Transnationalism in Iranian Political Thought

Ali Mirsepassi is Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University, where he is also the Director of Iranian Studies Initiative. He is the co-author, with Tadd Fernee, of Islam, Democracy and Cosmopolitanism: At Home and in the World (Cambridge, 2014), and the author of Political Islam, Iran and Enlightenment: Philosophies of Hope and Despair (Cambridge, 2011), Democracy in Modern Iran (2010) and Intellectual Discourses and the Politics of Modernization: Negotiating Modernity in Iran (2000).

• Part I. Introduction: Introduction. Islam after fall: why Fardid matters; 1. The historical context: the intellectual's modern calling; 2. 'Home' and the 'world': 'the swallows return to their nest'; Part II. The World of Young Fardid: 3. Young Fardid (1935–46); 4. Henry Corbin's 'imaginative spirituality' and Iranian 'Gharbzadegi' (Westoxication); Part III. Orientatlism and 'Spiritual Islam': Fardid, Corbin, Foucault: 5. Gharbzadegi (Westoxication); 6. The politics of spirituality: Foucault, the Iranian Revolution; Part IV. Ahmad Fardid's Philosophy after the Revolution, 1978–81: 7. The divine encounter and apocalyptic revelations; 8. A reckless mind: policies of Gharbzadegi; Part V. Fardid Remembered: 9. Interviews with Fardid's friends and critics; Conclusion. Fardid after Fardid.

'This book is a fascinating account of one of the most enigmatic intellectuals of modern Iran, the father of the idea of Westoxication. It offers an analytical frame whose implications go beyond Iran, disclosing how such anti-modern thinking is linked to the ideas of European luminaries such as Heidegger, Corbin, and Foucault. A meticulous example of scholarship.' Asef Bayat, Catherine and Bruce Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign