Varzi’s text struck a particular chord with me, being that my father was born and raised in Tehran and that I have many family members who fled Iran during the Revolution and migrated to Los Angeles. Reading about the schizophrenic nature of the youth subject who has been produced by the disparity between Islamic ideological paradigms and actual practice behind closed doors, it is interesting for me to think about how this symptom of the Revolution has been imported into the United States (within my own family). My family (cousins, not parents), being Jewish, were forced to flee Iran and leave behind everything in because of the eminent danger of their religious identities. My cousins who are probably the same age as Varzi, never speak of their lives before moving to America, but often reference the difficulties in negotiating between their compromised identities (i.e. being Jews in an increasingly Islamic country) and adopting new American identities.
As I read through the text, I was continually reminded of the Elementary Forms of Religious Life, in which the image of society is impressed back upon the individual in the form of the soul. What seems different about the subject formation in this case is the fact that there was a deliberate (versus “natural”) impression of the Islamic ideology upon the subjects of the Revolution. Meaning that, the radical changes in ideology and political structure and deliberate or forced change is obviously not as easily internalized as society that is not going through a historical rupture. The new ideological paradigms have the capacity to impress themselves upon individuals at the level of public social practice, while in private, this new subject is not a consistent result of what was expected by these changes. The engagement in premarital sex, spreading of HIV/AIDS, consumption of alcohol, and illegal drugs, all of these private practices prove the Marxist adage that men make their histories, but not exactly as they would like. The youth generation possess the agency to reject the cultural and ideological forms that have actively been impressed upon them by the new histories of the Revolution.
Thus far it seems like a common sentiment – I was prepared to love this book and came away somewhat disappointed with it. Part of my experience echoes the above noted idea that she could have said much more, but part of it may also be that some of what she said was familiar to me (and I have little familiarity w/ Iranian history/culture/politics). I’m specifically referring to the parts about Iranian young women, some of which were so reminiscent of Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran. Nafisi says something to the effect of ‘I left Iran, but Iran didn’t leave me,’ an experience that Varzi too seems to share. So on this point, maybe there’s something interesting to discuss here regarding ethnography as done by a ‘native’. Biehl wrote on Brazil, Derluguian on the Caucasus (tho not sure if this is a good example b/c he doesn’t speak explicitly about Armenia and also b/c it’s not an ethnography), Inoue on Japan, Varzi on Iran and Yurchak on the Soviet Union. What’s the draw to particular research areas/topics? What are the benefits and drawbacks of working in one’s ‘home.’ One drawback that comes to mind is what we discussed w/ Biehl, that it seemed like he was writing a kind of ‘redemptive narrative.’
Other things to talk about in reference to Varzi: **space and place -- her use and understanding of it compared to Brown’s
**her understanding and use of images compared to Klima’s
**the combination of fiction and ethnography (I liked reading it, but I’m not sure what it achieves
**and finally, Varzi notes “my own internal censor…will not allow me to make any authoritative claims on reality, and thus I use different ways and different voices to relay my ethnographic journey” (16). Does using different voices put her outside of this problem of making “authoritative claims on reality”? Andy why is she so concerned w/ not making claims?
This book, by far, was the biggest disappointment of all we’ve read this semester. I wasn’t a fan of the Derlugian either, but his was not a self-proclaimed ethnography. After hearing Varzi’s talk (despite her faux-pas of reading from her book) I was really excited about reading this. However, even after giving the book the benefit of the doubt, it failed to return in many aspects. For one, I find her use of theory very sporadic, incoherent and almost irresponsible. She drops quotes from Hegel and Benjamin, without positioning or introducing them first. One walks away with no tangible idea of her theoretical positioning. What was more frustrating, perhaps, was that the concepts she was dealing with, constructions of space/place/subject were so interesting, particularly in the case of post-revolutionary Iran, but just so poorly executed. I found connections to Brown’s construction of place, with Yurchak’s discussion of the performative and finding spaces of freedom in an oppressive state, with Klima’s use of Buddhist philosophy to replace Western theory. However in each case I found Varzi’s analysis disappointing, mediocre and just poorly executed. The themes she works with are all connected to her discussion of the construction of the Islamic citizen, but they are not woven together coherently at all. I felt that I had to be conscious of this ‘construction of citizen’ idea myself, rather than the writing itself logically making that connection. And this despite the fact that it was a ‘tell-book’ (to borrow from our discussion of Tsing as a show book dressed up as a tell book), she kept qualifying her analysis with “this shows us that…”, instead of the analysis itself ‘showing us’. Her use of Islamic mysticism also could have been so interesting, but again was not executed. I compared it with Klima’s use of Buddhist philosophy, but he was explicit in how he was (wanted to) using Buddhist philosophy as his theory, rather than using ‘Western’ theory to describe his ethnographic material. Varzi states that she aims “to narrate the political poem of the Islamic republic through the lens of anthropology, framed by the mystical allegory of the journey” (5). First, I’m not sure how she’s using the lens of anthropology, unless by this she means dropping a few quotes from Benjamin or Bataille is using a lens of anthropology. And secondly, we (or at least I did) lose track of the mystical allegory. I also found her prose incredibly banal, and disconnected. Some of the shorter vignettes didn’t even make sense. In order to mix genres as she is trying to do, I definitely think one has to be a much better writer (despite Klima’s toungue-in-cheek claim that he wouldn’t be an anthropologist if he had been a better writer). For all my hopes about this book, it disappointed on many levels.
