عنوان

The Social Life of Gnosis: Sufism in Post-Revolutionary Iran

Number

TL47993

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

The Social Life of Gnosis: Sufism in Post-Revolutionary Iran

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Seema Golestaneh

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Ivy, Marilyn

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Columbia University

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2014

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

274

Text of Note

Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-321-31889-0

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Discipline of degree

Anthropology

Body granting the degree

Columbia University

Text preceding or following the note

2014

Text of Note

My research examines the social and material life of gnosis for the contemporary Sufi community in post-revolutionary Iran. In contrast to literatures which confine Sufism to the literary and poetic realms, I investigate the ways in which gnosis (mystical epistemology) is re-configured as a series of techniques for navigating the realm of the everyday. In particular, I focus on the ways in which mystical knowledge (ma'arifat-e 'erfani) is utilized by the Sufis to position themselves as outside of the socio-political areana, a move that, within the context of the Islamic Republic, in and of itself possesses vast political and social repercussions. I approach gnosis in two ways: both as object of study but also as critical lens, utilizing the Sufis' own mystical epistemology to guide me in understanding and interpreting my ethnographic case studies. In my dissertation, I address the following questions: What is the role of the Sufis, a group positioned on neither side of the orthodoxy-secular divide, within post-revolutionary Iran? How does a religious group attempt to create and maintain a disavowal of the political realm in a theocracy? More broadly, what is the role of mysticism within late modernity, and how might such a question be answered anthropologically?

Cultural anthropology; Middle Eastern Studies

Subject Term

Social sciences;Aesthetics;Iran;Knowledge;Modernity;Mysticism;Sufism

Chavis, Llena H.

Ivy, Marilyn

Subdivision

Anthropology

Columbia University

Call Number

1626663702; 3643881

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y