- Kamran Talattof
- University of Arizona
- "Simin Behbahani's Work and Sociopolitical Discourse: A Poet for All Times"
Kamran Talattof (Ph.D. Michigan 1996) is an associate professor of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of: The Politics of Writing in Iran: A History of Modern Persian Literature (Syracuse University Press); Modern Persian: Spoken and Written (with Don Stilo, and Jerry Clinton, Yale University Press); The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric (with Jerry Clinton, Palgrave Macmillan); Contemporary Debates in Islam: An Anthology of Modernist and Fundamentalist Thought (with Mansoor Moaddel, St. Martin Press); and Essays on Nima Yushij: Animating Modernism in Persian Poetry (with Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, Brill). He is also the co-translator of Women Without Men (with Jocelyn Sharlet, Feminist Press) and Touba and the Meaning of Night (with Havva Houshmand, Feminist Press). Many of his articles focus on issues of gender, ideology, culture, and language pedagogy. In addition to his language textbook, he has also produced CD and DVD materials on the instruction of the Persian language.
- Abstract It is perhaps the professional desire of most literary critics to see poetry as an autonomous genre and to get involved in structural and semiotic analyses. However, Persian poetry from its inception has always reflected the social and political issues of its times, and critics, have always had that quality in mind as they contextualized these works. In contemporary times poetry as well as other literary genres have more than ever showed close affinity with the sociopolitical discourse of their time. Nevertheless, there are writers whose works gain a sense of perpetuity as they reflect the broader questions of humanity. The work of Simin Behbahani is an exemplary case. Three broad discourses can be distinguished in her literary works, and in each one of them, she seems to be among the most active. These discourses include pre-revolutionary committed literature, postrevolutionary feminism, and in recent years, and along with a whole new generation of writers, the tendency to address some of the most urgent cultural aspects of Iranian society. However, because of her innovative approach to poetics, her deep understanding of humanism, and her outspoken style, Simin Behbahani remains highly ranked among Iran's contemporary poets whose works will stand the test of time. These qualities are clearly evident in her prose works as well.
