JOURNAL OF CRITICAL LITERATURE AND HUMANITIES
Year:2021 | Volume:20 | Issue:12|Papers Count:20

The emergence of the “ cyberspace” and the simultaneous expansion of information and communication industries have brought about huge changes in classical concepts and social and cultural structures. One of the works that has studied this subject and issues of cyberspace in Iran has been the book Cyberspace; The Society and Culture by Seyed Abolhassan Firouzabadi, who is the head of the Iranian National Center of Cyberspace and one of the key Iranian policymakers for the Internet in Iran. This article has endeavored to review and introduce this work and then tap into the fundamental discussions on the cyberspace, culture and power to re-review and re-read it and bring examples to show this book needs theoretical and methodological improvements. On the surface, the book lacks a complete content list and a final conclusion section; works cited are dated, and there are some word usages. The book also suffers from a lack of scrutiny, and structurally speaking, the book is fragmented and loosely.

A textbook has a central role in the education system, and it is one of the most important tools for learning in all levels of education. One of the important ways to improve textbook is to critique and evaluate them. “ Sociology of Gender with an Islamic Approach” , written by Hossein Bostan, has been prepared for master’ s degree and PhD students in women’ s studies and sociology in university and seminary. The author’ s scientific rank, the novelty of book’ s subject and its educational approach make it worthy of criticism. This descriptive-analytical article seeks to answer the question of what the advantages and disadvantages of this book as a textbook are. Research findings indicate that this book, despite having significant advantages like scientific strength, innovation, content validity and fluent writing, suffers from serious problems in methodology, content, structure and organization of courses, and it is far from good standard.

Foucault’ s theoretical foundations have often undergone significant rotations. Foucault’ s commentators usually divide his scientific period into the duality of archeology-genealogy or the triad of archeology-genealogy-ethics. In this paper, Foucault’ s archeology was analyzed through a meta-theoretical approach based on a combined model. This model is a selection of Ritzer’ s meta-theoretical logic (including four external-social, internal-social, external-intellectual, and internal-intellectual approaches) and Chalabi’ s conceptual package (including four analytical elements of theory including theory-building equipment, theoretical claims range, theoretical functions, and Theoretical construction). The results show that although archeology is less important to researchers than genealogy; however, in addition to being an efficient theoretical approach to historical, sociological research, it provides a different perspective on society, history, knowledge, and knowledge; It is also a methodological approach with separate guidelines and with a fluid and flexible structure that can be used effectively in dynamic sociological, historical research and make it dynamic. The most important criticisms of archaeology are the neglect of political and historical complexities, the failure of the archaeology of knowledge as the subject of succession to epistemology, and philosophical vacuum and refusal to search for a meaningful source for restoring the scattered historical determination of human.

This paper is a critical review of the book, The Sociology of Knowledge of Karl Mannheim, written by M. Ashtiani. The main aim of this attempt is to acquire a more acute understanding of the subject matter of sociology of knowledge and to emphasize the importance of this branch of general sociology in Iran. The specific goal of the paper is trying to have a critical review of Ashtiani’ s work to get help to achieve the main aim of this study. The present book includes five chapters: the first two chapters are specified to the scientific biography of Karl Mannheim and his life condition in Hungary, Germany and Britain. In the third chapter, the sphere of sociology of knowledge in view of Mannheim is described; and the two last chapters are about the main concepts and categories of Mannheim’ s sociology of knowledge, and finally, the critiques of Ashtiani to the main element of sociology of knowledge of Karl Mannheim.

