Theory and Criticism
M. Mazhari; M. Armaghan; F. Alborzi
Abstract
Edward Said's analysis of "Orientalism" critically examines how the East is portrayed in Western art and how this portrayal reinforces the colonial mindset. It goes beyond just distorting the ideology to establish a new political order. Instead, it creates a separate reality of the Orient, distant from ...
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Edward Said's analysis of "Orientalism" critically examines how the East is portrayed in Western art and how this portrayal reinforces the colonial mindset. It goes beyond just distorting the ideology to establish a new political order. Instead, it creates a separate reality of the Orient, distant from the West and objectifies it as a source of Western knowledge. The world exhibition serves as an arena to showcase various Western and Eastern cultures. It juxtaposes logical and imaginary, chronological order, and mythical disorder. The exhibition has been used to shape transcultural and advance Orientalist discourse strategies and expectations of imperialism. The representation and construction of “self” and “others” found an ontological and epistemological relationship with Orientalist alienation. Also, due to the newly acquired strategic position during the first Pahlavi era and the ancient history of the country's science and art, Iran's presence there earned special position in the eyes of Orientalists and the Western knowledge domain. Therefore, it was necessary to depict it by classifying the structure of knowledge and related historiography. In fact, the concepts and political rules of the historical interpretation of Orientalism were derived from Iran's participation in international exhibitions. The goal was to identify a connection between Orientalist ideas and the pavilions' physical, content, and functional aspects. The study found that Iran's pavilions, in particular, reflected Orientalist expectations. They were designed like museums showcasing Iranian art and arranged exotically to appeal to Western audience.
Computer Games
A. Nasrollahi; M. Mehrabi; F. Sharifi
Abstract
After September 11th incident, most of digital game developers commenced developing a variety of games with war theme. These games were inducing U.S. diplomatic and western attitudes toward players. Most of these games are about war and they include attractive designs and interactive features to immerse ...
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After September 11th incident, most of digital game developers commenced developing a variety of games with war theme. These games were inducing U.S. diplomatic and western attitudes toward players. Most of these games are about war and they include attractive designs and interactive features to immerse players; however, these games are transmitting political and ideological attitudes. The sales amount and audience of these games increased gradually in global scale which led to popularity among gamers in the past two decades. This paper is a qualitative analysis with meta-synthesis research method. In this method, after searching, we select 22 related papers among dimestic and international qualitative research in political and war digital games field. The criteria of classification in our research is based on opinion holders that the findings are coded in each class. Theoretical framework of this paper includes Cultural Imperialism and Orientalism approaches. The results of this research confirm that digital games, specifically action and first-person shooting genres with war theme are like enormous powerful media and diplomatic tools in the hands of game companies which are utilized to transmit their political messages to domestic and international players (audience), in order to orient their political, ideological and cultural attitudes, reproduce race, ethnic and religious stereotypes, and perpetuate inverse representation of East.
Maryam Sadat Ghiasian
Abstract
This study attempts to introduce two main currents in orientalism, the classic and the modern. The Western attitude toward the Orient, and especially Islam, is analyzed in both currents and the operative factors that lead to modern orientalism are surveyed. The 9th September 2001 event is here considered ...
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This study attempts to introduce two main currents in orientalism, the classic and the modern. The Western attitude toward the Orient, and especially Islam, is analyzed in both currents and the operative factors that lead to modern orientalism are surveyed. The 9th September 2001 event is here considered one of the most important points in modern orientalism. Media are here assumed to play a crucial role in representation of the orientalist and racist attitudes which nowadays focus on cultural differences. Accordingly, the present study surveys reflections of western cultural attitudes toward Iran in the linguistic construction of two British journals, the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph and two American ones, Time and Newsweek, after the occurrence of the 9/11 event.
Hossein Mirzaei; Jabbar Rahmani
Abstract
Itineraries have been an important source of knowing cultural and social characteristics of societies, but this has been involved with some limitations in understanding, knowledge and interpretation. In fact, travel diaries are a kind of narrative. This narrative is restricted by time, place, situation ...
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Itineraries have been an important source of knowing cultural and social characteristics of societies, but this has been involved with some limitations in understanding, knowledge and interpretation. In fact, travel diaries are a kind of narrative. This narrative is restricted by time, place, situation and events.This article studies itineraries written by foreigners about Iranians and their cultural – social characters. This narrative has a pathological aspect, being dominant aspect in foreign travel diaries. Certainly, they present a biased and presupposed picture of our history, but they could be very instructive.
