jalal sokhanvar

The Butlerian theory of performativity and subversive Performative acts has been always helped to consider the situation of female gender construction in the heteronormative cultures. The situation of male gender identity and roles in the bipolar cultures has not yet been studied and the hegemonic functional context of the heterosexuality was not considered to be effective in the construction of male gender identity and roles. In the light of Judith Butler’s theory, different male individuals are coming into consideration and the complimentary parts to the theory of performativity will be revealed.

Through the lens of spatial studies expounded in human geography, this paper aims to investigate the dynamics of space and place in the metropolitan context of two twentieth-century novels set in contemporary Sydney titled Indelible Ink (2010) by Fiona McGregor and Five Bells (2011) by Gail Jones. The characters' interactions with city spaces and places will be studied to examine the effects of spatial experience on their lives. Inter-related notions of sense of place, place identity, and topophilia are analyzed in the light of theories expounded by thinkers including Yi-Fu Tuan and John Agnew. This is complemented by an examination of the impacts of landmarks as iconic public spaces on the characters employing ideas put forth by Christophe Den Tandt. One of the conclusions the paper reaches is that characters of both novels fail to establish or maintain stable bonds with places of their dwelling and cityspaces, as a result of which, their sense of place as well as their inner peace and security are disturbed. When place identity is undermined, they suffer from a sense of dislocatedness and placelessness.

William Shakespeare, the Renaissance Dramatist, Influenced by the Bible, the Middle Age-Crusade-Renaissance relationship between England and Islam, and knowledge of Latin, with religious debates, inaugurates a new Islamic discourse in the tragedy of Hamlet based on the Holy Qur'an. In his discourse, the nature of the man, as the pure God’s creature, is cognized through the existence of vice and virtue of the soul, and the inherent tendency of the soul for virtuous perfection even after death, for some human beings, which is called evolution of the soul, thus re-creates a good human. In this metaphysical approach, based on physics, the relationship between matter and form is like the intrinsic relationship between body and soul in which the soul as the essence and body form, has endowed with movement and evolution, and in addition to life-giving, identifies the changing matter and body to which it always belongs. This is called hylomorphism which is the basis of Substantial motion, physical resurrection, and causality. Aristotle's theory of hylomorphism and Mulla Sadra’s Islamic views are examined in this religious discourse. This research results in, inter alia, the re-presentation of Muhammad (PBUH) and depletion of constant accusations.

Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, is the founder of Islamic philosophy including transcendental wisdom while Christian thoughts have not been influenced by the Greek philosophies (Brague 252). Mulla Sadra as the founder of Quranic thought succeeded in uniting the four currents of thought, namely theology, mysticism, Plato’s, and Aristotle’s. Mulla Sadra’s thoughts are based on the Shiite religion of Islam including the principles of the Quran, Hadith, reason, and consensus leading to human salvation. Mulla Sadra’s philosophy is specific to the Quran in terms of an all-inclusive essential change such as ascending and descending purgatory and substantial change in everything, constant and new occurrence, and God as the pure cause (existential ontology). Additionally, purgatory in Islam is a place such as the grave where the souls of dead bodies reside (BRILL 100). William Shakespeare, the renaissance dramatist, was affected by the Anglo-Islamic rapport from the Crusades to the16th. Century renaissance in which different attitudes to Islam and Muhammad (PBUH) have been held. The allusion to Muhammad’s name is testified completely only in the Holy Quran and not the Bible. The Holy Quran was translated into Latin almost 5 decades earlier than Shakespeare’s time, and Shakespeare knew fully the Latin language. To get to know Bible, one should be familiar with the Holy Quran. The renaissance period was the rebirth of ancient Greek thoughts inter alia Aristotle, Plato, etc. pinpointing the evolution of man’s soul. Shakespeare attempts to inaugurate an Islamic discourse based on the evolution of man’s soul in this world and purgatory for some men to reach a virtuous perfection which results in a variety of findings.

