Iran Before the Revolution

Service Description

Iran Before the Revolution: Education, Books, and Cultural Politics in Pahlavi Iran This course explores the cultural and educational history of Iran during the Pahlavi period through the institutions, texts, and networks that transformed how Iranians learned, read, and encountered new ideas. During these decades, Iran experienced a remarkable expansion of publishing, translation, mass literacy, children's literature, schools, and universities, alongside growing international educational and cultural connections. These transformations created new communities of readers and students and new spaces for intellectual, cultural, and political debate. Books and texts produced during the period will be central to our exploration. Alongside historical scholarship, we will examine selected books, translations, textbooks, children's publications, periodicals, educational materials, and underground publications from pre-revolutionary Iran. Reading and examining these materials as historical objects will allow us to consider not only the policies and institutions that shaped cultural and educational life, but also what Iranians encountered as readers, students, teachers, writers, translators, and political activists. The course begins with the transformation of publishing and reading before turning to translation, mass literacy, textbooks, and the emergence of new forms of children's cultural production, including the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanoon). We then examine the expansion and internationalization of higher education and Iran's educational relationships with the United States. The final part of the course considers religious education and print culture, Soviet cultural and educational activities and underground publishing. Ten-Week Outline 1. Modernization, Education, and Cultural Change in Pahlavi Iran 2. The Publishing Revolution: Books, Periodicals, and New Reading Publics 3. The Franklin Book Programs: Translation, Publishing, and the Cultural Cold War 4. Translation, World Literature, and the Circulation of Ideas 5. Mass Education and the Politics of Access: Literacy Campaigns, Textbooks 6. Kanoon: Children' s Literature and the Making of New Readers 7. Iranian Universities, International Students, and Iran-U.S. Academic Relations 8. Religious Education, Seminaries, and Print Culture 9. The Soviet Union, Leftist Books, and Competing 10. Student Activism, Censorship, and the Underground Publishing Sphere