MESA Banner
Futurism in Post-Revolutionary Iran: a Study of Masoud Khayam’s Taamolat-e Interneti (Internet Reflections)
Abstract
Iranian futurism, as a cultural current that imagines the future of Iran and the world through scientific and technological progress, remains one the most understudied subjects in the field of Iranian modernity. Since the early years after the onset of the Constitutional Revolution, when the emerging middle class, disgruntled by the socio-political mayhem caused by the revolution, saw technoscience as an alternative means to modernize the country, Iranian futurism has shed light on social and political issues in the present while also projecting future imaginaries. Sadeq Heyadat’s 1933 famous short story, S.G.L.L (Seen Ghaff Laam Laam) is exemplary of a post-Constitutional futurism where scientific attempt at population control leads to a nightmarish urban reality. With this literary tradition in the background, this paper studies the works of Masoud Khayam, an engineer turned writer and one of the country’s foremost futurists, in terms of the historical context of futurist genre, and also its contribution to Iranian modernity. Through a close reading of Taamol?t-e Interneti (Internet Reflections) [1997], the paper argues how Khayam’s futurism provides the first philosophical literary account of cyberspace in Iran. Through fictional dialogues and series of philosophical reflections, cyberspace is imagined as both tele-communicative and automation spaces wherein the future worlds come to be realized through the quest for scientific knowledge. Taamol?t-e Interneti, the paper shows, was published in response to the growing popularity of the internet in early Reformist period, when it was introduced to the country’s educational sector by the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM) in 1993 and later spread through the Qum seminary in 1995. Finally, in connection with Khayam’s works, the paper argues how post-revolutionary Iranian futurism is punctuated by paradoxes: while predominantly modernist, it has a tendency for emphasizing Iranian identity in reference to linguistic traditions; while calling for interruption between formal and everyday cultures, it values continuity of information technology above others forms of transhuman expressions; while “computerized life” is glorified, attaining autonomy through technology is questioned because of increasing automation of life.
Discipline
Other
Geographic Area
None
Sub Area
Iranian Studies