Dolat Abadi (1388) in comparing Hamlet with Imam Hossein, considers both martyr and hero fighting against evil and cruelty traced in all human society which is targeted at accomplishing an ideal, religious and virtuous morality. This is deeply rooted in the mind of a true man which bespeaks the inclinations of a virtuous soul as well. Thind (2014) represents Hamlet as a true religious hero who has a faith in Christianity and the doctrine of the renaissance. Therefore, he is precluded from committing any evil action or crime for his revenge. In other words, his revenge is carried out for a promising achievement based on religion which destroys evil and leads towards virtue and morality. This revenge tragedy is different from its contemporary tragedies in terms of its moral and virtuous predispositions.

Considering Shakespeare’s view seems to manifest the Islamic Philosophy of Mulla Sadra originated in and was proposed earlier by the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, whose philosophy is based upon physics regarding the dynamic relationship between matter and form as an embodiment of body and soul, a comparative philosophical methodology hinging upon a spiritual-religious outlook has been selected for this study. It suggests, on the one hand, the antiquity of (Islamic) philosophy founded on the Holy Qur’an and Hadith with its specific categories hinging on the principles of existence and essence including God’s existence as the pure and first cause (existential ontology), and constant and new occurrences in substance as essential change dedicated to the Qur’anic thoughts, and on the other hand, the significance of the inspiring Greek thought. The philosophical theories of Mulla Sadra and Aristotle will be the foundations for our research method which are applied in the content analysis as observed in the behavior of characters in the tragedy.

The tragedy of Hamlet exhibits a virtuous perfection and enhancement of the soul for some men before death and in purgatory based upon the Islamic philosophy of Mulla Sadra which is rooted in the ancient Greek philosophies. Such a substantial change in man’s soul will bring about a myriad of findings among which one is noteworthy, i.e. a virtuous re-presentation of prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and depleting affronts carried against him by the west unaware of Islam and Muhammad.

Judith Butler efforts to highlight the significant role of the cultural heterosexism in the construction of female gender identity and roles by referring to repetitive acts through abjection, continuity among sex, gender, and sexual desire, interpellation, and exclusion of female gender . Tennessee Williams in his masterpieces depicts the method of gender constructedness years before Butler and beyond her theory. This research intends to study the nominated plays by Williams and Butler’s theory of female gender construction to reveal a better understanding of female characters and a more genuine understanding of the manner of cultural heteronormativity in such constructedness. Butler argues that parodic acts terminate in the binaries of man/woman, male/female, and masculine/feminine which reassures the bipolarity of the heterosexist cultures. In the plays, the concept of abjection can be traced, for both heterosexual and homosexual female gender identity and roles. According to Butler, the male gender subject is the only accountable case that are not the constituent part of cultural constituent in defining the inferior female gender identity. The situation of female subjects in these plays demonstrates that female gender individual has a share in the construction of heteronormativity. Some female identities receiving and doing the reiterative cultural acts, take the function of the hegemony of heterosexism and behave other female gender identities as the minor personalities who should be defined as the lower-rate gender identity and roles; besides, the identical female individual represents heteronormativity and restricts herself in the binaries to construct her own gender identity and roles.

The present paper offers a comparative analysis of the ideas of “man’s rationality” and “body-soul dualism” from the perspectives of Sa’di, the great Persian classical poet of the 13th century and Alexander Pope, the outstanding English writer and poet of the eighteenth century, based on the American school of comparative literature. The works of the two poets manifest their deep preoccupation with the question of ‘human nature’ and demonstrate that their ideas have emanated from two important sources: The Holy Scriptures and the traditions of classical philosophy. The significance of this study is twofold: it displays the approach of the two poets from two different cultures to the eminent subject of human nature and it further highlights the common grounds between the fields of literature, religion, and philosophy in Persian and English literature. The paper illustrates that although Sa’di and Pope come from two different religious and philosophical backgrounds, they are similar in their fundamental reflections and principle ideas on human nature.

