Kara Abdolmaleki

Kara Abdolmaleki (2018)

Degree

PhD Comparative Literature

Thesis title or Research Area

A Robin Redbreast in an Iron Cage: Revisitingthe Intellectual Movement of Dissent in Iranbetween the 1953 Coup and the 1979 Revolution.

My dissertation theorizes the anticolonial movement of "A Return to Self" in Iran and draws parallels between that discourse and the Frankfurt School. It then engages in close reading of works of fiction, poetry, and film to trace the manifestations of the discourse of A Return and its critique of instrumental rationality and other aspects of Enlightenment thought. The dissertation concludes that the discourse of a return is not retrograde and nativist but a progressive, unfinished project, the legacy of which is critique of neoliberalismin Iran and elsewhere.