iranian art. The research method is qualitative‑analytical and based on the comparison between poetic texts and architectural spatial structures. Accordingly, five prominent examples of traditional Iranian architecture have been selected, along with poetic samples from Rumi, Hafez, Saadi, and Nezami as comparative exemplars. The analyses reveal that the pattern of geometric proportions present in the mentioned architectural works correlates semantically with key concepts of Persian poetry, such as unity and love (in Rumi’s Masnavi), balance and moderation (in Hafez’s ghazals), ascent and perfection (in Nezami’s Khamsa), as well as moral order (in Saadi’s Golestan). The findings emphasize the coexistence of meaning and form systems and the symbolic function of geometry in conveying philosophical and mystical concepts; thus, Iranian art can be regarded as a reflection of the interaction between intellect and intuition, and a blend of poetic language and geometric logic. In addition to explaining the theoretical foundations of the connection between meaning and form, the research outcome paves the way for quantitative‑conceptual analyses in interdisciplinary studies of Iranian art and architecture.
Abstract The purpose of this study is to analyze Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005) under Cyborgian concepts of decentered – nomadic bio-subjects, trans-genetic organisms, and trans-humans that create metaphorically the biomedical characters undertaking the human cloning in the theoretical framework of cyborg biotechnology. The method is an interdisciplinary study between science and literature. Ishiguro shows the process of forming the human clones through tracing the main character’s memories, Kathy. The cyborgian theories of Donna Haraway, Paul Virilio and Rosi Braidotti are employed to study the genetic organs of the selected novel in bio-medical discourse. The study reveals that politicians make the bio-medical subjects dehumanize in biotechnology, using them as the bio-commodities. In Neo-capitalism, the cyborgian biomedical character is the platonic copy of the real human due to three reasons: first, it does not have any human subjectivity; second, it has possibly lost its human identity; and, third, its gene has been changed. However, the importance of this study portrays that cyborg bio-literature makes the biomedical subjects more re-humanized to claim agency over them in bio-narratives. Cyborg disappears the conventional borderlines and depoliticizes them, creating the transgressed boundaries.
Abstract This interdisciplinary study in the field of the sociology of literature aims to analyze the functions of "false consciousness" in Persian proverbs based on Jean Bachelard's theoretical framework. Using a descriptive-analytical method and a case study of several commonly used Persian proverbs, the research demonstrates how these aphorisms, under the guise of apparent wisdom and neutrality, contribute to the reproduction of dominant relations. They operate through five main functions: alignment, justification, concealment, positioning, and simplification. The results of this analysis indicate that these five functions, interacting with one another, form an ideological network that makes it difficult for members of society to understand and reflect on power structures. On one hand, proverbs compel the subordinated to submit by justifying the status quo and naturalizing inequalities. On the other hand, by simplifying complex realities, they prevent radical critique and social transformation. As a pioneering study in the systematic application of Bachelard's theory in the domain of folk literature, this article takes a step toward revealing the ideological role of culture in perpetuating unjust structures and emphasizes the necessity of a critical reading of seemingly harmless elements of everyday culture.
Abstract This study aims to investigate the complex dialectic between art and society through a critical comparison of the perspectives of Theodor Adorno and Pierre Bourdieu, two thinkers who, from distinct intellectual traditions, have each addressed the social origins of art and its relations to power. Methodologically, the research employs a documentary and comparative‑critical approach, drawing on Adorno’s theoretical critique and Bourdieu’s empirical analyses to explore the social and cultural forces shaping artistic production and perception. Within the framework of the Frankfurt School, Adorno conceives of art as a domain of resistance to the logic of the market and ideological domination, emphasizing its relative autonomy as a liberating force. In contrast, Bourdieu, through the concepts of field, cultural capital, and habitus, demonstrates that aesthetic taste and artistic production are reproduced within class structures and unequal power relations. The findings indicate that contemporary art possesses a dual and paradoxical nature: it can both reproduce mechanisms of domination and embody capacities for critique and resistance. The study concludes that a comprehensive understanding of the sociology of contemporary art requires the integration of Adorno’s critical approach with Bourdieu’s field‑based analysis.