William Shakespeare, the English bard of Avon, inaugurates a Feminist approach in Love’s labour’s Lost </em>which is comparable with the Holy Quran</em>’s mandate and Hadith. He reminisces Muslim association through deeply-seated words of the Elizabethan era including Ethiop, black, moors, Africans and so on in order to signify in his work the Islamic concern for the Muslim women in terms of respect, love, and revival of rights. Riffat Hassan’s theology of honor killing and progressive Islam could be argued to be in thematic affinity with Gayatri Spivak’s concepts of ethical responsibility of the agents and subalterns. The area of concern in Shakespeare’s encompasses men’s sanction in shunning women, intellectual men vs. slave, black and inferior women, and love, marriage and infatuation with women. This is in line with Quranic principles namely poor Muslim lifestyle vs. the affluent pagan hegemony, Muslim’s faith, migration to from Ommat, reception by the hegemonic pagans, Muslims’ conquests and Islamic enhancement. The area of concern in Shakespeare’s play includes men’s sanction in shunning women, intellectual men versus the black and inferior women, love, marriage, and infatuation with women. This approach is in line with the life style of the poor Muslims as opposed to the affluent pagan hegemony, and includes faith, migration, and toleration for the sake of Muslims’ conquests.

This is a comparative study of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea and Iris Murdoch’s Under the Net. The main focus is on the role of trauma in the creation of unreliable narrators. Both Sartre and Murdoch have witnessed the horrors of World War II and it seems that their narratives are affected by such a terrible event. The characters look traumatized and suffer from the burden of the past which has never left them alone. In other words, past events have formed their identity and have rewritten their personality under the situation of World War II. Here, with the help of Wayne C. Booth’s theory of unreliable narrator, the narrators of the selected novels are scrutinized at the social and political contexts of the novels. Accordingly, considering this context and its consequent trauma, the research tries to reveal the presence and function of the unreliable narrators in the selected literary works.

The present study is a comparative study of Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Age of Reason and Iris Murdoch’s The Bell. The main focus is on “unreliable narrator” which is a popular concept at the present time when humanity enjoys manipulating each other and suffers himself from misunderstandings. Wayne C. Booth was the earliest theorist who provided a practical definition of “unreliable narrator” and his theory is considered as the framework. Previously, the studies only focused on homodiegetic narrators but, here, other narrative techniques are analyzed. In other words, the point of view and the presence of multiple perspectives and voices are crucial in the analysis of unreliable narratives. These narrative techniques and unreliable narrators are scrutinized at the social and political contexts of the novels. Accordingly, New Historicism, specifically Stephen Greenblatt’s theory, is used as another approach to reveal the presence and function of the unreliable narrators in the selected literary works.

There are three distinct concepts discussed in world poetry which are the trinity of creation: God, Man, and the Universe. The mystics, including great poets, as well as classical philosophers and theosophists, have integrated the three concepts into One who is the final unique essence and the source of all Truth, the First Cause and the Last Return. The descriptions presented by Sa’di and Pope to introduce God, clearly reveal their implicated belief in the theory of ‘the unity of being’, presented first by Parmenides, the Pre-socratic philosopher. This theory is a common heritage of human theosophy and there is no difference here between the east and the west, the Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Age of Reason. Sa’di and Pope, well-nourished in the tradition of divine truth and divine unity, regard man and all the universe as created by the unique and Necessary Being who is God, and view the universe as the emanation of that Supreme Being and see all the creatures as singing devotional hymns in a ‘cosmic prayer’. This philosophical consciousness of God has extended to cover the theme of ‘divine providence and wisdom’ which has been discussed all through history amongst philosophers, theologists, and poets. One can refer to Plato and Aristotle, Aquinas and Augustine, Dante and Milton as exemplars discussing the question in detail. The present paper treats the controversial theme in the works of Sa’di and Alexander Pope, and endeavors to demonstrate the essential affinities and similarities in the ideas of the two poets and to expose their differences.
 

This study is a descriptive and library-based research. It is carried out in the light of the American school of comparative literature and the dominant approach is taken from the field of comparative literature itself, namely thematic. S. S. Prawer (1925-2012), the eminent author of Comparative Literary Studies: An Introduction (1973) has identified five different overlapping areas for the exploration of themes: a) the representation of natural phenomena man’s reaction to them; or of eternal facts of human existence; or of perennial human problems and patterns of behavior b) recurring motifs, c) recurrent situations, d) the literary representation of types, e) the literary representation of named personages (99-100). The present research falls under the second category and attempts to analyze the poems of the two bards to reveal the similarities as well as the differences between the two thinkers in their justification of God’s providence.
 

