A ROBIN REDBREAST IN AN IRON CAGE: REVISITING THE INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT OF DISSENT IN IRAN BETWEEN THE 1953 COUP AND THE 1979 REVOLUTION by Kara Abdolmaleki A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies University of Alberta © Kara Abdolmaleki, 2018 Abdolmaleki | ii ABSTRACT In the wake of the 1953 CIA-backed coup d’état in Iran and the toppling of the democratically elected government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, a cultural-political movement that opposed the Shah’s policy of rapid, authoritarian modernization emerged in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. This study proposes the concept of Bazgasht be Khish [A Return to Self] as an umbrella term that describes the various anti-colonial and critical counter-Enlightenment strains that eventually converged and formed a revolutionary force in 1979. The concept of A Return to Self was not monolithic and was defined differently by competing ideological movements. This project focuses on Ali Shariati’s consequential question, “A return to which self?” and defines it not as a regressive form of self (ethnic, racial, Islamist, etc.) but as a progressive one that is critical of hegemonic universalism, traditionalism, nativism, and fundamentalism and offers a “third way” based on a dialectical interlocution between modernity and tradition, or between East and West. The conventional literature concerning the post-coup period has often dismissed the movement of A Return to Self as nativist and, therefore, of little intellectual merit. This study takes a different perspective and proposes that it is possible to recast and theorize the post-coup intellectual movement in Iran as an attempt at a “third way,” which sought to transcend the tradition / modernity binary and offer a way out of the impasse the Iranian society was facing. Theorizing the post-coup movement of A Return to Self provides a conceptual framework within which the artistic and literary works produced during this period can be re-interpreted. Textual analysis of those works will provide a deeper insight into the social and cultural factors that led to the 1979 revolution; this methodology also demonstrates the persistence of a positivist approach that has contributed to the emergence of a brand of neoliberalism that exists in symbiosis with the oppressive clerical oligarchy in post-revolutionary Iran. Abdolmaleki | iii This dissertation claims that the label “nativist” not only fails to capture the multifariousness of the post-coup movement, but also leads some scholars to shun serious scrutiny of the literature and art of that period. Such a methodology also allows an investigation into the traumatic impact of fast-paced, imported, and authoritarian modernity on the Iranian psyche and the function of fiction, poetry, and film of the time as resistance against the alienating effects of modernization. The most notable figures discussed in this study include Jalāl Āl-e Ahmad, Ali Shariati, Dariush Shayegan, Gholāmhosein Saedi, Shahrnush Parsipur, Bahram Sādeghi, Ebrahim Golestan, Naser Taghvaee, Forough Farrokhzad, and Sohrab Sepehri. Contrary to widespread claims in the conventional literature, the movement of A Return to Self was diverse and not necessarily regressive, Islamist, traditionalist, or nativist; it was, in fact, a progressive movement that foresaw the consequences of blind adherence to unbridled modernization in sociocultural, political, and economic terms. The post-coup movement contains several points of convergence with the critical counter-Enlightenment philosophical movement that emerged in Europe in the 20th century, particularly Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s magnum opus, Dialectic of Enlightenment. Those points of convergence can lead to new insights into and remedies for the neoliberal takeover of Iranian politics and economy in the 21st century and reorienting Iran’s path, and that of the Global South in general, towards social justice. Abdolmaleki | iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere thanks to the members of my supervisory committee, Drs. Manijeh Mannani, Mojtaba Mahdavi, and Irene Sywenky, who supported me not only academically but also emotionally during my studies and the writing stage of this dissertation. I would especially like to thank Dr. Mannani for her devotion, her discipline, her professionalism, her infinite wisdom, and her motherly love towards this humble student during all these years. I am grateful for her readings and re-readings of every single paragraph and her feedback. I also extend my deepest gratitude to Dr. Mahdavi for being a shining beacon of knowledge that illuminated the path for me every step of the way. Dr. Sywenky generously afforded me the opportunity to experience the process of academic publishing in the Canadian Review of Comparative Literature and set me on the right path by providing detailed feedback on the very first article that I submitted to a journal. I am honored to have worked under their supervision. In the course of writing this dissertation, I have benefitted from the knowledge and wisdom of many colleagues and friends. I thank them all for sharing their knowledge, especially comrades Siavash Saffari and Roozbeh Safshekan for their friendship and support. I have also benefitted from the insights of Dr. Negar Mottahedeh on Ebrahim Golestan’s work, for which I am grateful. I would also like to thank Dr. Cindy Chopoidalo for copy-editting this dissertation her edits greatly improved the language of the work. Last but not least, I would like to thank my mother, Shahla Sheikh Zakariaee, who worries about me and who cooked for me and cleaned my apartment when she was visiting Canada, so that I would have more time to write. Abdolmaleki | v Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 1 What Is the Third Way? ...................................................................................................... 2 CHAPTER ONE: THE ZEITGEIST OF POST-COUP IRAN...................................................................... 13 Prelude .............................................................................................................................. 13 Historico-Philosophical Context ....................................................................................... 14 Definition of Key Terms ................................................................................................... 18 The Gap in Literature ........................................................................................................ 23 The Idea of A Return to Self .............................................................................................. 29 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 52 CHAPTER TWO: “THROUGH ROMANTIC COCOONS”: PSYCHOSIS, SARCASM, AND SPIRITUALITY IN POST-COUP IRANIAN FICTION ........................................................................................................ 56 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 56 Gholamhosein Saedi ......................................................................................................... 64 Bahram Sadeghi ................................................................................................................ 82 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 99 CHAPTER THREE: A RE-ENCHANTMENT OF THE WORLD: CRITIQUE OF INSTRUMENTAL RATIONALITY IN IRAN’S POST-COUP POETRY .............................................................................. 101 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 101 Sohrab Sepehri ................................................................................................................ 117 Forough Farrokhzad ........................................................................................................ 144 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 159 CHAPTER FOUR: “BUT A FOAMY WAKE”: THE DARK SIDE OF MODERNITY IN LIGHT OF IRANIAN CINEMA’S FIRST NEW WAVE ....................................................................................................... 161 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 161 The Iranian New Wave ................................................................................................... 163 Tranquility in the Presence of Others ............................................................................. 164 Golestan Film Workshop ................................................................................................ 174 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 203 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 205 The Discourse of A Return to Self in Post-revolutionary Iran .......................................