The Signifiers and Others of Religious Intelligentsia in the wake of the Islamic Revolution of Iran

Iran’s intellectual and political life in the post World War II period reflected an ideological conflict among various societal trends and forces. In the course of these confrontations, and in response to the domestic and foreign, intellectual and political necessities of this period, a new type of intellectual trend emerged, which had a religious nature and was located at the crossing of tradition and modernity. The rise of this new force can be considered as one of the most important developments in the Iranian political culture during the period. To obtain discursive hegemony, this new force turned to elaborating its discourse elements and delineating it from “Other” identities. This research focuses on the study of the “Other” from the viewpoint of this trend, taking into consideration the central signifiers of the religious intelligentsia. It tries to answer the question which factors constitute its central signifiers, as identity making elements, and which the main others of this social force are.