31611 - Persian Culture and Literature 2

Academic Year 2018/2019

  • Docente: Maurizio Silvio Pistoso
  • Credits: 9
  • SSD: L-OR/15
  • Language: Italian

Course contents

The "Persian" language culture at the threshold of modernity: Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

The course offers a cultural and historical profile of the Iranian world seen as a whole in a period that marks the passage between the empires of "mature Islam" and the recent historical events marked by the Western presence and controversial reflections of colonialism, which takes on peculiar aspects in the Iranian context.

Specific contents
It is assumed that the student already has a general understanding of Islamic culture, and some general knowledge of modern history in the overall sense. We will try a deeper study of the language medium, that is, of the "neopersian language", a vehicle of expression of a major literature: for both of them we assume that some basic elements are already more or less known.


Readings/Bibliography

 

 

The following texts could prove useful. Most of them are to be found in the Library of the Department or in Bologna Libraries. The teacher will be happy to help students with the support of books, articles or any material which might be useful for further research in this field (in italian or in other languages).

The Cambridge History of Iran. From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic, a cura di P. AVERY, G. HAMBLY, Ch. MELVILLE, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, Vol. 7°, 1991 provides a comprehensive outline of modern and contemporary Iranian world and is the basic reference source in this field.

Among authors from whose works is possible to choose texts for grammatical analysis are Qa'ani Shirazi (Persia, sec. XIX),n a master of persia prose as well as poetry; For contemporary Iran special attention deserves the "Travel Book" of the brothers bikers 'Abdallah e 'Isà Omidvar, in fact the unique example of this kind of "on the road" literature in Persian language. For Afghanistan is noteworth the personality of  Mahmud Tarzi (1900); For modern Central Asia of "Persian" tradition (the language is locally known as "Tajik") the personality of Ahmad Donish is probably the most innovative.

Here is a list of manuals which can prove useful for single chapters or items one can focus on:

A. PIEMONTESE, Storia della Letteratura persiana, Milano, Fratelli Fabbri Editori, 1970, 2 vols. Special reference should be made to the final chapters of II volume

F. MARDANI (ed.), Il Giardino e il Torrente. Sguardi alla letteratura persiana contemporanea, Roma, Aracne, 2016. The book contains the Proceedings of an international conference held in Bologna in march 2015. The articles it contains deal with modern "persian" literatures, focusing on Iran, with contributions on Tajikistan and Afghanistan as well.

J. RYPKA, History of Iranian Literature, Doordecht, 1968: reference mainly to pp. 305-418 and 480-605: persian literature of Central Asia (i.d. "tajik" literature), and persian literature in India.

F. MACHALSKI, La litterature de l'Iran contemporain, Wroclaw, 1965-1980, in 3 vols. Mostly focusing on poetry, provides an important poetic Anthology in the III volume.

H. KAMSHAD, Modern persian prose literature, Cambridge (U.K.), Cambridge University Press, 1967. Second part is totally devoted to Sadeq Hedayat.

B. ALAVI, Geschichte und Entwicklung der Modernen Persischen Literatur, Berlin, 1964: a precious and well informed work by an author who was himself a talented writer and lived in former DDR as political refuje.

For the modern and contemporary "iranian literatures" outside Iran the recent volume Iranian Languages and Literatures of Central Asia from the eighteenth century to the present, edited by M. DE CHIARA e E. GRASSI, Paris, Association pour l'avancement des Etudes Iraniennes, 2015, is probably the most updated source in western languages.

M.J. YA'HAQQI, Manuale di letteratura e saggistica persiana contemporanea, a cura di N.A. Kashani e R. Mauriello, Civitavecchia, Ponte 33, 2018. An useful manual on modern and contemporary literature, containing rich bibliography 

IA precious manual on tajik literature has now appeared in Italian: E.GRASSI Introduzione alla letteratura tagico-persiana (1870-1954). Dalla cultura letteraria persiana di Bukhara al canone letterario tagico-sovietico, Napoli, Università degli Studi di Napoli "l'Orientale", Series Minor, 2017, con importante e aggiornata bibliografia.

For those who can read Persian (or Persian students as well) a famous manual in two volumes is suggested, namely YA. ARIYANPOUR, Az Saba ta Nima. Tarikh-e 150 sal-e adab-e farsi, Teheran, Sherkat-e sahami-ye ketabha-ye jibi, 1975, many reprints in Iran. The text provides a detailed history of Persian literature in modern times (1800-contemporary).

 

Students who are not able to attend (a practice frankly not suggested) may contact the teacher to arrange an "alternative" program and, if it will be the case, a different range of texts.


Teaching methods

Language of teaching is in general Italian with possibly references to other languages (namely Persian or English).

The course is intended as a sequence of lessons during which the teacher will share his teaching experience in the field, as well as take advantage of any sort of question that will eventually arise from his auditory. A short course of modern Persian language (written and spoken) to be held by a mother language teacher with special qualification is also scheduled. As a form of support to the "official" teaching other events (one man shows as well as conferences, book presentations and so on) are as a rule organized by the chair of Persian, and linked with the contents of this course.


Assessment methods

The examination will test the knowledge of the course contents (lessons; individual study texts; and the handbook, and so on).

If the student achieves a complete vision of the topics discussed in class and required for the discipline, provides an effective critical commentary, shows mastery of expression and of the specific language, both written and oral, he obtains excellence in the evaluation.

Average marks will be awarded to a student who has memorized the main points of the material and is able to summarise them satisfactorily and provide an effective critical commentary, while failing to display a complete command of the appropriate terminology.

A student will be deemed to have failed the exam if he displays significant errors in his understanding and failure to grasp the overall outlines of the subject, together with a poor command of the appropriate terminology.


Teaching tools

Use of computer facilities as well as of more archaic forms of representations of items (old or even "historical" slides...) may occasionally occur.


Office hours

See the website of Maurizio Silvio Pistoso