Bio: Homa Katouzian
Homa Katouzian is a social scientist, historian, literary critic and poet. He is the Iran Heritage Research Fellow at St. Antony's College, and a Member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, as well as an honorary fellow in the Department of Politics at the University of Exeter and editor of Iranian Studies. He obtained all of his university degrees in England and became Lecturer in Economics at the University of Leeds, 1968-69, and Lecturer (later Senior Lecturer) in Economics at the University of Kent at Canterbury, 1969-1986. He has held a number of prestigious international fellowships and faculty positions. He was a Member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 2001, a Visiting Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego, in 1990, a Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1985, an Economic Consultant for UNCTAD, UN, Geneva, in 1982, a Visiting Associate Professor of Economics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1977-78, and a Visiting Iranian Fellow at St. Antony's College, Oxford in1975-76. He has published widely in English, in other European languages, and in Persian. His publications include: Iranian History and Politics: the Dialectic of State and Society (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), Sadeq Hedayat: the Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer (I. B. Tauris, 1991 & 2002), State and Society in Iran: The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (I. B. Tauris, 2000), Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran, (I. B. Tauris, 1990 & 1999), Musaddiq's Memoirs (Jebhe, 1988), The Political Economy of Modern Iran (Macmillan and New York University Press, 1981), and Ideology and Method in Economics (Macmillan and New York University Press, 1980).
Abstract
Private Parts and Public Discourses
There was a long tradition of satire, lampoon and invective in Persian literature, not least in the 19th century with poets like Yaghma Jandaqi and Qa’ani Shirazi. But the spread of such literary forms, often in verse, in the period 1900-1925 was quite extraordinary. Not only did verse satire and lampoon become popular among writers and readers alike, but much of it fell on political issues and on victims whose politics was disliked by the author. Besides, it was much more widespread than 19th century lampoons because of political chaos and the growth of popular press. During the Constitutional Revolution, Dehkhoda and Ashraf al-Din excelled in satirical literature, in prose and poetry respectively. Other political poets such as Bahar, Aref and Lahuti had made a beginning. But political satires of that period just stopped short of overt personal abuse and invective. It was after World War I that political abuse became a regular feature of journalism, and poets such as Aref, Eshqi and Farrokhi became leading authors of political invective. The movement was resumed in the period 1941-1953 with full vigour, although this time it stopped short of abusing the victims’ mothers, wives and sisters.