This is the last comment I would write to you guys. I have to say that reading your comments, in many cases, is more interesting than reading the books, even in some cases, teaches me more than the books...
Varzi's idea on city and visuality actually can be much related to Debord's idea of the spectacle. Varzi quotes M. Taussig on p.112 "unconscious strata of culture are built into social routines as bodily disposition." One can easily revert this statement to "bodily disposition is built into the unconscious strata of culture." That is to say, as pointed out by Varzi, what we dress may defines who we are. (The woman can see the State in her mirror; I thought I was reading Lacan!!)
But Varzi's argument is much more complicated than a simple mimetic structure, but that the "mimetic experience" becomes the object of preception (115). In this sense the binary opposition of object/subject is destablized. To use a visual term, to see also means to be seen (c.f. Foucault's panoticon).
This reversibility of power, like the reversibility of light, provides the opportunity for "the oppressed" to use nuance to make a statement, such as, fashion statement. If you go back to Debord's idea of the spectacle, Debord makes a distinction between "concentrated spectacle" and "diffused spectacle". The case of Iran, I would consider as "kind-of" concentrated spectacle, because we can see that State make very apparent, basically "spectacular" visual statement to reinforce state power. But at the very same time, because those spectacles is so powerful and concentrated, they provide the opportunity for people to escape from them, like the minute difference in fashion. That difference (in fashion, which seems like frivolous) does make a difference (in social terms).
Of course, fashion is always interesting topic. One can go further to argue that fashion becomes important exactly because people have no other means to express themselves. Here, we have to look into Simmel's discussion of fashion. AND we should not be suprised that, at the beginning of the book. Varzi quotes Simmel "To live means to leave traces." The fashion traces can be read in this way, to show that people do live.
4 Comments:
At 8:18 PM,
Jenny K. said…
Varzi’s text struck a particular chord with me, being that my father was born and raised in Tehran and that I have many family members who fled Iran during the Revolution and migrated to Los Angeles. Reading about the schizophrenic nature of the youth subject who has been produced by the disparity between Islamic ideological paradigms and actual practice behind closed doors, it is interesting for me to think about how this symptom of the Revolution has been imported into the United States (within my own family). My family (cousins, not parents), being Jewish, were forced to flee Iran and leave behind everything in because of the eminent danger of their religious identities. My cousins who are probably the same age as Varzi, never speak of their lives before moving to America, but often reference the difficulties in negotiating between their compromised identities (i.e. being Jews in an increasingly Islamic country) and adopting new American identities.
As I read through the text, I was continually reminded of the Elementary Forms of Religious Life, in which the image of society is impressed back upon the individual in the form of the soul. What seems different about the subject formation in this case is the fact that there was a deliberate (versus “natural”) impression of the Islamic ideology upon the subjects of the Revolution. Meaning that, the radical changes in ideology and political structure and deliberate or forced change is obviously not as easily internalized as society that is not going through a historical rupture. The new ideological paradigms have the capacity to impress themselves upon individuals at the level of public social practice, while in private, this new subject is not a consistent result of what was expected by these changes. The engagement in premarital sex, spreading of HIV/AIDS, consumption of alcohol, and illegal drugs, all of these private practices prove the Marxist adage that men make their histories, but not exactly as they would like. The youth generation possess the agency to reject the cultural and ideological forms that have actively been impressed upon them by the new histories of the Revolution.
At 9:10 PM,
melinda said…
Thus far it seems like a common sentiment – I was prepared to love this book and came away somewhat disappointed with it. Part of my experience echoes the above noted idea that she could have said much more, but part of it may also be that some of what she said was familiar to me (and I have little familiarity w/ Iranian history/culture/politics). I’m specifically referring to the parts about Iranian young women, some of which were so reminiscent of Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran. Nafisi says something to the effect of ‘I left Iran, but Iran didn’t leave me,’ an experience that Varzi too seems to share. So on this point, maybe there’s something interesting to discuss here regarding ethnography as done by a ‘native’. Biehl wrote on Brazil, Derluguian on the Caucasus (tho not sure if this is a good example b/c he doesn’t speak explicitly about Armenia and also b/c it’s not an ethnography), Inoue on Japan, Varzi on Iran and Yurchak on the Soviet Union. What’s the draw to particular research areas/topics? What are the benefits and drawbacks of working in one’s ‘home.’ One drawback that comes to mind is what we discussed w/ Biehl, that it seemed like he was writing a kind of ‘redemptive narrative.’
