Mashya and Mashyana Unearthed

Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York where he is a founding member of its Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. He is the author of over 25 books, including The World of Persian Literary Humanism (2014); Persophilia: Persian Culture on the Global Scene (2015); Iran without Borders: Towards a Critique of the Postcolonial Nation (2016); Iran: Rebirth of a Nation (2017); The Shahnameh: The Persian Epic as World Literature (2019); The Last Muslim Intellectual: The Life and Legacy of Jalal Al-e Ahmad (EUP, 2021). His most recent book is Mashya and Mashyana Unearthed: Myth, Metonymy and the Unknowing Subject (EUP 2024).

• List of FiguresIntroduction: The World of Pure VerisimilitudeFrom Truth to VerisimilitudeUnder the Debris of the Fourth WallOstranenie and the Arrested Mimesis of the BodyFraming the Performances, Spacing PerformativityThe Liberating World of Pure VerisimilitudesMashya and Mashyana UnearthedPART I MEN AND WOMEN1 Men without WomenLumpens, Intellectuals, ClericsSearching for Deeper RootsFrom Lumpenism to FascismInorganic IntellectualsLumpenism in CinemaThe Mythic Gap of a Gender Imbalance2 Women without MenThe Creative Constitution of a Public PersonaKnowledge of the UnknownSeven Shades of MemoryRethinking the Human in Literary HumanismGleichschaltungWriting Women into HumanismPART II MASCULINE AND FEMININE3 Masculine/FeminineMen of Honour and Fear of CastrationThe Metaphoric BodyThe Colonised MasculinityDash Akol: The Mythic Man IdolisedContingency of the BodyIn Search of ‘Authenticity’The Dialectics of the Body’s Being-in-the-WorldSexual ThralldomMutilating the Feminine BodyWhere Men are Men …… And Women are Not Men4 Feminine/MasculineDaybreakWomen at WorkThe Mythically Pregnant RealityRe-Mythologising the RealMythologiesRitual BirthUrban LegendMeanwhile, the Ma’arefi Family ...Metonymic Mythologies of the Present5 Liberation in Three MovesThe Realism of the RealFear of the RealTowards a Neo-RealismReality under ErasureThe Taste of CherryThe Bread and the Flower PotBaran and the Native6 To Be at Home in the WorldDis-Engaging the MetaphysicalTo De-Oedipalise the OedipalRe-Configuring the BodyTrusting the CameraSubjectivity, Sexuality and the ImaginaryTowards a Counter-SymbolicVisions of the Invisible‘Semiotic Chora’PART III HOME AND EXILE7 The Cinema of SolitudeA Nocturnal JourneyIce as a Floating SignifierSimple, Solitary and SereneThe Site of the Solitary Unknowing Subject8 The Ballad of Occidental ExileThe Exile as the Unknowing SubjectExilic CinemaExile on Exile: Amir Naderi on Sohrab Shahid-SalessAmir Naderi’s New YorkBorn Again in New YorkA Migratory and Mobile State of MindOn the Poetry of Concrete and SteelSuspended of All Imported MeaningsThe Troubadour of the Occidental ExilePART IV MYSTICISM AND MYTHOLOGIES9 The World of VerisimilitudeThe Nature and Disposition of CreativityTowards a Culture of Bodily DenialsFabling the WorldThe Metaphysics of the AbsolutesSubjection and Re-SubjectionAgainst Dead CertaintiesA Material Celebration of LifeThe Sound of Gabriel’s WingTowards a Cinematic (Counter-)CulturePART V VISIONS IMPERMISSIBLE10 Visions of the InvisibleArt as PostcolonialityAgainst the Jargon of AuthenticityThe Publicity of the SpectacleCounter-Imagining the MoralBeing IranianSelf-SpectatorshipThe Aesthetic as Liberating the SubjectThe Colonial Modernity of Being IranianLooking BackThe Aesthetic and the SacredConclusion: Mashya and Mashyana UnearthedMy Philosophical Mother is a PoetOvercoming the European Sovereign SubjectThe Prose and Poetics of a Longue DuréeThe Battlefield of Pure VerisimilitudeFrom Mazdean Myth to Metonymic SubjectivitySemblance and SubjectivityPivoting Towards a Liberated Subject and a Liberation PhilosophyMythos as InheritanceNotesIndex