In the realm of literature, many spiritual poets of the world have been preoccupied with the concept of God and His penetration into the universe. Such poets have not questioned the existence of God and have not accordingly offered any demonstration to prove His existence; they have rather offered hymns in his praise. Sa’di’s Bustan opens with an extensive list of God’s transcendent and immanent attributes followed by lofty laudations of Him. Similarly, Pope’s transcendental poem, “The Universal Prayer”, is perhaps the best example of his devotional expressions on God. It is a sublime encomium of the Almighty as the sole source, first and final cause of creation who is beyond all comprehension.
Besides such majestic praises, the main item of the theological agenda of Sa’di and Pope is, in the words of John Milton, ‘to justify the ways of God to man’ and to demonstrate how everything is right with the world. The clearest account of God’s providence and predestination of all that occurs to man has been given in the Quran in Chapter Hadid 57, verses22-23. The first verse confirms the basic idea that God has written down all that is going to happen and the second verse is a consolation for people that they should not grieve on whatever they have failed to achieve, nor should they take vain pride in the bounties bestowed on them. Sa’di, believing in the first idea, uses the second as the basic moral wisdom of why people should submit themselves to the will of God. In Persian culture, the word hekmat is used to refer to some hidden reason which exists behind all events but it is not to be seen by everyone. This is a belief that all occurrences which does not win our favor is somehow a blessing in disguise and has a justification. Sa’di has tried to convince his readers of the divine wisdom in all aspects of life, although they cannot comprehend it. He holds that: ‘It is an instance of wisdom if the Creator / Causes a servant to make the general welfare his special duty’. Many adversities, hardships, and deprivations that befall man are truly privileges unknown to him. Sa’di has tried to justify God’s providence as opposed to man’s desires and show the incongruity between God’s omniscient design and man’s parochial self-love. This idea has been repeatedly confirmed by Sa’di in a number of insightful tales.
In one qasidah which concentrates directly on preaching, Sa’di criticizes those people who find unfair faults with the design of creation and ‘deem the painter unskilled’ and clarifies that the unskillfulness comes from their own crooked observation. Accordingly, all the plans of God are rationalized in the light of divine wisdom, all seeming evil is caused by some good reason, and the contrast between good and evil is the result of man’s ill judgement and failure to understand the insight in the providence of God.
In his well-known philosophical poem An Essay on Man, Pope argues that man must accept that in the scale of creation there is a special ‘rank’ and place assigned for him. He demonstrates that whatever man regards as imperfection and misplacement is truly in the right place when considered in relation to the position of other creatures. This great fact is sufficient to justify all man considers to be inharmonious, for as Pope clarifies: “Tis a part we see, and not a whole” (line 60). Pope deems that God has ‘hidden the book of fate’ from all creatures except for the allowed pages which belong to the present time. And as God has concealed the knowledge of man from beasts, similarly, he has covered the eyes of men from the knowledge bestowed to spirits and angels. Otherwise, none could bear the plight he has to suffer on earth. The word ‘suffer’ is the key to God’s rule of hiding future events. Pope explains that if the lamb that is being taken to the slaughterhouse would know of its preeminent fate, it would be so frightened that it would flee and it would not engage itself in playing and skipping (lines 80-82). But out of God’s grace, the lamb remains unaware of its destiny and can enjoy its life to the last moment. Accordingly, Pope advises man to be wiser and not to weigh his raw opinions against God’s comprehensive design for creation, and avoid calling God’s works imperfect. For Pope, the source of all wrong judgments of man is pride and vanity. This pride ascends even to heaven and interferes with celestial dwellers, and commands that man should ascend to the level of angels and angels should achieve the status of gods. Pope enlightens man that “The first Almighty Cause / Acts not by partial, but by gen’ral laws” (line 146). Thus, if man submits himself to such a wise and omniscient providence, he will have no objection to whatever bestowed on him or whatever reserved from him and will see the truth that “Whatever is, is right” (line 294).
 