Other things to talk about in reference to Varzi:
**space and place -- her use and understanding of it compared to Brown’s
**her understanding and use of images compared to Klima’s
**the combination of fiction and ethnography (I liked reading it, but I’m not sure what it achieves
**and finally, Varzi notes “my own internal censor…will not allow me to make any authoritative claims on reality, and thus I use different ways and different voices to relay my ethnographic journey” (16). Does using different voices put her outside of this problem of making “authoritative claims on reality”? Andy why is she so concerned w/ not making claims?
At 10:10 PM,
rheabonita said…
This book, by far, was the biggest disappointment of all we’ve read this semester. I wasn’t a fan of the Derlugian either, but his was not a self-proclaimed ethnography. After hearing Varzi’s talk (despite her faux-pas of reading from her book) I was really excited about reading this. However, even after giving the book the benefit of the doubt, it failed to return in many aspects. For one, I find her use of theory very sporadic, incoherent and almost irresponsible. She drops quotes from Hegel and Benjamin, without positioning or introducing them first. One walks away with no tangible idea of her theoretical positioning. What was more frustrating, perhaps, was that the concepts she was dealing with, constructions of space/place/subject were so interesting, particularly in the case of post-revolutionary Iran, but just so poorly executed. I found connections to Brown’s construction of place, with Yurchak’s discussion of the performative and finding spaces of freedom in an oppressive state, with Klima’s use of Buddhist philosophy to replace Western theory. However in each case I found Varzi’s analysis disappointing, mediocre and just poorly executed. The themes she works with are all connected to her discussion of the construction of the Islamic citizen, but they are not woven together coherently at all. I felt that I had to be conscious of this ‘construction of citizen’ idea myself, rather than the writing itself logically making that connection. And this despite the fact that it was a ‘tell-book’ (to borrow from our discussion of Tsing as a show book dressed up as a tell book), she kept qualifying her analysis with “this shows us that…”, instead of the analysis itself ‘showing us’.
Her use of Islamic mysticism also could have been so interesting, but again was not executed. I compared it with Klima’s use of Buddhist philosophy, but he was explicit in how he was (wanted to) using Buddhist philosophy as his theory, rather than using ‘Western’ theory to describe his ethnographic material. Varzi states that she aims “to narrate the political poem of the Islamic republic through the lens of anthropology, framed by the mystical allegory of the journey” (5). First, I’m not sure how she’s using the lens of anthropology, unless by this she means dropping a few quotes from Benjamin or Bataille is using a lens of anthropology. And secondly, we (or at least I did) lose track of the mystical allegory.
I also found her prose incredibly banal, and disconnected. Some of the shorter vignettes didn’t even make sense. In order to mix genres as she is trying to do, I definitely think one has to be a much better writer (despite Klima’s toungue-in-cheek claim that he wouldn’t be an anthropologist if he had been a better writer). For all my hopes about this book, it disappointed on many levels.
At 2:38 AM,
Jason Lau said…
This is the last comment I would write to you guys. I have to say that reading your comments, in many cases, is more interesting than reading the books, even in some cases, teaches me more than the books...
Varzi's idea on city and visuality actually can be much related to Debord's idea of the spectacle. Varzi quotes M. Taussig on p.112 "unconscious strata of culture are built into social routines as bodily disposition." One can easily revert this statement to "bodily disposition is built into the unconscious strata of culture." That is to say, as pointed out by Varzi, what we dress may defines who we are. (The woman can see the State in her mirror; I thought I was reading Lacan!!)
But Varzi's argument is much more complicated than a simple mimetic structure, but that the "mimetic experience" becomes the object of preception (115). In this sense the binary opposition of object/subject is destablized. To use a visual term, to see also means to be seen (c.f. Foucault's panoticon).
This reversibility of power, like the reversibility of light, provides the opportunity for "the oppressed" to use nuance to make a statement, such as, fashion statement. If you go back to Debord's idea of the spectacle, Debord makes a distinction between "concentrated spectacle" and "diffused spectacle". The case of Iran, I would consider as "kind-of" concentrated spectacle, because we can see that State make very apparent, basically "spectacular" visual statement to reinforce state power. But at the very same time, because those spectacles is so powerful and concentrated, they provide the opportunity for people to escape from them, like the minute difference in fashion. That difference (in fashion, which seems like frivolous) does make a difference (in social terms).
Of course, fashion is always interesting topic. One can go further to argue that fashion becomes important exactly because people have no other means to express themselves. Here, we have to look into Simmel's discussion of fashion. AND we should not be suprised that, at the beginning of the book. Varzi quotes Simmel "To live means to leave traces." The fashion traces can be read in this way, to show that people do live.
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