SOCIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF ART AND LITERATURE
Year:2010 | Volume:1 | Issue:2|Papers Count:9

This paper tries to show religion and art as fields of idea exchange. By stating the relationship of them to social space and power based on the theoretical principles of Pierre Bourdieu, we show the possibility of structural changes in these fields during a historical genesis. Art and religion have traditionally been mixed and it was impossible to separate them until the modem era. Because of this, religion and art were understandable by this mixture. But modernity separated social fields such as art and religion and the rise of modem art lead to the independence of these fields. Because of secularization, art lost its religious aspect but find a new one: emancipation.

This paper is concerned with the relationship between Sadegh Hedayat and the Tudeh party and the party's influence on his works written after 1942, particularly Hadji Agha. We aim to show how leftist discourse has influenced Hedayat. In other words, we demonstrate how a character is constructed by an overruling discourse and that what is created in this novel is not a real man in the real world but a representation of the rules which determine how he can be seen.

"Realism" is a critical term which in its specific sense refers to a literary movement in mid-nineteenth century and in its general sense designates a style of writing that has continued into the contemporary period. The School Principal, a short novel by Jalal Ale-Ahmad, is a characteristic example of realism in its general sense in which the author attempts to represent people and social conditions as they appeared in reality (Iran in the 1950s). The realistic text is like a mirror with a clean surface that merely reflects the realities; however, in the process of reflecting the realities the author should not express hislher social and political views explicitly. Ale-Ahmad violates this important principle, so much so that it can be asserted that various sections of this novel appear rather artificial and of a propagandist nature. Michael Hillmann sees a fundamental flaw in this respect in The School Principal and believes that it remains within the boundaries of social criticism. In its first section, this paper explores the realistic aspects of The School Principal with emphasis on three elements of character, setting and theme. Section two examines Ale- Ahmad's violation of the principles of realism and argues that adherence to specific social-critical attitudes (especially what he called "Weststruckness") at times led Ale-Ahmad to reduce his novel to a kind of political statement or social document. In section three it is argued that although Hillmann rightly recognizes a structural defect in The School Principal, his linking of the effect of this novel to the continuation of the social conditions portrayed in it is open to dispute and rejection.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between Iranian cinema and Iranian society and tries to evaluate the potentials of Iranian cinema in depicting the multiplicity of social fact. A functional distribution of films was used in order to describe this multiplicity. The 12 years were divided into three periods: the pre-Kahtami era, and the first and second Khatami administrations. The films have been studied according to the four functions of socialization, showing the reality, making new ideas, and escapism. Results show that in the first two periods there was a proportional distribution of these functions, while in the third most of the films were escapist. The research that inspired this paper was done in the field of sociology of cinema. The methods used are documentary and qualitative content analysis.

This paper is an attempt to study the factors that affect the painting market in Iran. Based on our preliminary assumption these factors were divided into four groups: social and personal factors concerning the artist, aesthetic and artistic factors concerning painting, the role of galleries and dealers, and price evaluation of painting. The examination began by field study of the distribution and sale of paintings in galleries and exhibitions in Tehran. Based on survey findings and interviews with painters and critics, the influence of unaesthetic factors on aesthetic assessments was established. 414 paintings were studied through the empirical model. The samples were chosen from sale centers in Tehran which were active in the first four months of the year 1378. Through employing a regression model, the analysis showed the influence of age and gender, form factors (size, frame and material), aesthetic aspects (style, technique), and different ways of presentation painting (gallery and exhibition) on the price of artworks. The findings can be used in economical attempts to restore order in the art market as well as preparing the ground for developing taste in the Iranian art society.

The present study examines competition among modernist painters for symbolic, social, economic and cultural capitals within the past 50 years and has tried to reveal how political and social developments along with actions and fractions, have affected arenas of competition for power in the field of painting, as well as state's power realm. This article has employed the artistic arena theory by Pierre Bourdieu and its main hypothesis is that when there is an agreement on art theory and the definition of art for different arenas of art and the state, the main competition will push to cultural capitals and this will culminate in the creation of art works with higher quality. When there is no such integrity between these two arenas, completion will be directed to other capitals which have more clear definitions and there is a higher level of agreement on them. Symbolic and social capitals are among these. To examine this hypothesis, painting biennale were studied and it was revealed that order and composition of placement of works in the hall of exhibition, along with the order and composition of these works in the catalogues of each biennale had relation with developments in power arenas of plastic art works, as well as power arenas outside this realm. Final conclusion is that in the in the decades of 1340's and first half of 1350's and during Khatami's administration, there has been a consensus between the state (the big supporter) and modernist artists on the artistic rules and this was the reason for increasing the importance of cultural capital in comparison with other kinds of capitals.

Up to now, studies of Mirza Agha Tabrizi's works (a pioneer of Iranian drama) have been carried out from the perspective of the evolutionary history of drama in Iran. But this paper explores the enlightening aspects of these texts about social life in Iran before the Constitutional Revolution. Furthermore, the present study discovers a potentially aesthetic revolution in these works. By making a link between sociology and aesthetics, this paper tries to emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary knowledge.