In 1985, six years after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Khosrow Eqbal took Amir Karimpour and his newspaper Shuresh to task. The few sentences of condemnation for the largely forgotten publisher and his newspaper, both of which died 32 years earlier, affirm the importance not of just oppositional texts but those texts deemed “down-stream” and representing a “grassroots” sentiment too long ignored. In style and substance, Shuresh defies normative standards of journalism and the press. Eqbal, in fact, thus, considers neither Karimpour nor his newspaper journalism. Similarly, he does not consider the work even a part of critique. Instead, such content merely serves as libel and slander that defame members of government. In addition, the writers did not hesitate but appear to enjoy the extensive use of coarse and foul language. In exceeding the limits of acceptable society, Karimpour forced the government to either address the claims therein or to produce press laws. It chose the latter. Yet, missing from the normative parameters on acceptable speech and a free press are the ideas of Shuresh, its writers, and its supporters. Important to the study of modern historical texts in Iranian Studies is not just the down-stream content of Shuresh. As important is the ways in which the newspaper produced, consumed, and performed within society. As evidenced by Eqbal’s statements and by writers inside the country, Karimpour and Shuresh circulated and made an impact, for better or worse, on individuals from diverse socio-economic and political backgrounds. Vital to understanding the period (February 1951-August 1953) is Shuresh’s call for and participation in riots that occurred in Tehran and elsewhere. Vociferously backing Prime Minister Mossaddeq, Shuresh demanded Iranians of all backgrounds, from all regions of the country, catalyze and participate in riots to lead a revolution for a democratic and egalitarian government. Despite being banned and costing 100x its cover price on the black market, Shuresh remained in demand and part of the civil unrest that rocked Iran until the end of Mosaddeq’s government and the death of Karimpour.

In Iran, you will often find words of poetry and prayer printed in somewhat surprising places. On the back of a headrest of intercity bus seats there will a declaration of “Ya Abolfazl!” in bubble letters. On a plastic bag from a purchase at a drug store you will find verses from the medieval poet Hafez. And printed on the side of a women’s coat (manteau) you will find flowing calligraphic verses that may or may not be legible to the layperson. The printed word, and most frequently poetic language, is a ubiquitous presence, especially in regards to material culture. While much attention has been paid to the presence of revolutionary slogans and Iran-Iraq war murals in the public sphere, there has been less work done on the production and circulation of poetry on objects and surfaces in the social arena. This paper will hence examine the written word as a form of material and visual culture in Iran, with an emphasis on the presence of works from the Persian medieval canon. Given that Iranians hold poetry in such high regard—a source of national pride that people of all political persuasions can agree on—does the appearance of the poetic verse on prosaic items like plastic bags and candy wrappers undercut the gravitas and cultural capital of the esteemed literature, or merely re-imagine its significance in a different way? Can be ubiquity and mass production be seen as signs of affection and respect, rather than promoting a cheapening and desensitizing to the object in question? And how, if at all, does the circulation of printed poetry compare to the semiotics of other common symbols such as the Iranian flag or advertisements? To address this inquiry, I will draw from interviews with graphic designers who produce such materials, inquiring into their own decision processes as well as the desires of their clients. In addition to discussing the general use of poetry on prosaic objects, we also discuss stylistics choices such as the use of calligraphy versus Farsi words in the Roman alphabet preferred? Finally, I will also draw from histories of print culture and advertising, media studies, and visual cultural studies to ground my analysis in a broad range of debates.

Since the 1979 Revolution, political reformers, intellectuals, and readers have turned to theories of Western social science and philosophy as a resource for potential sociopolitical change, even as such topics have become the site of government sensitivity. While the striking popularity of Western social science has caught the attention of academics, journalists, and politicians alike, their analyses of these texts’ popularity hinges on an underlying belief in the causal efficacy of texts, whereby the content of a text has an autonomous meaning that directly shapes the intellect of readers (and explains the rise of democratic movements.) In this view, a physical text is conceived to be only a single token of an abstract type. The materiality of the text as a book, as well as the book’s mode of production and material routes of circulation, are presumed to have no bearing on its reception. This talk interrogate these assumptions by arguing that the movement of ideas is inseparable from the multiple processes of mediation involved in the circulation of a text in book form. In particular, I examine the social practices of the production and dissemination, focusing on the material infrastructures that enable the movements of texts. I demonstrate how textual circulation is created and mediated by human agents rather than autonomous texts. Furthermore, a close examination of book production in Iran demonstrates how seemingly infinite publics are in fact limited by the material objects that are necessary to their formation, thus; I focus on seemingly mundane material concerns that bear on the text-centered decisions of Iranian publishers, especially their preoccupation with the physical properties of books. I demonstrate how texts become politically and socially salient in contemporary Iran not only because of their content, but also because of their material form and physical modes of production and circulation.

MESA 2019 Paper Proposal for Organized Panel “The Social Life of Texts and Textual Practices in Modern and Contemporary Iran” Iranian Improvisatory Theatre and the Anachronistic Notion of Censorship Parallel to the theatrical writings of the nineteenth-century Iranian intelligentsia, the improvisatory comedy of jesters and entertainers known as Taqlidchis shaped modern theatre and European-style playwriting in Iran. Improvisation, the be-all and end-all of indigenous Iranian comedy, made actors also improvise their productions of European plays and anecdotes that they learned in the Qajar court. Loosely based on the plots and mainly based on the taste of the audience and the performance style of the actors, the results were improvised trans-creations that remained an oral tradition until the contemporary period. In current scholarship, the absence of text is explained as a result of state censorship. Primary sources such as travelogues, journals of the statesmen, celebration accounts, and official orders reveal otherwise. With the premise that political history has overshadowed Iranian theatre at large, this paper challenges the conventional connections between oral theatre and state censorship in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Iran, and draws attention to the theatrical reasons for the absence of text. I discuss theatrical productions with attention to performance traditions, acting styles, ethnography, wages, and actors’ demographics. The lifestyle and work habits of actors’ theatre and the class-based comedy of Taqlid can elaborate on the notion of censorship and its relationship to text and improvisation in the nineteenth century. How did exposure to European drama change indigenous Iranian comedy? Where did the audience encounter each genre of theatre? Who were the Taqlidchis? Of all the era’s entertainers, we know most about Karim Shirehi and Esm?l Bazz?z, the more famous jesters of Naser al-Din Shah’s court. Whom the jesters joked with, whom they were allowed to and encouraged to joke with, and for what reasons play directly into court diplomacy and the politics of censorship. There is also an important economic aspect; being able to joke with the nobility and the statesmen on the spot was relatively lucrative business. How did these matters contribute to the absence of text in Iranian improvisatory theatre?