فهرست مطالب

Persian Literary Studies Journal
Volume:6 Issue: 10, Summer-Autumn 2017

  • تاریخ انتشار: 1396/08/10
  • تعداد عناوین: 12
|
  • Farideh Pourgiv Page 0
  • John Stephens Pages 1-14
    In this paper Abbas Kiarostami's films for children are discussed from the perspective of a cognitive studies approach. The crux of the argument is that the visual elements of film are essentially metonymic. Where is My Friend’s Home? has a quest-script instantiated by means of four components drawn on Brown and Babbington. Transcultural viewing is enabled by techno-cultural elements of cinema. Four filmic strategies which when brought together in film enable transcultural accessibility are used to discuss where is My Friend’s Home? One is the use of common techniques such as zoom, close-up, long takes, and dissolves. The second is the employment of conceptual metaphors (or image schemas). The third is emotional mirroring and the last is metonymy and metonymic juxtaposition. Ahmad’s quest is a quest for well-being, to help his friend maintain a place in sociality in which he might flourish, and this is an action recognizable transculturally.
    Keywords: Abbas Kiarostami, transcultural viewing, global cognitive process, Where is My Friend’s Home?
  • Amir Ali Nojoumian *, Amir Hadi Nojoumian Pages 15-32
    Abbas Kiarostami set out his cinematic experience with works for children and about them. Despite the significant place this early phase of his oeuvre possesses in Iranian cinema, little has been done to analyze the ethical relations in these works. The major claim of this research project is that there are two major ethical conditions at the heart of the poetics of ethics in Kiarostami’s films about children. In these films, children are either engaged in an act of care in order to fulfill their responsibility toward the other, or attempt to go beyond this “responsibility” by resisting and refusing the codes and laws of the “other” in order to reach a sense of individuality or singularity towards freedom. Both these seemingly opposed acts have a relation with what Emanuel Levinas calls “the encounter with alterity”. This article will first attempt to offer a modern definition of ethics and will then investigate the claim that Kiarostami’s cinema did not aim to suggest definite and absolute ethical statements but engaged the audience in the ethical questions it proposed. In other words, the article unfolds how the paradigms of this modern ethics is represented in the filmmaker’s works, and subsequently illustrates children’s role in relation to adults, families, and the educational system, and finally claims that children, encountered by the suppressive and indifferent world of grown-ups, keep finding a way to evade this dominant discourse – a way that may lead to victory or defeat.
    Keywords: Abbas Kiarostami, Ethics, Care, Responsibility to the Other, Refusal, Resistance, Childhood Studies, Film Studies
  • Sanaz Hamoonpou * Pages 33-59
    Mythological and folkloric heritages of nations have often been credited with exclusively distinct identities within the realms of literary criticism. Arguing that in a nation like Iran, the firmly visible borders that have conventionally defined mythology in disparity from folklore have been disturbed, this paper considers these two entities as intertwined and their accentuated differentiating thresholds as elapsed. This synergy can be proven as most visibly traceable in the country's literary creations produced for children in the mid and late twentieth century. The presence of this blend, at the core of this study, will be examined in one fading mythological meta-narrative which is demonstrated to be preserved in the cocoon of a common Iranian folktale. The archetypal cycle of death and rebirth, enacted through the characters of Rapithwin (the Zoroastrian god of the ideal season) and its opponent, the Demon of Winter, provides an accessible example in tracing these mythic figures within the Iranian New Year’s ritualistic folktale. The following thematic and semiotic analysis, thus, exemplifies how these characters survive within a folkloric context and the process through which they transform into newer and more creative versions in the twentieth century’s productions for children. This is clarified on a continuum with the folktale of Uncle Norouz (New Year) in Farideh Farjam, M. Azad and Farshid Mesghali’s (1972) picture book, used as the pre-text, at one end and Jabbar Baghcheban and Allan Bayash’s (1973) picture book Baba Barfi (Snow Papa) as the most creative version on the other. In order to reveal a transformative trend, two other retellings in the same context are also analysed in the middle of the continuum. The paper finally concludes that the articulated transformation in one narrative continuum can potentially represent one of the first evolutionary trends in Iranian Children’s Literature of the twentieth century.
    Keywords: Iranian Children’s Literature, Mythological Meta-narratives, Folktales, Archetypal Cycle of Death, Rebirth
  • Hossein Aliakbari Harehdasht*, Zahra Nazemi, Leila Hajjari Pages 61-83

    Critics have affirmed the existence of dual, double, or sometimes triple implied</em> audiences for a single work. Therefore, the study of the implied audience in the media and literature becomes quite essential, especially if the media is to be broadcast for very young people. Shekarestān</em>, the Iranian animated television series, broadcast on national TV channels for children and teenagers, has envisioned varied audiences within its different parts the study of which reveals the multiplex nature of its narrative as well as the narration itself. The authors have attempted to reveal how the narrative multiplicity assumes mainly double implied audiences by deploying Aidan Chambers’ theory of the implied reader as the main approach as well as that of Barbara Wall, utilizing the findings of other theoreticians of the field, too. It is hoped that the results will be useful to those who are interested in children's literature and media.</strong>