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the book “ History and Social Theory” , translated by Gholamreza Jamshidiha. A general introduction of the work and a brief summary of it is presented after introducing and reviewing the necessity and background in this area. In the next section, formal, content, methodological, and translation evaluation is done. In this article, the original and translated text have been compared together, and its strengths and weaknesses have been extracted. The results showed that this book has many positive characteristics. The content of the book is compatible with basic assumptions because logically, the author has shown that history is part of sociology and sociology is part of the social sciences, so it can be concluded, like the author, that history is also part of the social sciences and is not inconsistent with Islamic values and religious principles. In terms of the volume of materials, information and knowledge transmitted, students and beginners unfamiliar with these sciences can make a lot of historical use of this book. Therefore, this book can be suggested as a source of tuition and utilization of its reliable resources for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of sociology and history. The existence of more than 600 valuable historical and sociological sources in the bibliography is another very valuable point in this book. Also, the smooth and short translation of the heavy text and the main thaqil (regardless of its objection) is another strength of this book. However, the book does not match the latest headlines approved by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology as the main book in the teaching of academic courses and is educational assistance book. The lack of result at the end of each chapter keeps the reader confused. Logical coherence is very weak in the content of each chapter and between the contents of different seasons. Eliminating some of the bugs in translation, editorial and editorial defects can add to the richness of work. Intra-modal corrections, especially for reader’ s easier access to resources and to the day-to-day source of work, are fundamental issues that hope to be corrected in the next edition.

This article reviews Michel Foucault’ s late work, entitled What Is Critique and the Care of the Self, which deals with both the content of the book and its Persian translation. Foucault’ s most recent work, especially in this book, deals with the subject of Kantian Enlightenment and the question of the ethics of taking care of a particular attitude to the subject and its governance and upbringing to express its critical view of modernity and social and moral structures. What is Foucault’ s critique of the Kantian epistemological approach to the question of “ what can I know? ” Redirects to the critical question and believes that critique is a redefined movement that gives the subject the right to know the truth about his power effects and the power of his truth discourses. Ask a question. Concerning the second part of the book, one can also summarize Foucault’ s words about his upbringing in his aesthetic attitude, something that Foucault himself emphasizes. He believes that it is an artwork in itself. An art work that everybody has to make, and everybody has it in their own way. Regarding the evaluation of the Persian translation of this book, it can be said that although it has been translated into fluent and fluent language, the lack of an introduction by the Persian translators and the lack of a profile and last references of the book and some incorrect translations of Latin terminology are some of the shortcomings of this work.

Thinking about history has increased and gained a wide range of changes in recent decades. If we consider the “ Philosophy of History” to be the result of these changes, given the almost great distance between us Iranians and the world level of these studies, the importance of the methodical awareness of new studies and approaches in this issue becomes clear. “ History by Narrative of Philosophy: From Herodotus to Alain Badiou” , deserves to be read as an outstanding book in this field because of its characteristics. This article is a critical review of the book in the following topics: the ambiguity of the book’ s title, the divergent multiplicity of the book’ s purpose, the confusion in the chapters and sub-chapters, the ambiguity of the position of this book among the other works in this field, the obvious lack of paying attention to the Eastern and Islamic heritage, Confusion and inconsistency of the terms related to the currents of thought and finally ambiguity in new definition of history. After reflecting on the technical and editorial aspects of the work, the paper concludes that although the book fails to distinguish between the philosophical narrative of history and narrative of the philosophy of history, and so it has been far from the conventional mentality of historians, but it has many useful benefits for them.

Public Sociology in Practice is a translation of a special issue in Current Sociology, “ Precarious Engagements: Combat in the Realm of Public Sociology” (2014). The content of the book is provided in three sections, consisting of contextualized experiences of different authors through the world. The aim is to apply public sociology in different communities and countries. Two achievements of the book can be stated. First, the fourfold classification by Michael Burawoy in sociology (professional, policy, critical, and public) does not remain in pure form in different local contexts. Second, in every country, on the one hand, local traditions and history are concerned with sociology discipline, and on the other hand, dominant culture and politics paved the way to success or frustration of public scholar. The book shows internal professional dynamics and external dynamics in relation to the political field.

