Skip to Main Content

Counter-Memories in Iranian Cinema

Online ISBN:
9781399509114
Print ISBN:
9781474479752
Publisher:
Edinburgh University Press
Book

Counter-Memories in Iranian Cinema

Matthias Wittmann (ed.),
Matthias Wittmann
(ed.)
Find on
Ute Holl (ed.)
Ute Holl
(ed.)
Basel University
Find on
Published online:
19 January 2023
Published in print:
22 October 2021
Online ISBN:
9781399509114
Print ISBN:
9781474479752
Publisher:
Edinburgh University Press

Abstract

›Counter-Memories‹ are memories that are barred from hegemonic history, but are, nevertheless present in cinematic forms. They have the potential to destabilize official narratives and normative orders of remembering. Inside the main stream of memories those memories stay invisible, marginalized by power effects and epistemic oppression. Due to the strategic and artistic interventions of a range of Iranian filmmakers, such as Abbas Kiarostami and Shahram Mokri, Ali Hatami and Tahmineh Milani, Kianoush Ayari and Rakshan Banietemad, the history of post-revolutionary Iranian Cinema is also structured by counter-memories, with the potential to destabilise officially fabricated success stories of revolution, war and sacred defence. Counter-Memories in Iranian Cinema establishes a new framework for understanding the tensions between censorship and resistance, helping to carve out resistant points of remembering both within and outside state-controlled cinema. The chapters combine archaeological and genealogical perspectives in order to dig for alternative ›histories of the present‹ (Foucault), excavating silenced experiences and suppressed struggles that nevertheless articulate themselves in cinematic forms, looking for ruptures, frictions and sudden re-distributions within the trauma- and memoryscapes of Iranian Cinema, capturing the interplay between ‹historical time› and ‹times of remembering›. The approaches introduce new readings of Iranian films and from there suggest a cinema-inspired, material-oriented theory of trauma and memory.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close