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The Cambridge “Gang” Meets Iranian Intellectual History: Reimagining Conservatism In Context
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
Abstract
The Iranian humanities publication Farhang Emrooz (Today's Culture) published a series of articles on the Cambridge school of intellectual history in May 2016. The journal's colloquium, while hardly the only intervention on the Cambridge school by Iranian scholars, constitutes perhaps the most sophisticated exploration to date of the relationship between the school and Iranian intellectual history. It also excavates what Professor Ḥātam Qāderī defines as conservative currents of historiography in England and Iran. How, this article asks, is Cambridge-style history presented as a conservative approach and what might the school's Iranian reception tell us about the purpose of such a presentation? Furthermore, how do Qāderī and his peers attempt to reform Iranian historiography by diverging from other historiographical currents in Iran?
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References
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29 See note 5 above.
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31 Ibid.
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42 Bourke, “What Is Conservatism?”.
43 Ibid., 450.
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53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid.
63 Grafton, “The History of Ideas,” 7.
64 Qāderī, “Dar miyān-i muḥāfiẓahkārī va tārīkhnigārī,” 81.
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73 Qādirī, “Dar miyān-i muḥāfiẓahkārī va tārīkhnigārī,” 81.
74 Ibid.
75 Neguin Yavari has drawn parallels between Gordon and Qāderī's critiques. See Yavari, “Introduction.”
76 Sharī‘atī, “Qarā’at-i kambrījī az andīsha,” 73.
77 Ibid., 73.
78 Qādirī, “Dar miyān-i muḥāfiẓahkārī va tārīkhnigārī,” 81-2.
79 Quentin Skinner, “Quentin Skinner: ‘Concepts Only Have Histories’,” Espaces temps, 2004, at www.espacestemps.net/en/articles/quentin-skinner.
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81 Qādirī, “Dar miyān-i muḥāfiẓahkārī va tārīkhnigārī,” 81.
82 Ibid.
83 Sharī‘atī, “Qarā’at-i kambrījī az andīsha,” 72.
84 Mehrzad Boroujerdi and Alireza Shomali, “The Unfolding of Reason: Javad Tabatabai's Idea of Political Decline in Iran,” Iranian Studies 48/6 (2015), 949–65, at 950.
85 Ibid., 952–3.
86 Sayyed Javād Ṭabāṭabā’ī, “Pāsukh-i Sayyed Javād Ṭabāṭabā’ī bih muntaqidān/qismat-i avval: mānīfistī barā-yi Irān,” Farhang-i Imrūz, 19 May 2014, at http://farhangemrooz.com/news/16148.
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92 Boroujerdi and Shomali, “The Unfolding of Reason,” 951–2.
93 Ibid., 951–3.
94 Ibid., 954.
95 Sharī‘atī, “Qarā’at-i kambrījī az andīsha,” 72.
96 Ibid., 73.
97 Tabatabai, “Understanding Europe,” 200. Ṭabāṭabā’ī tends to identify Muslim philosophers as Arab or Persian, stripping away any religious distinction as a determinant of knowledge.
98 Boroujerdi and Shomali, “The Unfolding of Reason,” 953.
99 Ibid.
100 Javad Tabatabai, “En vérité, l'islam est mort,” L'Expansion, 2001, at http://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/actualite-economique/en-verite-l-islam-est-mort_1351805.html.
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103 Ḥasan ‘Abbāsī, “Ḥayāt-i Islām va marg-i lībirālīsm.”
104 Ibid.
105 Ibid.
106 Ibid.
107 Ibid.
108 Ḥasan ‘Abbāsī, “Tafāvut-i fuqahā’ bā falāsafa,” n.d., at www.aparat.com/v/IbOYh.
109 Ghaffāriyān, “Butshikana usṭūra-hā-yi mudurn-i tārīkhī.”
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112 Ibid.
113 For another exploration of how Skinner's method can mitigate ideological historiography in Iran see Muḥammad-Javād Ghulāmriżā-Kāshī, “Farākhān-i Iskīnar bih maydān-i manāz‘a Irānī,” Mihrnāma 37 (2014), 269–70. See also Nachman, “Quentin Skinner beh Fārsī.”
114 Teresa Bejan, “Quentin Skinner: The Art of Theory Interview (2011),” The Art of Theory, at www.uncanonical.net/skinner. See also Nachman, “Quentin Skinner beh Fārsī.”
115 Moslem, Factional Politics, 261–2.
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118 Ibid., 2.
119 Ibid.
120 Ibid.
121 Ibid., 8.
122 Ibid., 9–10.
123 Ibid., 11.
124 Ibid., 12.
125 Ibid., 21.
126 Ibid., 27.
127 Ibid., 31.
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130 Skinner, Quentin, Visions of Politics, vol. 1, Regarding Method (Cambridge, 2002), 7Google Scholar; Anadolu Agency, “Rābiṭa-yi īdi'ulūjī bā mushkilāt-i sākhtāri-yi Irān,” 30 March 2020, at shorturl.at/hxTY3.
131 Qādirī, “Dar miyān-i muḥāfiẓahkārī va tārīkhnigārī,” 82.