Arash Davari
Biographic Data
| ID | 4391786 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Arash Davari |
| GIVEN NAMES | Arash |
| FAMILY NAME | Davari |
| SIGNATURE | DAVARI A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Whitman College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2057-8788 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
In Conversation with Kirstie in advance
As former graduate students of Kirstie McClure (1951–2023), we offer these remembrances of our time with her at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Our hope is to put Kirstie’s contributions to historically-inflected political theory into the fuller context of how she worked as a teacher, mentor, editor, and reader. For all of us, and for many years, Kirstie was among our most significant interlocutors. This kind of scholar, who is …
Remembering Revolution
Manijeh Moradian published a memoir essay in 2009 under the penname Nasrabadi in which she described her relationship with her father. The essay appeared in Callaloo —a journal dedicated to “matters pertinent to African American and African Diaspora Studies worldwide.” 1 It was a fitting venue given the elder Moradian's years of service as a professor of architecture at Howard University, an HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities) whe…
Mystical Solidarities
This introduction frames the special issue titled “Mystical Solidarities: Ali Shariati and the Act of Translation.” Drawing from insights across the collection’s essays, it foregrounds a notion of translation as a transformative act, anchored in Shariati’s mystical ontology, that fosters and sustains anticolonial solidarities. To illustrate, we explore differences and affinities between Shariati and Frantz Fanon with regard to truth-telling, tran…
Thought/Translation and the Situations of Decolonization
Known as a revolutionary ideologue and a religious reformer, Ali Shariati’s activities as a translator have not garnered substantial scholarly attention. We reconstruct a history of Shariati’s translations, situating these endeavors at the center of his intellectual project. Shariati’s thought itself, we show, is a form of translation in the service of decolonization. This history reveals a nascent theory of decolonization as open-ended and indet…
Call to Arms
This review essay interprets Ali Rahnema’s Call to Arms: Iran’s Marxist Revolutionaries: Formation and Evolution of the Fada’is, 1964-1976 through a fragment drawn from Amir Parviz Pouyan’s treatise “The Necessity of Armed Struggle and the Refutation of the Theory of Survival.” The fragment illustrates a peculiar aspect of Marxist guerrilla warfare in 1970s Iran: its emphasis on political education through political violence in lieu of convention…
Revolution and Rehearsal in the Global South
This dialogue, recorded in late 2020, brings together a group of remarkable critics and creators working between Asia, Africa, and the West, each of whom address the relationship between revolutions and archives in their own practice. What does it mean, in practice, to unlearn the archive? What does it mean to do so from the global periphery, the still present specter of a third world
Bound to Violence
This dialogue, recorded in 2021, explores the sound and feel of South-South political theory from the perspective of Southern Africa. The interlocutors discuss the question of violence and nonviolence in revolutionary change across generational divides. It centers the enduring place of spirit and ancestral voices in South Africa and Zimbabwe
Paradox as Decolonization
This article reevaluates the Iranian polymath Ali Shariati’s most controversial lectures. Scholarly consensus reads 1969’s Ummat va Imāmat as derivative, comprising an imitation of Sukarno’s guided democracy and hence an apology for postcolonial authoritarian rule. Shariati’s rhetorical performance suggests otherwise. The lectures address a postcolonial iteration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s paradox of founding—a call for self-determination alongsi…
On Inexactitude in Decolonization
This essay extends themes in Adom Getachew's Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (2019) by introducing Iran as a mediating element in Cold War worldmaking. It recovers the story of Pahlavi Iran's diplomatic efforts during the Sixth Special of the United Nation General Assembly, which resulted in the declaration of the New International Economic Order. Getachew's book provides a framework to interpret these diplomatic…
Foucault in Iran
Foucault in Iran: Islamic Revolution after the Enlightenment." British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 44(3), pp. 464–465
A Return to Which Self
This essay considers the overlap between ʿAli Shari’ati’s ethical reflections and his discussion of insurrectionary violence. Davari argues that the earlier lectures discussing bāzgasht be khishtan (a return to self) formed the conceptual foundation for his advocacy of shahādat (martyrdom) as a model of self-formation. These intellectual tendencies were rooted in a tradition of anticolonial and insurgent political thought, exemplified in Shari’at…
A Return to Which Self
This essay considers the overlap between ʿAli Shari’ati’s ethical reflections and his discussion of insurrectionary violence. Davari argues that the earlier lectures discussing bāzgasht be khishtan (a return to self) formed the conceptual foundation for his advocacy of shahādat (martyrdom) as a model of self-formation. These intellectual tendencies were rooted in a tradition of anticolonial and insurgent political thought, exemplified in Shari’at…
Revolution and Rehearsal in the Global South