The main focus of this article is a review of Critique and Crisis, Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society by Reinhart Koselleck. Critique and Crisis was first published in German in 1959 and published in English in 1988 by The MIT Press. Koselleck’ s book attempts to explain the Utopian ideas of the twentieth century by looking at their origins in the eighteenth. The main idea of Critique and Crisis is that the Enlightenment itself became Utopian and even hypocritical because-as far as continental Europe was concerned-it saw itself excluded from political power-sharing. The structure of Absolutism, which was rooted in the dichotomy between sovereign and subject, between public policy and private morality, prevented the Enlightenment and the emancipation movement produced by it from seeing itself as a political phenomenon. Instead the Enlightenment developed patterns of thought and behaviour which, at the latest from 1789 onwards, foundered on the rocks of the concrete political challenges that arose. The Enlightenment succumbed to a Utopian image which, while deceptively propelling it, helped to produce contradictions that could not be resolved in practice and prepared the way for the Terror and for dictatorship. The main idea of Koselleck’ s book seems to be based on the idea of Carl Schmitt in The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes, which he explains and expand in this book. Koselleck’ s critique and its historical entwinement with twentieth-century totalitarianism is a biased or willfully selective picture.

This article is an analytical critique of Kamail Ahmadi’ s A House on Water; A Comprehensive Research on Engagement Intimacy Contract (Sighe Mahramiat) and Temporary Marriage (2019) from a-social science viewpoint with an emphasis on the methodology. Having organized this critique generally in two dimensions, including formal and content critiques, the authors criticize the content methodologically in two parts: 1) content review; 2) methodological. The first part counts the problem, which finds according to general method logics, and the other part concentrates on criticizing this research using respectively qualitative and quantitative methodological criteria. Form and content evaluation of the book reveals that despite enjoying positive and attention-worthy aspects such as studying a challenging and common subject and spreading the domain of the study to several important cities of the country, the study lacks methodological and coherence of academic research in general and various methodological shortcomings especially in qualitative and quantitative aspects make its results be regarded as authentic and reliable. According to the results, the necessity of extensive studies with observing methodological principles towards temporary marriage issue has been felt.

This article reviews the Reality and the Method of Explaining Human Action in the Framework of the Islamic Philosophy: A Fundamental Theory in the Humanities book. To reach the Islamic civilization, the necessity for producing Islamic social science and humanities became obvious after Islamic Revolution. Accordingly, several approaches were developed by different experts. One of them is to produce Islamic social science on the basis of Islamic Philosophy. The reviewed book tries to develop Islamic Humanities philosophy according to Molla Sadra’ s philosophy. Unfortunately, the writer, assuming 'human action' as the subject of the social science and humanities, uses the Sadra’ s philosophy to introduce a new Islamic social science and humanities philosophy. There are four well-designed chapters in the book. Starting form philosophy of the philosophy of Islamic humanities, the writer analyzed 'human action fact' according to an assumed framework of Sadra’ s philosophy. Fundamental philosophic assumptions are presented in the third and some methodological findings in the last chapter. However, the writings need to be reviewed according to Persian literature; some new understandings have been resulted. The necessity of Islamic social science, the multiplicity of individual, society, social science and humanities, the importance of agency and structure according to Molla Sadra’ s view, and gradual evolution of them are the findings of the book. Meanwhile, the book produces some valuable lights and shades on analyzing individual, society and social science using Molla Sadra’ s philosophy.

The celebrated German sociologist, Norbert Elias, in his magnum opus, Uber den Prozess der Zivilisation, through a long-term social-historical analysis, recasts the processual configurations of manners since Renaissance, searching how the Europeans came to be known 'civilized. ' A group of renowned scholars of Elias, then his editors of the English translation, edited the Edmund Jephcott’ s fine translation in 1999, The Civilizing Process, and put the long introduction written by Elias thirty years after the first publication, in 1968, at the end of the edited version, as a Postscript. The Persian translation of The Civilizing Process appeared in 2018 by Qolam Reza Khadivi. We seek to do a contrastive analysis based on the Persian translation of the English version, whilst Khadivi claims he has translated from the original German text. The available Persian translation is incomplete since the preface, first volume, postscript, appendix, and most of the author’ s notes have not been translated yet. As our scrutiny shows, the Persian translation of The Civilizing Process has so many formal problems, it lacks consistency and does not pursue a good norm of wordage, in addition to numerous written and editorial mistakes.

