Behrouz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Director of the Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University
Behrouz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Director of the Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University
Mina Khanlarzadeh
Mina Khanlarzadeh is currently in the last year of her PhD at Columbia University in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS). Her areas of research are mainly focused on comparative literature and cultural studies. She finished her master’s thesis on the notion of Iranian literary representation of gendered martyrdom in the context of the formation of the revolutionary nation in the historical period between Iranian Constitutional revolution (1905-1911) and the 1979 revolution. Her PhD thesis is focused on the 20th century Iranian anti-colonial (intellectual) thoughts in comparison with Frankfurt school critiques of modernity. As a side project, she writes on the contemporary classical and popular Iranian music applying the interdisciplinary methodologies of musicology and cultural studies.
Return to the Self: Ali Shariati, Frantz Fanon and Walter Benjamin’s Critiques of Modernity
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In this paper, I will focus on Ali Shariati’s theorization of the Return to the Self. Ali Shariati (1933–1977) theorized “Bazgashte Be Khishtan,” (Return to the Self) in a speech that he had delivered at Jondishapour University in Mashhad, Iran in 1972. In “Bazgashte Be Khishtan,” Shariati presented the ideologization of Islamic beliefs and practices of the time as a way to form socio-politically conscious and responsible subjects in Iran.
I compare Shariati’s project with European and non-European critics of modernity and colonialism. Shariati, in his speech “Return to the Self,” explains that the idea of the "Return to the Self" is discussed by anti-colonial thinkers, such as Frantz Fanon, writers from other parts of the world who share a history of colonization, albeit with different particularities. I consider the way Shariati differed his project from other antic-colonial thinkers by discussing that the people of the Third World could not fight imperialism unless they first regained their cultural identity, which, in some countries, was interwoven with popular religious traditions.
I also examine Shariati’s thoughts in comparison with Walter Benjamin’s critiques of modernity. Walter Benjamin, in Thesis I of “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” suggests that, in order to be successful, historical materialism must employ the service of theology as its mastermind while keeping its pivotal role concealed, as theology at the time was considered to be “small and ugly and must be kept out of sight.” While for Shariati it is theology that is stratified and in need of anti-colonial and socialist revitalization, for Benjamin historical materialism needs theology in order to be successful. For both Benjamin and Shariati, theology is not employed to discuss or contemplate purely theological questions, but rather theology is in the service of the revolution of the oppressed. Furthermore, I examine the ways both Shariati and Benjamin theorize remembrance and memory for redemptive possibilities. At the end, I discuss the ways Shariati’s ideas influenced by Shi'ism depart his project from Benjamin’s; for that purpose, I consider Shariati’s theories of martyrdom, the formation of sociopolitical responsible subjects in the Return to the Self project, Entezar (longing), and the possibility for identification of each subject with either the messenger of the revolution or the martyr.
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