۱.
After the occupation of Iran by the Allies in 1941, the Shāh of Iran was forced to renounce the crown in favor of his young son, and from then until the CIA-backed Coup of August 1953, the Iranian society experienced a period of relative cultural freedom, and particularly the press enjoyed an unprecedented liberty. One fruitful outcome of such freedom was the publication of serial novels with sociopolitical themes. One remarkable example is Dar Nim-e Rāh-e Behesht (Midway to Paradise) by Saeed Nafisi, which was published, in forty installments, in one of the most influential periodicals of that time, Kāviyan . Since serialized novels are reader-centered and their publication depends on how the readers receive them, Laclau and Mouffe’s qualitative method of discourse analysis has been used to analyze the political sphere of the time as well as the discursive sphere of the novel. Analysis of Nafisi’s novel Midway to Paradise shows that amongst the four major sociopolitical discourses of the period between 1941 and 1953—namely, Marxism, nationalism, Islamism and monarchism—the aforementioned novel supports the discourse of nationalism, which is revealed and represented by the narrator. This discursive position is also articulated by a critique of the ruling political discourse and its ‘Westoxified’ agents. The novel also debunks the myth of Communism as defined by the Soviet Union and argues that the Communist paradise is nothing but a sham delusion.
۲.
Having arisen out of a wide variety of research traditions, visual culture studies are certainly different. Shia believers painted their holy shrines with murals, which have a long history of customs and traditions. Gilan’s holy Shrines are places where religious events were held together with paintings on their walls dating back to the Qajar era. Accordingly, the images were influenced by developments such as the prevalence of Ta’ziyeh and the promotion of art and literature. This study focuses on religious and ritualistic beliefs of the region from the Qajar era to the present time. To this end, the question here is raised about the relationship between the concepts behind Gilan Shrines' decorative images and visual culture of Shi’ism during Qajar. Being qualitative in nature, the present study adopts a descriptive approach to content analysis with the findings demonstrating that the popularity of Ta’ziyeh and Shabihkhani during the Qajar era was the pivotal reason for building Gilan Shrines with those images. Furthermore, the event of Karbala, Stories of Prophets with its religious connotation, and folk tales all played a role in the formation of the paintings of Gilan Shrines.
۳.
The Qazvin Plain and northern Alborz heights overlooking it are one of the important centers for the development and evolution of cultures in the central Iranian plateau. As we witness the continuous growth and flourishing of civilizations in different periods of time, from prehistoric to the present era in this geographical domain, this could have resulted in favorable environmental conditions such as climate, soil, vegetation and animal husbandry, as well as a suitable geopolitical condition (trade and communications) with far and adjacent cultures. Considering the desirable archeological background of the aforementioned area as well as its complexity, the expansion and evolutionary process of settlements, the paper, through the existing archeological framework intends to take into account cultural activities of communities from the formation of the Safavid rule to the end of the Qajar era in southern foothills of central Alborz, north of Qazvin Plain. In other words, the main purpose of this study is to determine the effect of the transit location and native culture of the proposed area on the formation and development of places, sites and production of cultural materials of late Islamic centuries as well as awareness of closeness and possible cultural relations with each of its adjacent geographical and cultural areas. The research method includes a methodological study of archeology with the application of a historical approach where the most important and documented data is to identify sites, documentary and pottery collection and their study is in a specific and common framework of this science.
۴.
Muslims believe Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), riding an extraordinary creature, started his spiritual Night Journey known as Miraj (Ascension of Muhammad (PBUH) to heaven). Detailed description of this miraculous event is presented in many textbooks called ‘Miraj Nameh’. One most well known example is Shahrokhi's, composed in Herat School and is kept in National Paris Library. Extraordinary and supernatural creatures are illustrated in some miniatures in this book which are specified with particular and strange appearances. This article aims to study various aspects of wonderful creatures in Mir Heydar's manuscript of Miraj Nameh based on the appearance and application. The manuscript is a unique collection of thaumaturgic illustrations depicted to describe the fantastic locations like heaven, hell, purgatory and weird creatures whom Prophet Muhammad PBUH visited in his Ascension. As various studies and conclusions demonstrate, illustrated creatures can be divided into some distinct groups based on appearance, body formation, and visual characteristics as: ‘animal human’ and ‘human- animal’ combinations, ‘Giants’, ‘multi body organs’, ‘animal or human- plant’ combination, and ‘human- half’ combination. The origin of the weird locations and creatures presented in the textbook should be searched in mythological culture and fictions. Applied research methodology is descriptive. Data gathering method is library information one.
۵.
The purpose of this article is to contribute to studies on counterfactuals by exploring counterfactual conditions in Persian. Here, counterfactual sentences in Persian have been studied based on typological findings of the same in different languages. In order to study the typology, two main parameters are examined: symmetrical and asymmetrical morphological patterns of counterfactual conditional sentences and the range of TAM (Tense Aspect Mood) values in protasis and apodosis. The main concepts of counterfactual conditionals, including the construction of complex sentences, imagined conditions that have not occurred, false events, and the two above parameters were taken into account. This is a library-based research and the required data was extracted from the Persian Linguistic Database (PLDB). Findings show that the counterfactual conditions in Persian have a complex sentence construction and protasis acts as a subordinate clause and in typological classifications, Persian has counterfactual conditionals for past, present and future and counterfactual conditionals have both symmetrical and asymmetrical patterns. Also in the TAM spectrum, counterfactual conditions have both symmetrical and asymmetric morphological patterns. In these patterns, both protasis and apodosis are used in the past continuous and past perfect tenses. In all three types of counterfactual conditions, the past tense is used, with either perfective or imperfective appearance.
۶.
Tis was one of the most important commercial ports of Iran in the early and middle centuries of the Islamic era. It played an important role in maritime or caravan export and import. Not only is this port less mentioned in historical sources, but also little research has been done on it. One of the archaeological findings of this region is various ceramics from Islamic periods, which are distributed on different parts of the site. Except for brief references in a few sources, there has been no independent research on ceramics of Islamic periods of Tis. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to know the economic and social life of Tis port in the Islamic era through study, analysis, and chronology of pottery. The method of this research is descriptive-analytical. The information is collected through field and library studies. According to research, the ceramics of the Islamic periods of Tis, probably belong to the 7-17 th centuries, but most of them date back to the 9 th -12 th centuries. During this period, various types of glazed and unglazed ceramics were used in this area, some of which, such as unglazed red ware and Celadon, were probably imported from near and far areas such as India, China, and others like a group of Sgraffito were domestically produced.