Among the common themes of the social sciences in Iran, the subject of time has been neglected in spite of its importance, and the poverty of the theoretical literature of sociology around time is quite evident with regard to the books and articles published. In this situation, translating this book into Persian, regardless of its translation defects, is a commendable and valuable work. The focus of this book is on the interrelationships between the concepts of time, consumption, daily life, psychological, social, and cultural factors, and the place of capitalism. Most of its articles have been written with a focus on behavioral theory and simultaneous involvement of micro and macro levels. By questioning the universal understanding of time and benefiting from comparative ethnography and historical analysis, the book is skeptical of common concepts such as traditional equilibrium and turbulent modernity. The experience of time is not shaped by external forces, but by time, being constantly reproduced and transformed by the sequence and timing of daily action. Many and probably most of the processes and actions involved in making time involve the use of things and consumption. The culture of commercial consumption plays an active role in creating value-time regimes.

Friedan’ s book is one of the most important feminist works in importance and impact, as well as the Waltoncroft Women’ s Rights and the Second Gender of Simon de Beauvoir. This book, an attempt to identify the “ anonymous problem” as Friedan describes it, has had a significant impact on the formation of the second wave of feminism. In this book, Friedan examines the causative factors and consequences of the “ anonymous problem” and then presents his solution to this problem. The factors causing this problem are both influenced by existing scientific theories and the dominant discourse of American society in the fifth decade of the 20th century. Friedan states that women under the semantic system of that time had perceived femininity as the most important factor in their identity and had been able to perform family roles with all vigor, but the important issue was that they were not satisfied with the situation and that this problem was not satisfying for them. In fact, this book seeks to invite women into the public sphere and enjoy the same social benefits as men. The book’ s evaluation shows that the author of this work seeks to create a metaphor for solving women’ s problems without this being an all-encompassing issue and focusing on urban middle-class women, providing a strategy for all women.

An introduction to research in family sociology in Iran has been written by Abbas Abdi with the aim of studying the evolution of the family and emphasizing the research dimension of the family. The purpose of this article is to examine the various dimensions of this book with a critical approach that is based on the conventional pattern of critical essays. The findings of the present article show that the criticisms of the book are in informal, structural and content areas, the most important of which include the lack of objective examples of claims and theories, lack of up-to-date sources, poor demographic analysis and lack of focus on topics such as the Ethics roots of the family and so on. Accordingly, this article, focusing on the formal and content dimensions of the work and relying on research citations, has tried to add to the richness of the book’ s topics.

The book Utopia of Tamsmour is one of the most important and influential works, which has also been a platform for writing later utopias. Therefore, the analysis and critique of this book are of special importance. The aim of the present study is to lay the groundwork for the introduction of the ideal utopia-with the help of the critique of the undesirable utopia. This research, in the first step, presents a descriptive report of Thomas’ s Utopia and the conditions affecting the writing of this book. In the second step, he will review his content.

It is not possible to address the issue of the environment in an empty space, especially when the environmental challenges such as climate change can only be analyzed and explained on a global scale. Nowadays, the concept of globalization is very interesting for the social theorists, and over time the fundamental challenges of “ question about its existence or non-existence” have steadily increased. This article will take a look at one of the most diverse ideas in this field, the concept of Ulrich Beck’ s cosmopolitanism, with an emphasis on its ecological dimensions, which he considers to be a worthy alternative to the concept of globalization, and goes so far as to it re-creates a different frame of reference for contemporary sociology. The article deals with the description of Beck’ s ideas on the concept of global risk society and its characteristics, the fundamental differences between globalization and cosmopolitanism, the cosmopolitanism process and the sociology of cosmopolitanism, and finally, a brief look at several critiques of his theory. Then it is focused on comparative research of the ecological dimensions of globalization in the ideas of Harvey, Giddens, Robertson and Beck. This article introduces three novel models of conflict, interwoven, and subset between environmental discourse and economic discourse.