.
"A brilliant inquiry into the contemporary Iranian predicament and what it means for the world. At a time when all too many of our leading thinkers are mired in the weeds of provincialism and narrow ideological wars, Postel has written a work of grace, intelligence, and towering integrity. Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran
is nothing less than a masterpiece of moral and political criticism."— Afshin Molavi, author of The Soul of Iran
"The importance of Postel's book
reaches far beyond a mere exercise in intellectual history. The temptation is either to castigate Iran as a state run by dangerous fundamentalist fanatics, or to celebrate it as a beacon of anti-imperialist resistance. Both approaches miss the complexity of intellectual and political life in Iran where, in a unique short-circuit, political battles reverberate in the terms of modern Western philosophy: some traditionalist clerics refer to Heidegger, liberals to Habermas, feminists to Arendt, some young 'nihilists' to deconstruction.... The specter of an exotic country is thus dispelled, and we can recognize in Iran our own battles, fought more passionately than in our own countries. This is Postel's great lesson: Iran's story is our own."— Slavoj Žižek
From the archives
On Iran
It occured to me recently that there's no one-stop shop containing my various articles on Iran. So here goes...
[Continued]Dialogue
Moving Targets
A long (and long time coming) interview I did with the wide-ranging, not-easily-categorizable Bulgarian-French writer Tzvetan Todorov appears in the Winter 2008 issue of the journal Critical Inquiry. The full text, alas, is not available online, but this small sample -- just enough to whet the appetite -- is. You can purchase a copy of the interview, or a copy of the issue, here.
Dialogue
Debating Iran
On Thursday, November 1st I appeared on the television program Front & Center with John Callaway to discuss "Iran: the Next Military Frontier?" The program took the form of a panel discussion at the Pritzker Military Library in Chicago. The first 60 minutes were recorded for broadcast on public television; an extended-play, 90-minute version is available as a podcast. From here both versions can be downloaded.
Danny Speaks
Terrorism Awareness Indeed
A guest post on Rick Perlstein's blog about the "special relationship" between certain neoconservatives and a most unusual Iranian organization.
Danny Speaks
Foucault, Ahmadinejad, and "certain other" Iranians
From the September 24 Guardian, "Remember our real Iranian friends". In my two cents on l'affaire Ahmadinejad, I revisit a 1977 meeting in Paris organized by Foucault, Sartre, and a group of French intellectuals that I suggest could cast some much-needed light amid the heat of cacaphony and confusion over the Iranian president's US visit--and the visit he's about to make to Venezuela. The article has been translated into Persian (Farsi) and appears on Radiozamaneh.com.
General Delivery
Nice plug for a nice event
On Thursday August 16th the Book Cellar in Chicago hosted an event for four Prickly Paradigm Press authors -- Rick Perlstein, Tom Geoghegan, Matti Bunzl, et moi. It was an intellectually engaging event with a lively discussion period, and an introduction by Prickly Paradigm's founder and Executive Publisher Marshall Sahlins, one of the preeminent anthropologists and cultural theorists alive. Time Out Chicago ran this nice piece about the press in advance of the event. (Two small corrections: it's openDemocracy.net, not openDemocracy.org; and I don't take the left to task for "not addressing the growing public-policy crisis concerning Iran" but rather for its general confusion about the internal situation in Iran.)
