Poster design by Farzan Kermani[/caption][caption id="at
tachment_55049" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Poster design by Farzan Kermani[/caption]
سخنران: دکتر مارتا سیمیدچیِوا، دانش کدهٔ هنرهای آزاد و مطالعات حرفهای، دانشگاه یورک
طرفبحث: دکتر ندیم اختر، استاد مدعو زبان فارسی، گروه تاریخ، دانشگاه آشوکا
< p>رمان مدرنیستی «بوف کور» صادق هدایت الهامبخش مطالعات تطبیقی متعددی شده اس ت که توجهشان عمدتاً بر مقایسهٔ رمانهای او با آثار غربی معطوف است. اگرچه ا رجاعات به هند در این رمان فراوان است، مطالعات کمی دربارهٔ این ارجاعات انجام شده است. در این سخنرانی به این موضوع پرداخته میشود و سخنران اشیاء، نمادها و شخصیتهای مرتبط با هند را که در بوف کور برجسته شدهاند بررسی و کارکرد سا ختاری و تمثیلی آنها را تشریح میکند.
The event recording
is now available:
[embed]https://youtu.be/YCQmdCOkWvE[/embed]
The Alireza Ahmadian Lecture in Iranian and Persianate Studies presen
t: The Indian Connection in Hedayat’s The Blind Owl on May 28\, 20
22.
Sadeq Hedayat’s modernist novel The Blind Owl has inspir ed numerous comparative studies\, mostly focusing on Hedayat’s appropriatio n of Western literary aesthetics\, or on parallelisms between his novel and Western works. Although references to India abound in the novel\, few stu dies have followed the South Asian connection of The Blind Owl. S o far\, that line of investigation is associated primarily with the publica tions of Iraj Bashiri\, whose monograph The Fiction of Sadeq Hedayat (pub. 1984) posits a Buddhist inspiration behind the characters of T he Blind Owl\, and correlations between its plotline and the Buddh acarita\; while earlier articles of Bashiri’s (e.g. "The Message of He dayat\," Studies in Islam\, Vol. XVII\, January 1980\, pp. 30-56) find also parallels with The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
The p roposed paper explores another aspect of the novel’s “Indian connection”: n amely\, the role accorded to it in the emergence of modern Iranian literary culture and artistic sensibilities. This line of inquiry rests on the ass umption that The Blind Owl is not only a work of fiction\, but als o a literary manifesto—a parable about Iranian cultural reform\, which ex amines the nature of the transition from classical to modern literature and art. In the course of this exploration\, the paper surveys instances in w hich objects\, symbols\, and characters associated with India are featured in the narrative\, and examines their structural and allegorical function. In an attempt to determine the “horizon of expectations”( H.R. Jauss’ te rm) with regard to India among audiences in Iran and in Western Europe dur ing Hedayat’s sojourn in France\, where an early draft of the novel may hav e been written (see M. F. Farzaneh\; H. Katouzian)\, the paper takes into account the following: the rhetorics of the “Bazgasht” among Iranian li terary historians and the representation of the Indo-Persian cultural excha nge in influential Iranian literary compendiums\, the role of the Iranian diaspora in India in the onset of Iranian modernity\; the place of India i n the nationalist and nativist discourses of Iran\; India and Hinduism in the European Romantic imagination during the 18th -19th c. . These considerations will play a part in defining the cultural cod es\, with which the novel implicitly engages.
< strong>Marta Simidchieva has a PhD in Iranian Studies form the Ins titute of Oriental Studies\, Russian Academy of Sciences\, Moscow\; and a B A in English Literature from the University of Tehran\, Iran\, where she st arted her graduate work in Iranian Studies. She teaches courses on Islamic culture\, religion\, and civilization at the Department of Humanities\, Yor k University\, Toronto. Her research interests lie in the domain of Persian literature\, focusing on issues of continuity and change\, modernity and t radition\, literary reception\, and East-West cultural interaction.
Nadeem Akhtar obtained his PhD in Persian literature from Centre of Persian and Central Asian Stud ies\, Jawaharlal Nehru University\, New Delhi\, having worked on the charac ters of the novels of Sadegh Hedayat\, a prominent Iranian novelist. Dr. Ak htar has authored a book titled Hedayat in India\, in Persian\, pu blished by Chesmeh Publication\, Tehran\, Iran. He has also writte n various research articles and reports for journals and magazines publishe d in India and abroad\, including an entry in the Encyclopaedia Iranica . He is a member of the Association of Iranian Studies and has present ed his research articles in its biennial conferences held in Montreal and V ienna. Dr. Akhtar has also taught the Persian language in various Summer Sc hools organized for the students of George Washington University and Indian Universities in the Institute of Indo Persian Studies at Delhi\, Kolkata\, and Hyderabad\, where he serves also as Joint Secretary of the Institute.< /p>