The Article

                  “The Eternal Forough: The Voice of Our Earthly Rebellion” was intriguing (a word I often use!).  I am not quite sure of its exact context, though, other than that it seems to be referring to a new sort of Orientalism, which it attempted to define.  Though I did not necessarily agree with the entire article, I found the author to be a compelling writer and quite effective at getting her points across, even to people like me, who may not agree with her.  There were several portions of the text that I underlined and marked for referral, which is rare for me(and which is why I loved paper photocopies!!!)!

                  The first portion that I marked was the portion on page 37 where she talks about travelers thinking that Iranian girls are “deprived the opportunity to think” on account of radical teachers and traditional parents.  The author seems to indicate that these travelers then suppose that these girls are less “intelligent” or “dynamic” as other girls around the world.  But I disagree that the concept of being deprived of the chance to think is necessarily linked to the concept of being less intelligent.  On the contrary, maybe some of these travelers view Iranian girls as being highly intelligent with a lot to say, but still as not always having a voice. 

                  I was also intrigued by the part of the discussion where she says that something went wrong in Muslim societies for them to have gone from being ahead of other civilizations to being “behind.”  I wondered what she meant when she called the Europeans “lucky” or “clever” for not being Muslim.  In that same part of the discussion, she aptly diagnoses the West’s illness of “technology worship.”

                  I think our discussion on this article, especially as compared and contrasted to Persepolis, will be great!