    Keywords: Shekarestān, Implied Audience, Iranian Animation, Children’sMedia
  • Farzaneh Aghapour∗* Pages 85-106

    The present paper focusing on different types of “other”, examines the representation of otherness in selected Iranian young adult fiction. Most theorists contend that the binary opposition between adolescents and adults lies on the assumption of the otherness of the young. In this view, the adolescent is ascribed “otherness” in a network of power relations. However, the adolescent should not be understood only in opposition to the adult; rather, the indirect influence of power hierarchies and families should be taken into account. The adolescent, in turn, does exert influence not only on the adult but also on power relations and hierarchies. The image of the adolescent in Iranian young adult fiction is diametrically different from the reality of the experience of the youth. While most world young adult fictions tend to highlight dialogism, disindividualized perception of power, and celebrate ethnic and racial difference, and demarginalization of the previously oppressed groups, the inclination to repress the voice of the young adults in Iranian works makes those type of fictions ‘othered’ and peripherial for young audiences. Iranian young adult fiction has rarely addressed the question of the other except in cases centering on poverty and people in the periphery of cities (in the countries) or those in villages. While there has been a recent surge of fiction dealing with issues of gender, ethnic, racial otherness, special diseases, and child labor, more creative and dialogic work remains to be done with regard to otherness caused by religion, illness, and child labor in order to truly give voice to the adolescents.

    Keywords: Self, Other, Otherness, Adolescent, Adult, Cultural Semiotics, Young Adult Novel
  • Fatemeh Farnia* Pages 107-123

    When it comes to words and writing, one cannot deny their power and the ideology they convey. And I think the situation is much graver when it comes to Children’s Literature, because of its addressee. Children and youngsters are the main target groups and because of them, it is the task of the (adult) writer to take heed of what s/he is trying to communicate to them. It is based on such presumptions that the idea of empowerment and empowering Children’s Literature emerges as significant. Therefore, any positive and creative message or idea in an oeuvre for children or young adults in Children’s Literature and Young Adult literature is counted as empowering and in order to make this idea more comprehensive, I have proposed a model for studying empowerment in fiction in my Ph.D. dissertation. The final goal of bringing up such a discussion is to demonstrate how the mediators of Children’s Literature shoulder the vital burden of empowering but not disempowering their audiences. Accordingly, in this paper, I study Arman Arian’s last novel, Resurrection Begins, in his trilogy Persians and I (1382-1384Š/2003-2005) and decide how Arian has been successful in empowering his audiences. At the end of the paper, I would put the empowering techniques together in order to form a model of empowerment for this novel. Such a reading can show the reader how diverse but possible empowerment can be.

    Keywords: Self, Other, Otherness, Adolescent, Adult, Cultural Semiotics, Young Adult Novel
  • Davood Khazaie * Pages 125-172

    This paper concentrates on a close study of the long Persian tale “Divāne-Balkh” (The Court of Balkh) having an artfully devised plot that satirizes a fake facade of justice. After an introduction which focuses on tale types ATU 890 and ATU 1534, a summary of tale is provided for those who have not read it. Then the main characters are studied. Further, a Persian old variant (“The Kazee of Emessa”), two English variants (a variant in the medieval poem, Cursor Mundi and a ballad, “Gernutus, the Jew of Venice”), and two German variants (Meistergesang, “Kaiser Karl’s Recht” and the ballad, “Kaiser Lucius’ Tochter”) are briefly reviewed. References are made to other variants and the relations between the texts are studied. The “Fleischpfand” [Flesh-bond] story and its representation in the tales in question has also been reviewed narrowly. Furthermore, it is shown that nearly all features of Bakhtin’s concept of carnivalesque-grotesque, as enumerated by Davidson (2008), are most skillfully displayed in “Divān-e Balkh”. The study of “Divān-e-Balkh” illustrates that justice is meaningless when the society is ruled by a group of scoundrels. In this story, ideology and religious jurisprudence are satirized, and the paradoxical strength-weakness of the feminine body and the way it subverts masculine gaze against masculine power is clearly displayed. Accordingly, “Divān-e Balkh” narrated by Sobhi, deserves to be considered as an exceptional tale, not only in Persian literature but also in world literature.

    Keywords: ATU 1534, Series of Clever Unjust Decisions, ATU 890:A Pound of Flesh (Fleischpfand), Mikhail Bakhtin, Divān-e-Balkh (TheCourt of Balkh), Kaiser Karl’s Recht, Kaiser Lucius’ Tochter, Sobhi, Sobhi’sTales
  • Roghaye Bahadori* Pages 177-179
  • Forughozaman Jamali* Pages 181-186