Abstract This article examines the dramatic dimension of reciting the Persian qasida and its relationship to Aristotelian poetics. The discussion proceeds from two main premises: (1) Recitation—understood as an artistic mode of delivering poetry, particularly the laudatory qasida—emerges from the intersection of literature and drama; (2) A comprehensive understanding of recitation can only be achieved through an interdisciplinary perspective that combines literary and artistic analysis. From this vantage point, the laudatory qasida should not be confined to its textual content. It is not merely a vehicle for praise, but also a masterwork of artistic form. The term “form” here refers not only to the linguistic, rhetorical, and aesthetic structures of the qasida, but also to the performative qualities inherent in its recitation. Historically, the delivery of a laudatory qasida constituted a form of staged performance—where the poet or narrator stood in a designated place, positioned at the center of the audience’s attention, conveying meaning through intonation, presence, and gesture. Understanding this performative aspect is inseparable from the classical concept of akhz bil-wujuh found in early Arabic and Persian treatises on poetics—a notion that encapsulates the very essence of performance in tragedy, oratory, laudatory qasida, and satire.
Abstract Due to the dynamic essence of comparative literature there are many debates about the definition of this field of study among academia. Adrijana Marcetic, a professor of comparative literature in Belgrad University, in her book "After the Comparative Literature" (1961), tries to solve some of these misunderstandings by writing about the history of comparative literature theories. She wrote the book on Serbian language and then after Greta Goetz translated it into English and then Masoud Farahmand and Pegah Farhangmehr retranslated from English to Persian. The Persian translation of the text is good, but there are some mistakes. For example, they altered the translation of some words like "hybridization" and " divergence." If we consider the problems of translating the pretranslated texts, it is apparent that translators faced a plethora of obstacles and there is insufficient time and ability to cover this area in its entirety. The researcher will analyse the book in this review.
Abstract The book Comparative Literature in Fluctuation, written by Roya Latafati and Bita Moazami Farahani, (Samt, 2019) is one of the analytical and theoretical works in Persian in explaining and introducing new aspects of comparative literature. This educational work, which is written in five chapters, has been compiled as one of the main and specialized resources for students of French language and literature (Comparative Literature course) at both master’s and doctoral levels. The findings of this critical research in explaining the merits and shortcomings of this work are as follows; This concise educational work has introduced and analyzed up-to-date topics and areas in comparative literature that have been less addressed by other Iranian researchers. On the other hand; Utilizing new research, proposing new issues in the field of comparative literature, scientific consultation with Enrô Eloïe Bonrou (Professor of Comparative Literature at the Sorbonne), using some examples and cultural-literary evidence from Iran in explaining topics, mentioning necessary footnotes, etc. are some of its other merits. However, the lack of questions and teaching guides, the lack of explanation of the educational goals expected of learners, the lack of attention to punctuation marks and some structures of the Persian language, the obscurity and ambiguity in the expression of some issues, as well as the use of English words and expressions that have equivalents in the Persian language, etc. are among its shortcomings.
Abstract According to Roland Barthes, every narrative is interwoven with multiple codes and the reader has a central role in decoding signs and creating meaning. This article deals with the semiotics of fashion theories using Barthes' layered analysis approach. In this approach, textual analysis is done by using five codes, that is, hermeneutic code or question code, proairetic or action code, semantic code, symbolic code, and cultural code. The present research is developmental and applied in its goal and descriptive-analytical in methodology. The research aims at decoding the meaning hidden in fashion theories to provide a clearer view of fashion products, especially clothes to researchers, producers, designers, and fashion consumers. The findings show that the fashion system is a writerly text and all five types of codes are in it. The connection of these codes leads to the formation of economic, social, and environmental harmful effects, and therefore, this research emphasizes the necessity of the formation of a sustainable fashion system.
Abstract Shahnameh, as a great work in the field of Eastern epic literature, has a great potential for dramatization. This possibility, of course, requires a knowledge of the original text as well as a knowledge of the Eastern drama. Relying on his knowledge and awareness of Eastern narratives and Eastern drama, Bahram Beyzaie, the prominent playwright, pays special attention to the narratives of Shahnameh and their dramatization. The present paper focuses on four of Beyzaie's plays, all of which have been adapted from Shahnameh. More specifically, this descriptive-analytical study explicates the techniques used by Beyzaie in "Azhedahak", "Shab-e-Hezar-o-Yekom", "Sohrabokoshi" and "Siavashkhani" in his dramatization of the original narratives. The results show that in order to dramatize the stories of Shahnameh, Beyzaie has paid much attention to the tools of Eastern drama such as naqqali and tae'ziyeh. In addition, the playwright has deployed elements and techniques such as characterization, conflict, monologue as well as tools of metadrama such as play within the play and distancing in dramatization of the original narratives.
