Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Degree Granting Department

Humanities and Cultural Studies

Major Professor

Amy Rust, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Benjamin Goldberg, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Todd Jurgess, Ph.D.

Keywords

dialogue, documentary voice, mediawork, observational, voice-over

Abstract

This paper examines estrangement within Iranian society as depicted in Iranian documentaries, which, I argue, regularly suppress the complexities of Iranian cultural identity. While Iranian narrative cinema has been studied in this context, documentaries have received less scholarly attention, despite their potential to illuminate the shortcomings of conceiving Iranian cultural identity. I examine three documentaries: Tehran Today (Ahmad Faroughi Ghajar, 1962), Newcomers (Kianoush Ayari, 1979) and Tehran Without Permission (Sepideh Farsi, 2009). Through this analysis, I uncover various forms of estrangement, including those induced by westernization, gender oppression, and the political control of what Hamid Naficy calls “mediawork.” Drawing on theories of cultural identity from scholars such as Stuart Hall, as well as Bill Nichols’s concept of documentary “voice,” I investigate how state authority interacts with creative expression in Iranian documentaries across progressive and conservative regimes before and after the Islamic Revolution. Ultimately, I reveal how documentaries contribute to and challenge homogeneous understandings of Iranian cultural identity perpetuated by the state and the media.

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