The affinities of thoughts and ideas between Sa’di and Alexander Pope originate from the similar religious faith and theological outlooks they have inherited. They have submitted themselves to the main principles and frameworks of their respective Islamic and Christian creeds which recommend the essential belief in Spirituality and the general theological ideals shared by all religions throughout history. That is why the five centuries that divide the two poets and their various social lives have not affected their basic intellectual views. The differences and incongruities, however, are generally derived from their vehicles of expression rather than the tenets and thoughts. Additionally, Sa’di is more like a preacher and story-teller, while Pope is a more like an academic teacher dedicated to logical arguments for convincing his audience. Whereas Sa’di’s ideas are scattered throughout his works, Pope has presented his outlooks in a consistent and systematic way.

This article aims at studying ecofeminism in Vladimir Nabokov’s Laughter in the Dark. Nabokov’s works have been the matter of different perspectives since they have been created but this article claims that what has so far been neglected about his works is that Nabokov’s novels pay respectful attention to nature and its problems. Ecofeminism, a branch of ecocriticism, has been created and widened recently by some prominent thinkers like Susan Griffin and Elizabeth Bishop. In the context of ecofeminism, the similarities between nature and women in having two opposite sides is the site of authorship for some contemporary writers. Nature and women, according to them, are both healer and killer simultaneously. The article shows how these two sides are presented in Nabokov’s novel, and, by means of which it, tacitly, claims that Nabokov, as in his other works, worships nature and its elements.

This study aims at investigating the production of space in Zero K (2016) in terms of Henri Lefebvre’s spatiology. Lefebvre conceptualized space as being comprised of three moments: the spatial practices, the representations of space and spaces of representation; on the one hand, and the conceived-the perceived-the lived, on the other hand. The analysis demonstrates that the characters create their own spaces individually or collectively, each in their own way. On a broader scale, the novel divides into two kinds of space: the abstract and the differential. But on a closer analysis, the character-narrator, on the one hand, uses a set of literary practices such as climax, anticlimax, register shifts, description, humor, iron, incongruity, word coinages and plays, and , on the other hand, everyday practices such as love, walking, bodily activities to defend himself against the rampant growth of the abstract space. In addition, the very act of novel writing could be taken as producing spaces of representation against the representations of space in the society. In the light of lefebvrean spatiology, some of the literary techniques could be redefined as space-producing ideological practices, too.

Early feminist criticism was by large exclusionary. Educated, middle-class white women initiated theories about members of their own status and ignored women’s varied ethnic, cultural racial and class identities. Although white feminists’ sexual and social self-concept stood in opposition to the dominant male-centered canon, the issues of race and class were briefly mentioned. That is why there has been an attempt in the recent years to form a feminist theory which investigates notions of race, class and gender along with the universal female problems. This project began with the necessity of developing a parallel tradition located in the unique shared political, social and economic experiences of black women. Alice Walker’s womanism is such a project aimed at the reconstruction of black female identity. Her womanist stance is a universal, non-separatist approach which explores the importance of community, wholeness and female restoration. But womanism is just the preliminary point of departure. She carried on her female empowering project and introduced eco-spirituality as an embodiment of dynamic energy, separate from the physical body, which is essential for the individual’s well-being. As part of the argument presented in this paper is to address the process of the reconstruction of the imposed identity and subjecthood of the black women, Judith Butler’s notion of “agency” is also used by the researcher to scrutinize black women’s potential for subversion and re-signifying the regulatory gender constructions to achieve agency. The present paper seeks to address Alice Walker’s 2005 novel, Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart in terms of three basic critical concepts: womanism, eco-spirituality and agency. The newly-acquired agency promoted the characters to destabilize the symbolic, oppressive order, survive trauma and revive the transformative energy to work against fragmentation.

Cultural-environmental Discourse in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale The present article approaches Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, (1985) to incorporate a variety of related discourses that enter into a dynamic relationship with current ecocritical theoretical discourses. In a futuristic society, the pollution of natural world along with the growth of religious fundamentalism results in the sterility of most the members as the manifestation of entropy. It also suggests how the author’s conception of gender-environment connections correspond to the ideas held by ecofeminists. In this story, the patriarchal monopolization over women and nature points out wherever women are degraded, nature is exploited too The specificity of Atwood’s interest in environmental issues creates a symbiotic relationship between nature and culture as connected entities that constantly shape and reshape each other. Generally speaking, this study examines ecological values as well as the ideological vehicles for any position on the interactions in human-environment to reflect how literature participates in and interacts with the entire ecosphere. Atwood’s survived character in the novel is a woman who imagines herself in relation to nature and resists the controlling aspects of culture through narrating her story. Key Terms: Ecocriticism- Ecofeminism-Entropy-Margaret Atwood-Survival.

