Ah, not exactly. I noted that Rowe wrote, “Nafisi is free to write what she wishes and advocate whatever retrograde and fallacious aesthetic ideas she chooses,” and I asked, only half-facetiously, whether the idea of the aesthetic as a relatively autonomous realm might be one of those ideas.

As for Dabashi: let’s say I grant your point that there’s more going on in Iran than Nafisi acknowledges in her book. How exactly does that justify Dabashi calling her a “comprador intellectual” who is no different from Lynndie England? For another look at Dabashi’s relation to Iranian dissidents and feminists, check this out this hot-off-the-presses review. I look forward to seeing abb1 follow Dabashi in denouncing Akbar Ganji, Shirin Ebadi, Roya Hakakian, and Azadeh Moaveni as useful idiots as well, because I gather that that’s just the kinda thing he does. I’ve come to appreciate it.

Which reminds me that if Laleh is right to suggest, in comment 56, that Nafisi faced no penalties for teaching the novels she taught, then she and Papan-Matin are either deeply mistaken or simply lying. That would be interesting!

Iranian poet Friday Hassanzadeh said, “In recent years, women writers [in Iran] have been more popular than men writers for they are better to able to express the hidden realities of family and society. Women writers like Roya Pirzad,Fariba Vafi, and many others have won the most famous literary prizes and people buy their books in spite of financial problems. The books of women writers reach the 20th or 30th edition within a very shorttime. But as for poets, our great poets are still Forough Farrokhzad and Simin Behbahani from the 1940s and 1950s. Meanwhile, among our
great directors, women like Rakhshan Bani Etemad, Samira Makhmalbaf,and Tahmine Milany have achieved international success and fame. Andour best playwrights have been women too. Increasingly, more women than men are studying in universities.

Dubashi, Hassandeh et al have said there are many courageous women in Iran—writers, film directors, playwrights. They have participated in resistance to the ayatollahs for decades, including the decade after Nafasi left. Nafasi didn’t stand alone the way she portrays in her memoir which I find highly inaccurate. Dubashi and other says if one looks Irananian woman’s huge resistance to the ayatollahs, then the portrait Nafasi makes in her memoir of the single women leading her band of students is very limited one.

In the time when Bush et al. has been calling Iran the Axis of Evil, then getting an accurate account of that country is very important. Nafasi does not give us that accurate account we need.

But that’s OK —it doesn’t really matter. Everyone knows that once Seth Edenbaum weighs in, the thread is over.

in the span of the same period of time (the 1990’s) that Azar Nafisi deigned to live in Iran and sought to save the soul of a nation by teaching a privileged few among them “Western Classics,” Iranians had produced a glorious cinema that has captivated the globe in awe and admiration, produced a feminist press and literature rarely matched in any other country, and elected more women to their parliament than those in the United States. The [by Nafasi] narrative eradication of Persian literature and Iranian culture while writing in an entirely Iranian context mutates into a more global dismissal of world literatures at large, any literature or culture that might pause and pose an element of resistance to imperial designs and their ideological foregrounding.

I didn’t like Reading Lolita in Teheran for the same reason Dubashi didn’t. Nafasi sounds like she and one professor/friend at the university are the only two feminists in the nation. Her telling of her own political history is really muddled. She was in a far left Iranian group in the U.S. and supported the revolution against the shah. Nafasi’s book gives a particularly bad account of the politics of the Iranian revolution. I’ve seen some Iranian feminist cinema and it’s much better than Nafasi’s book.

And attacking Rowe’s essay based on a couple quotes taken out of context is really unfair.
I was a student of Rowe also.

Which is exactly why it is exactly like Inspector Gadget. He has all the powers but his girly sidekick saves the day, and at the end of every episode, regular as clockwork, he gets the credit. I was sighing with disappointment at that when I was 10 years old. Harry Potter is the same.

And yeah, this may be a genre convention, but Rowling should know better. It could have been hermione potter and Harry whatever-her-surname is. But it isn’t. So bugger you, Ms. Rowling.

Well, I dunno. I think its pretty obvious that she’s doing both: in crippling the superhero (which Hermione pretty clearly is) she’s also crippling the woman.

But I guess I put the point I was trying to make a bit ineptly. I wasn’t trying to say – although maybe it came across that way – that it doesn’t matter that JKR cripples Hermione, because its just an instance of a standard genre convention.

What I was trying to say is that Rowling has got herself into a bit of a pickle by endowing Hermione with all the powers she does, and that the explanation of the crippling is not some kind of underlying misogyny (which on the other hand I think might be going on in Disney)but that – having set the scenario up as she has – is that that’s what the genre then requires.I do agree, though, that its problematic that in doing that she is thereby crippling a strong female character.

I also think its intersting that the reason there’s any sort of problkem here at all probably derives from something which sg draws attention to: ’ the public school environment… creates a boys’ own adventure atmosphere ’ – setting up Hermione as the really impressive character strikes me as an attempt to undermine (subvert?) this, although in a way that is problematic because of all the other stereotypes it plays into.

In other words – writing fiction sets all sorts of intellectual challenges and in an extended serial some of the solutions one comes up with cause one problems later on – and what makes it especially difficult is that one can’t go back and adjust the beginning later on.

BTW - if there’s anyone out there thinking that there’s something peculiar about devoting so much thought to popular culture and to children’s books in particular: if it was good enough for Plato, it’s good enough for me.

What is the significance of the open letter to Princess Farah
“Kindly Come and Do Us a Favor, Oh Lady” from one of the women’s rights activists arrested in March of this year? Why was Azadeh Forghani less than impressed by the gesture by her one time ruler?

What does it mean to listen to The women of Hamas. Is this feminism?

These are all questions of experience and context. And a little empirical study. Are Azar Nafisi represent the same interestsas the widow of the Shah? I don’t know, but it’s a good question. And it’s one the author of this post ignores, because he doesn’t think he needs to pay attention.
Ideas aren’t enough.
From the first comment:

“this all seems like a classic example of the ivory-tower pseudointellectualism of which the professoriate is so often accused.”

yup. Again

Nonetheless, in tandem with the public school environment it creates a boys’ own adventure atmosphere which I hate.

SG and #55, yeah, Rowling sometimes does what you mention to Hermione (I call it “Scullying,” because it’s what Chris Carter did to Scully on X-files, which was infuriating). But I think Book 2 is the worst offender on that; since then, we see the MANY MANY times Rowling has other characters remind us that Hermione is the most clever and that Harry relies on her a lot. Sure, it’d be nice if there didn’t have to be exposition on that all time, but it’s also nice that there is. I love reading over and over that Harry’s friends are more clever than he is. And Rowling/Dumbledore also remind us constantly that Harry’s exceptional status is context-dependent. He’s both the chosen one and not the chosen one, and we’re really not allowed to see it as one or the other.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jun/28/tough_leaders_for_tough_times