seminar on Iran, Islam and modernity. Abbas Milani. Part I. April 10, 2016
The seminar, conducted in Persian, will first inquire into the nature of modernity, debates in Iran and in the west about its origins, desirability and constituent elements, followed by a discussion of the rise of Shiism, its early splits during the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the emergence of Bab and eventually Baha’i faith. The split in Shiism during the Constitutional movement, the rise of different narratives of modernity and modernism in Iran will be then discussed. The crisis of modernity and the rise of different forms of fundamentalism–amongst Shiites and Sunnis –as a response to this crisis, and the gradual burgeoning of a new modernity in Iran–in aesthetics for example as early as late fifties–will be the last focus of the seminar.