Abstract Using a psychoanalytical approach, this paper studies Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Double to have a better understanding of the main character’s inner complexities. Goliadkin, the main character, is a government clerk who gradually separates from reality. The argument in this research is based on Sigmund Freud’s theories. An important cause of his disruption of identity can be figured out through Freud’s theory about the two primary drives. According to him, there are two types of drive that control every individual’s psychic apparatus. The life drive influences his strategies for surviving. Goliadkin’s feelings of insufficiency cause the death drive to thrive; consequently, the creation of an aggressive double follows. Also, Freud’s theory of Oedipus complex is important in the discussion about the character’s dualistic tendencies, his abnormal way of dealing with social circumstances and his fantasies about love. Moreover, Goliadkin’s behavior and thoughts are psychoanalytically studied according to the symptoms of melancholia.
Abstract By writing Germinal in the 19th century, Emil Zola brought the working class into the novel writing world as the motive and the hero of the stories for the first time in the French literature history. He had a significant impact on the writers who constantly wrote about revolution. Maxim Gorky is also among those who had taken this into sober consideration in his work, Mother. This comparative study aims to discover the concept of revolution in both of the above-mentioned works. The chains of events in both works illuminate for us the necessary elements for a revolution to occur. Poverty, as the main reason along with awareness, leadership, and sacrifice as the main factors are among the motives of progress with revolution in both novels. Such similarities are separated when it comes to characterization and realism. In the end the both authors give hope to the fighters by depicting a better future for them.
Abstract Setting in literature has long been a prominent issue in literary evaluations. The systematic concern with setting and space dates back to the time Aristotle first discussed the concept of "spectacle" in his Poetics, deeming it essential to the formation of a proper tragedy. Today, spatial studies frequently acknowledge Charles Dickens as one of the greatest observers of the operation of the city in the novel. His foremost novel, Great Expectations, depicts modernity and the social hardships of the time in the form of a love story bringing the plot in close proximity with Morteza Moshfeq Kazemi’s novel Tehran-e Makhuf .This article focuses on the scrutinizing of the creation of social spaces in these two novels through the utilization of Henri Lefebvre’s theory of space as an active production of each society. The concern with space and city and their function is further reflected in the section “City, Space, and Society,," followed in more detail in the section “The City.” In the section “Society, and the Background of the Author,” and the one after, “The Portrayal of the Two Cities and Social Space,” the cities envisioned are observed apropos of the image created, its relationship to the narrative, and social relations. Consequently it is proposed that the cities produced by these two novels are not essentially objects, but rather, the city is a product of that society-- dominating and producing the society itself through its active production by the witnesses,
Abstract Imagology in Comparative Literature: Knowing the Self from the Other's Perspective Abstract: The present paper examines imagology in comparative literature. Imagology is one of the most important and rooted areas in comparative literature since it is the foundation of comparative literature in France. Impression and influence which form the beginning of the French views of foreign literature depend on the pictorial knowledge of the other. An important part of this knowledge belongs to the culture of the "observer" and the ways in which he or she looks at another's image and in this view involves the culture in which he or she has inhabited. Thus, the present paper deals with the exotic images and literary stereotypes that have been created through the perspective of another. In the end, the paper draws on research on travel writing in the field of comparative literature by analyzing several travelogues. The paper will demonstrate that, at times, there has been misunderstandings about the subject in Iran. By analyzing and critiquing these examples, we emphasize that not every research in which there is a comparing of images belongs in the field of comparative literature.
Abstract In this study, in order to investigate how the poetry is connected to a place or, in a more unequivocal way, to the space, the patriotic poems of Mehdi Akhavan-Sales and Abd al-Wahhab Al-Bayati were studied and the analysis of the homeland’s image in their poetry was conducted employing an interdisciplinary approach utilizing the theoretical foundations and the research method of geocriticism. the analysis shows that: 1. in the poems of Akhavan-Sales and Al-Bayati, the home land is a space that essentially holds a cultural and anthropomorphic representation, not merely a passive scene and a piece of land or a fragment of natural geography with mountains and water and sea and plain; the home land = place + human. 2. Their view toward the homeland is sometimes romantic: when the poet is so passionate about the homeland—and whatever belongs to it—that he cannot tell them apart, or when he recognizes his helpless and forlorn homeland as “the leafless garden” or “grave land” or “stone land city” with a deep sadness. What we find as the homeland in Akhavan-Sales and Al-Bayati Poetry is an image, the homeland’s image. 4. The form and the variation of this image is not identical in their poem; the homeland image in Al-Bayati’s poem is a broad and flowing presentation, while in Akhavan-Sales’ poem it is not that broad and when he talks about the homeland, he only refers to Iran.
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