Warring Souls: Youth, Media, and Martyrdom in Post-Revolution Iran

This is a great book. I read this several years ago and then used it for a graduate course I taught. The students not only loved it, but learned so much about Islam, gender, Sufism, Iran, and more. This is in my top ten of academic books I have read over the past several years. It's really that good!

This book took me to a place i never imagined meeting in Iran. Where cultural anthropolgy meets the war front via iconic films, books and media. I found the authors manner of writing to keep me entertained through her poetic vision of what it meant to be an Iranian in post revolution Iran. Through her visionary eyes I felt what it meant to be passionate about a cause albeit a positive or negative one as seen in the west. I understood for a moment, what it meant to sacrifice all you have for one belief. Many of us Americans couldn't even imagine sacrificing our spare change to hand over to the poor let alone giving up our lives. This book reflected another position rarely seen in the West as to how the youth portray their country. It is within the youth we build our future, and in this matter this book opened up several channels, I would never be privy to in another country.

Anthropology, History, Fiction and Politics all come together in this tour de force. Roxanne Varzi opens the door to a society which for most of us is only knowable through the images on TV and in the papers. Iran, Tehran and then finally the inner circle of Tehran's middle-upper class youth (the first generation born in the wake of the Islamic Revolution) are revealed layer after layer each providing insight into the next. At each stage she meticulously leads us through state manufactured images and practices and helps the reader understand how different members of Iranian society cope with and/or relate to their surroundings. In a particularly visionary moment, Varzi states "My internal censor coupled with a vivid imagination, will not allow me to make any authoritative claims on reality, and thus I use different ways and different voices to relay my ethnographic journey." In acknowledging the danger of claims to reality, Varzi in fact brings the reader closer to a clear and coherent picture than usually result from similar narrative attempts. She takes us on a journey, as our guide, allowing us to stray and explore, but all the while with her hand outstretched in case our surroundings become unfamiliar. This is a book for readers of the Middle East, students of Iran and those interested in exploring a new and refreshing approach to Anthropology - an exciting new model upon which, one can only hope, other anthropological studies will follow. Varzi's understanding and insight make "Warring Souls" a must read for anyone wanting a deeper and active understanding of Iranian society. An understanding which goes beyond the still images that clutter our minds and our TV screens.

This book presents a fascinating study of the Iranian side of the Iran-Iraq war and the martyrdom culture in Iran. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in learning more about the day-to-day reality of Iran.

This book is a reworked version of the author's PhD dissertation in anthropology. As such, it is quite surprising how short it falls of being a serious ethnographic work.This (over)ambitious book looks at visual culture in revolutionary and post-revolutionary Iran, primarily from the perspective of elite Iranian youth. The core argument is that Khomeini and the revolutionary class of clerics, informed by Marxism, produced an image regime where "images worked to create a state of martyrdom and ultimately a religious state" (p. 6). This image regime is analyzed through the framework of the Sufi poetry of Nizami, and (sometimes) Hegelian dialectics. But for a book that deals with media and visual culture, it is shocking that the author seems to be unaware of a long tradition of theorizing in media studies and anthropology. Nowhere in the book do we see an engagement with even the most basic literature in performance theory, discourse and genre, or semiotics. Even the discussion of Sufi poetry lacks any kind of justification or serious explanation. There is lots of name dropping throughout the book. The reader often comes across people such as Arendt, Fanon and Ibn Khaldoun with strong assertions about what these authors said. Despite the dazzling effect, anyone that might have had the chance to read these authors would realize that Varzi has no clue what she is talking about.On a more positive note, the book does contain some interesting quotes and anecdotes from the author's field research in Iran. It is also an interesting attempt at experimenting with ethnography as a literary genre, albeit it is a failed attempt by all standards. A confused and under-theorized book. Read with caution!