Persophilia

Abstract

Academic investigation of the mutual influences of the West and the East has been the subject of few studies during the past decades. In this category, Hamid Dabashi’s work on the mutual effects of the Persianate Orient and the West is impressive. The book traces evidences of the West’s Persophilia throughout world history from Biblical and ancient texts to contemporary texts under the influence of the Romanticism, Transcendentalism, mysticism, fascism, and pan-Islamism approaches. It provides thoughtful commentary on the roots of western Persophilia, its outcome for the West and the Persianaite world, and the overall picture of Persophilic knowledge production and transfer. As such, Dabashi’s work contributes to the socio-historical hermeneutics of Persian and western culture by mapping their inter-related texts. He considers Persophilia a sub-category of Orientalism, through which he challenges colonial-based Orientalism. By relying on Jürgen Habermas’ theory of bourgeois public space, Dabashi criticizes Raymond Schwab and Edward Said’s views as introducing a one-directional influence of the West upon the East. His work suggests that there is a cyclic relation of influences between them. To further this point, Dabashi expands Habermas’ public space theory beyond “bourgeois” and shifts it from a limited national level into a transnational scene that emphasizes the role of Persophilia in the circulation and production of knowledge worldwide. The book deems the emergence of Persophilia during the eighteenth century and its continuation to the present time as an influential ...