The present paper aims address the Lacanian concepts of the tyche (tuche) and the automaton in Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion (1987), and to explore the way the whole novel is based on moments of chance, peril, and jeopardy which are traceable in the transformation of automaton into tyche. Illuminating the track of automaton into tyche, the study endeavors to compare reading women’s writing style to experiencing tyche while going through other styles could be comparable to an automaton. A historiographic metafiction, The Passion is divided into four seemingly unrelated sections connected by the elements of chance and calamity. Via experiencing traumatic happenings, the characters face the incursion of the Real into the Symbolic Order (Tyche), considered beyond the determinations of the Symbolic. Observing the mass slaughter and deplorable death of his comrades, Henri is unable to return to the Symbolic and is obliged to remain in the asylum as a mentally disordered person. On the contrary, Villanelle manages to free herself from the post-traumatic stress and commences a new life.

In the age of considerable progress in technology by simulation, machines have become the extension of human bodies and have blurred the boundary between nature and culture. The researcher investigates Margaret Atwood’s environmental concerns who demands a theoretical framework regarding the cultural system as ecological phenomena. Throughout this article, the researcher re- evaluates what it is to be human in Oryx and Crake (2003) and attempts to define the posthuman condition and the notion of ecposthumanism. It also investigates the deconstruction of the humanist vision through such a posthumanist reading of Margaret Atwood’s novel and highlights the possibility of the posthuman and the human being able to survive together in a dystopia created by harsh intervention of human to the realm of nonhuman. The researcher through the lens of posthumanism as one branch of ecocriticism investigatesAtwood's characters and the role of technology and nature.

The present article attempted to analyze the character's "subjectivity" in Samuel Johnson's The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia under the aegis of Deleuze and Guattari's theory of "subjectivity." Doing so, the character's desires have been considered to clarify if their desire is the product of a lack (as psychoanalysis insists), or it is productive (as Deleuze and Guattari believe). By focusing on Deleuze and Guattari's famous syntheses in Johnson's Rasselas, it was revealed that it is the energy of the desire that sets Rasselas and his fellow travelers in motion to follow their quest. Moreover, it was cleared that their desire does not get repressed in the triangular family relation; instead, it is the social relations which is the main cause for repressing their desire, and the character's subjectivity is constructed based on the repression society imposes on them. In fact, the character's desire is not compatible with the social requirements such as social differentiation, and ideology, thus, desire gets repressed, and each repression renders the character "a" subjectivity specific to that experience.

Given the socioeconomic conditions of the African Americans in the mainstream American culture, the African American authors have almost always had to grapple with the issue of identity and subjectivity. Toni Morrison, as an African American woman novelist, has gone beyond the issue of identity within the paradigm of hegemony and counter-hegemony to throw into relief the multivariate character of identity formation in African American community. In an attempt to investigate the identity formation in Toni Morrison’s Paradise(1997), the present article has selected the analy-tical framework of Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s Discourse theory and Hallidayan Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). After analyzing the linguistic and discursive practices of the novel through analytical concepts of Laclau and Mouffe, it is concluded that subjectivity in Paradise is a construct contingent on the overdetermination of a myriad of discourses and relations of power which operate within the African American community. Therefore, subjectivity is a political formation.

The major aim of this study is to show the impact of myth of Scheherezade on the postmodernist narrative style of John Barth. It also tends to subvert Barthian subverted mythology or worldview in the light of Paul de Man''s deconstructive perspectives. The decentralization of what Barth considers as the replenishment of used-up literary conventions in its turn can be decentralized by de Manian rhetorical reading of the text. This article is a reading of Chimera as related to a two-step de Manian reading strategy; first، the detection of figures of speech or topological language and the aberration of each trope، second، the exemplification of allegory of reading in each of the novellas. As de Man proclaims، all the languages are figural، in other words، constituted of denominative and conceptual spheres. The conflict between the two is never resolved within a text and culminates into an aberrant aporia. Such a loophole is what causes the impossibility of reading in any text.