This dialogue, recorded in late 2020, brings together a group of remarkable critics and creators working between Asia, Africa, and the West, each of whom address the relationship between revolutions and archives in their own practice. What does it mean, in practice, to unlearn the archive? What does it mean to do so from the global periphery, the still present specter of a third world
Paradox as Decolonization
This article reevaluates the Iranian polymath Ali Shariati’s most controversial lectures. Scholarly consensus reads 1969’s Ummat va Imāmat as derivative, comprising an imitation of Sukarno’s guided democracy and hence an apology for postcolonial authoritarian rule. Shariati’s rhetorical performance suggests otherwise. The lectures address a postcolonial iteration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s paradox of founding—a call for self-determination alongsi…
A Return to Which Self
This essay considers the overlap between ʿAli Shari’ati’s ethical reflections and his discussion of insurrectionary violence. Davari argues that the earlier lectures discussing bāzgasht be khishtan (a return to self) formed the conceptual foundation for his advocacy of shahādat (martyrdom) as a model of self-formation. These intellectual tendencies were rooted in a tradition of anticolonial and insurgent political thought, exemplified in Shari’at…
Foucault in Iran
Foucault in Iran: Islamic Revolution after the Enlightenment." British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 44(3), pp. 464–465
On Inexactitude in Decolonization
This essay extends themes in Adom Getachew's Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (2019) by introducing Iran as a mediating element in Cold War worldmaking. It recovers the story of Pahlavi Iran's diplomatic efforts during the Sixth Special of the United Nation General Assembly, which resulted in the declaration of the New International Economic Order. Getachew's book provides a framework to interpret these diplomatic…
Paradox as Decolonization
This article reevaluates the Iranian polymath Ali Shariati’s most controversial lectures. Scholarly consensus reads 1969’s Ummat va Imāmat as derivative, comprising an imitation of Sukarno’s guided democracy and hence an apology for postcolonial authoritarian rule. Shariati’s rhetorical performance suggests otherwise. The lectures address a postcolonial iteration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s paradox of founding—a call for self-determination alongsi…
Mystical Solidarities
This introduction frames the special issue titled “Mystical Solidarities: Ali Shariati and the Act of Translation.” Drawing from insights across the collection’s essays, it foregrounds a notion of translation as a transformative act, anchored in Shariati’s mystical ontology, that fosters and sustains anticolonial solidarities. To illustrate, we explore differences and affinities between Shariati and Frantz Fanon with regard to truth-telling, tran…
Thought/Translation and the Situations of Decolonization
Known as a revolutionary ideologue and a religious reformer, Ali Shariati’s activities as a translator have not garnered substantial scholarly attention. We reconstruct a history of Shariati’s translations, situating these endeavors at the center of his intellectual project. Shariati’s thought itself, we show, is a form of translation in the service of decolonization. This history reveals a nascent theory of decolonization as open-ended and indet…
Call to Arms
This review essay interprets Ali Rahnema’s Call to Arms: Iran’s Marxist Revolutionaries: Formation and Evolution of the Fada’is, 1964-1976 through a fragment drawn from Amir Parviz Pouyan’s treatise “The Necessity of Armed Struggle and the Refutation of the Theory of Survival.” The fragment illustrates a peculiar aspect of Marxist guerrilla warfare in 1970s Iran: its emphasis on political education through political violence in lieu of convention…
Revolution and Rehearsal in the Global South
This dialogue, recorded in late 2020, brings together a group of remarkable critics and creators working between Asia, Africa, and the West, each of whom address the relationship between revolutions and archives in their own practice. What does it mean, in practice, to unlearn the archive? What does it mean to do so from the global periphery, the still present specter of a third world
Bound to Violence
This dialogue, recorded in 2021, explores the sound and feel of South-South political theory from the perspective of Southern Africa. The interlocutors discuss the question of violence and nonviolence in revolutionary change across generational divides. It centers the enduring place of spirit and ancestral voices in South Africa and Zimbabwe
Remembering Revolution
Manijeh Moradian published a memoir essay in 2009 under the penname Nasrabadi in which she described her relationship with her father. The essay appeared in Callaloo —a journal dedicated to “matters pertinent to African American and African Diaspora Studies worldwide.” 1 It was a fitting venue given the elder Moradian's years of service as a professor of architecture at Howard University, an HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities) whe…
In Conversation with Kirstie in advance
As former graduate students of Kirstie McClure (1951–2023), we offer these remembrances of our time with her at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Our hope is to put Kirstie’s contributions to historically-inflected political theory into the fuller context of how she worked as a teacher, mentor, editor, and reader. For all of us, and for many years, Kirstie was among our most significant interlocutors. This kind of scholar, who is …
Political science (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Islamic Studies and History (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works)