SOCIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF ART AND LITERATURE
Year:2009 | Volume:1 | Issue:1|Papers Count:9

In recent years, due to the importance that culture has gained in postindustrial societies, sociology of art has also changed from a marginal into an important discipline in sociology. However, teaching sociology of art faces serious obstacles; to name one, the unfamiliarity of students with the world of arts. The aim of this paper is to point to the apparent and hidden obstacles in teaching sociology of art in Iran by using the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu the French sociologist.

This article is supported by Bourdieus theory of literary production. Therefore the main question of this research is concerned with the chiasmatic structure of this filed. First of all I start with reviewing Bourdieu's theory briefly to use it in further arguments. Also I illustrate the polarized structure of the subfield of poetry within Iranian literary associations and institutions. Malekoshoara's journal called "Daneshkadeh" is the best representative of the dependent pole and Rafat's journal, called "Tajadod", is the best representative of the independent pole of it. The first one was the place of conservative poets and the second one belonged to modem poets. Here the challenge between traditional poetry and modem poetry finds special meaning. Finally as a case study I focus on Nima, the first avant-garde poet in Iran, and try to show structural homology between literary field and the field of power in his trajectory.

Emphasizing collective memory and based on Bakhtin's idea of the dialogical principle and multi-voice novelistic discourse, as well as considering the idea of the perspectival truth of historical fact, the present paper deals with the capacity of the history - oriented novel geme in introducing multiple perspectives of history. Such an emphasize and description can be connected to analyzing the fiction logic of Persian history-oriented novels (in terms of closeness or distance from the capacity in question). Thus, first some subjects such as collective memory, narrative approach, and the concept of the history - oriented novel will be discussed. Then the Persian historyoriented novel, particularly its flourish era in the 1960s, will be traced.And eventually the dialogical principle of novel geme is generally emphasized. Also, the capacity of such a principle in the historyoriented novel geme is considered with more details. However, what is introduced here is more a "sketch" that needs more time to be fully described.and completed.

Cinema has a dual function: it reflects the society and its changes, and it can create new world through which the society can see itself in another way, thereby cinema can cause social change. One of the manifestations of this duality is in cinema's relations with the state and state legitimacy. This paper presents an argument on system legitimacy in cinema with attention to the views of Weber and Habermas on the legitimacy and legitimation of rational systems.In the political cinema of the world today, attention to the subjects presented by cinema and their effects on <;ulturaland political systems is increasing. American cinema has had remarkable success in the subject of government legitimacy, and in most cases reflects and establishes the legitimacy of the government and political system (on a macro level). Even movies critical of the political system have an ultimately positive view toward the political system and thus never lead the audience to anti-system conclusions.But in Iran this case is nearly reversed and the element of system legitimacy is almost absent. This shows recent changes in the Iranian society and the decreasing legitimacy of the political system among the people, and also indicates the (conscious or unconscious) efforts of intellectuals for voicing their unfavorable views about the political system.This paper analyzes the content of several famous Iranian movies from the past decade and compares them with American cinema. The aim is to study the social characteristics of protagonists in action and political movies from a sociological perspective and analyze the way they see the society and government through issues such as: passiveness of characters, blaming the political and social structure, explosive actions, the lack of faultless characters within the system who can solve problems, and the view toward law.Finally hypotheses about the causes of this absence in Iranian cinema are presented (including the negative behavior of the government toward intellectuals and filmmakers, the opposition of intellectuals and filmmakers to the government, effects of Marxist art on Iranian intellectuals, weaknesses in the government's monitoring and protection of effective and pro-system cinema), and the social and political consequences of this problem have been discussed.

In this article movies made by Ebrahim Hatamikia, the Iranian film director, are analyzed using a sociological approach. This analysis aims to understand two points: first, what are the meanings generated in these movies; and second, what is the relationship between these. meanings and the contemporary social conditions of the films and the social group which Hatamikia represents. The theoretical framework of this article is influenced by the reflection approach in the sociology of cinema which is elaborated using Lucien Goldmann's theory about great art and exceptional person that he has presented in the field of sociology of literature and is applied to the field of cinema here.Semiology is used as the method of analyzing movies in order to understand their generated meanings, and external criticism is used for relating these meanings to their contemporary society. In this article Hatamikia's movies including "Az Karkheh ta Raine", "Borj-eh Minoo", "Ajans-eh Shisheie", "Ruban-eh Ghermez", "Mowj-eh Mordeh", "Ertefa'eh Past", and "Be Nam-eh Pedar" are analysed. The path which the protagonists in these movies go through, taking that person through different stages of life in society, is followed in the movies. This examination showes the attitude of one important social group in Iran, soldiers who volunteered during the war of Iraq against Iran (Basijiha), and their families, who are forgatten today. This group's ideas and attitudes are embodied artistically by a person whose ideas and attitudes are the same.

In recent years, there has been a rapid surge in the number of underground music groups in Iran. These groups have worried parents and also challenged formal cultural values and organizations. The young age of the singers and musicians, the critical and explicit content of such music, the challenge to the moral codes of the society, and access to new ICT's including the Internet, have all turned this music into a basic element of youth culture in Iran. However, there is a significant difference between their notions of "underground" and the global! Western meaning of the concept. They have a paradoxical tendency to both "be" and "not be" underground. On the one hand the producers of this music prefer to remain "underground", and on the other they need to attain formal authorization from governmental cultural bodies in order to attract more audiences. This paper aims to study the development of Iranian underground music as a global-local phenomenon and explain its meaning for Iranian youth. After depicting the social and cultural situations that lead to the creation and development of underground music in Iran, this paper will focus on famous underground rap and rock groups.

Basically Iranian music has always been connected to two important and fundamental terms. One of them is "musical tradition" and the other is "traditional music": the first term indicates a kind of historical identity and a firm foundation for traditional music, and traditional music is an embodiment of musical tradition. Even though the nature of them is constantly changing, the activeness and efflorescence of music depends on their cooperation throughout history.At a glimpse, it can be seen that the traditional music of Iran has to a great extent distanced itself from the Iranian musical tradition in recent years, since it agrees with neither the essence of tradition which is based on evolution, nor what Iranian musical tradition advocates. The appearance of a variety of musical genres in contemporary times is a reflection of this disconnection. We need a reformation of traditional music to connect past with present, reconstruct the present in a way as not to be the same as the past nor destroy its links with time so that it can look toward the future. Because we do not want to give up our identity, nor will we accept to take on other discordant forms.