By Way of Acknowledgments:
Divided Selves and Doubled Genealogies vii
Prelude: After Epic, Writing, Painting, and Film 1
I. Speaking After Zarathustra: Ritual, Epic, and Philosophical Forms of Reason
Prologue 17
1. Yasna: Performative Ritual, Narrative Mnemonic 25
2. Shahnameh: Parable Logic 66
Coda: Illuminations: Philosophical Allegory 131
II. Seeing After Film: Textual and Cinematic Forms of Ethical Reason
3. Awaiting the Revolution: Surrealism Persian Style 151
4. Filmic Judgment and Cultural Critique: The Work of Art, Ethics, and Religion in Postrevolution Iranian Cinema 222
5. War Again: Qandahar, 911--
Figure and Discourse in Iranian Cinematic Writing 259
Coda: Balancing Acts (After 9/11) 355
Epilogue: Beyond “Mobile Armies of Metaphors”: Scheherezade Films the Games 370
Notes 395
Bibliography 433
Index 449