Visuality and Materiality of War and Memory: case study of Iran-Iraq War

Dr Pedram Khosronejad

WEEKS 7-9

In this course we try to explore the place and importance of visual media and material culture in keeping the memory and trauma of eight year war between Iran and Iraq (1980-88). We also try to develop the idea of anthropology of death and dying with special interest on Iranian Shiite concept of Martyrdom.

Week 7

Iran-Iraq War: Religious and Geo-political Causes

Compulsory Readings

Khosrokhavar, Farhad. 2005. Suicide Bombers: Allah’s New Martyrs. London: Pluto Press.

Khosronejad, Pedram. 2012. “Introduction”, In: P. Khosronejad (ed.) Unburied Memories: The Politics of Bodies, and the Material Culture of Sacred Defense Martyrs in Iran, special issue of the Journal of Visual Anthropology, Vol. 25, no. 1, January 2012, Taylor & Francis, U.S.A, pp: 1-25.

Seminar Film

Basidji/ Mehran Tamadon/ 2010/ 114`/ France

Week 8

The Culture of Martyrdom and Commemoration of Volunteer Soldiers

Compulsory Readings

Bombardier, Alice. 2012. “War Painting and Pilgrimage in Iran”, In: P. Khosronejad (ed.) Unburied Memories: The Politics of Bodies, and the Material Culture of Sacred Defense Martyrs in Iran, special issue of the Journal of Visual Anthropology, Vol. 25, no. 1, January 2012, Taylor & Francis, U.S.A.

Flaskerud, Ingvild. 2012. “Redemptive Memories: Portraiture in the Cult of Commemoration”, In: P. Khosronejad (ed.) Unburied Memories: The Politics of Bodies, and the Material Culture of Sacred Defense Martyrs in Iran, special issue of the Journal of Visual Anthropology, Vol. 25, no. 1, January 2012, Taylor & Francis, U.S.A.

Khosronejad, Pedram. “Remembering the Sacred Defence: Iran-Iraq War Memorials”, Anthropology News, Special Issue: Memorials and Memorialization, Volume 52, Number 6, September. 2011.

Seminar Film

Behesht Zahra: Mothers of the Martyrs / Mehran Tamadon/ 2004/ 47’/ France-Iran

Week 9

The Role of Media and Material Culture in Preserving the Memory of War

Compulsory Readings

Gruber, Christiane. 2012. “The Martyrs’ Museum in Tehran: Visualizing Memory in Post-Revolutionary Iran”, In: P. Khosronejad (ed.) Unburied Memories: The Politics of Bodies, and the Material Culture of Sacred Defense Martyrs in Iran, special issue of the Journal of Visual Anthropology, Vol. 25, no. 1, January 2012, Taylor & Francis, U.S.A.

Fromanger, Marine. 2012. “Borderlines of Private and Public Martyrs’ Representations in South Teheran”, In: P. Khosronejad (ed.) Unburied Memories: The Politics of Bodies, and the Material Culture of Sacred Defense Martyrs in Iran, special issue of the Journal of Visual Anthropology, Vol. 25, no. 1, January 2012, Taylor & Francis, U.S.A.

Seminar Film

The Faces on the Wall (Chehrehha Bar Divar)/ Bijan Anquetil, Paul Costes/ 2007/ 64’/ France

Background Reading

War and Anthropology

Curtis, Neal. 2006. War and Social Theory: World, Value and Identity, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Fried, Morton; Harris, Marvin and Murphy, Robert (eds.). 1967. War: The Anthropology of Armed Conflict and Aggression. New York: Doubleday& Company. Gill, Lesley. 2007. “Anthropology Goes to War, Again”, Focaal-European Journal of Anthropology, 50: pp. 139-145. Price, David. 2011. Weaponizing Anthropology. California: AK Press. Waterston, Alisse. 2009, An Anthropology of War: Views From the Frontline, New York and Oxford: Berghahen Books.

Shiism

Aghaie, Kamran. 2004. The Martyrs of Karbala: Shi'i Symbols and Rituals in Modern Iran. New Jersey: University of Washington Press. Aghaie, Kamran. 2006. The Women of Karbala: Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses in Modern Shi'i Islam. Austin: University of Texas Press. Thurfjell, David. 2006. Living Shi’ism: Instances of Ritualisation Among Islamist Men in Contemporary Iran. Leiden: Brill.

Iran-Iraq War

Donovan, Jerome. 2011. The Iran-Iraq War: Antecedents and Conflict Escalation. Oxford, New York: Routledge.
EL-Azhary, M. S. 2011. The Iran-Iraq War. Vol. II. Routledge Library Editions: Iran Mini-Set A: History 10 vol. Oxford, New York: Routledge.
Farrokh, Kaveh. 2011. Iran at War (1500-1988). Oxford: Osprey Publishing. pp. 342-416.
Gibson, Bryan. 2010. Covert Relationship: American Foreign Policy, Intelligence, and the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988. Santa Barbara: Praeger.
Johnson, Rob. 2010. The Iran-Iraq War. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Potter, Lawrence, Sick, Gary. 2006. Iran, Iraq, and the Legacies of War. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

War and Media

Andersen, Robin. 2007. A Century of Media, a Century of War, New York: Peter Lang.
Badsey, Stephen. 1994. “Modern Military Operations and the Media”, Camberley: Strategic and Combat Studies, occasional paper, Vol. 8, pp. 13-15.
Hallin, Daniel. 1986. The Uncensored War: The Media and Vietnam, New York: Oxford University Press.
Johnson, Samantha. 2007. “Holy War in Europe: Charles Saroléa, Everyman and the First World War, 1914-17”, In: Mark Connelly and David Welch (eds.), War and the Media: Reportage and Propaganda. London: I.B. Tauris. pp. 65-82.
Knightley, Phillip. 2002. The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Kosovo, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Maltaby, Sarah and Keeble, Richard. 2007. Communicating War: Memory, Media and Military, UK: Arima Publishing.
Moeller, Susan. 1989. Shooting War: Photography and the American Experience of Combat, New York: Basic Books Publishers.
Williams, Val. 1995. War Works: Women, Photography and the Iconography of War. London: Virago Press Ltd.