Persophilia

Academic investigation of the mutual influences of the West and the Easthas 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 theWest is impressive. The book traces evidences of the West’s Persophiliathroughout world history from Biblical and ancient texts to contemporarytexts under the influence of the Romanticism, Transcendentalism, mysticism,fascism, and pan-Islamism approaches. It provides thoughtful commentaryon the roots of western Persophilia, its outcome for the West and the Persianaiteworld, and the overall picture of Persophilic knowledge productionand transfer.As such, Dabashi’s work contributes to the socio-historical hermeneuticsof Persian and western culture by mapping their inter-related texts. He considersPersophilia a sub-category of Orientalism, through which he challengescolonial-based Orientalism. By relying on Jürgen Habermas’ theory of bourgeoispublic space, Dabashi criticizes Raymond Schwab and Edward Said’sviews as introducing a one-directional influence of the West upon the East. Hiswork suggests that there is a cyclic relation of influences between them. Tofurther this point, Dabashi expands Habermas’ public space theory beyond“bourgeois” and shifts it from a limited national level into a transnational scenethat emphasizes the role of Persophilia in the circulation and production ofknowledge worldwide. The book deems the emergence of Persophilia duringthe eighteenth century and its continuation to the present time as an influential ...