Decolonization of English Literature Studies in Iran

Abstract

Iran has never been formally colonized; however, its history corroborates that colonial ideologies and the western imperial powers’ political, economic, and educational influences have been enforced in the country, especially in the Qajar and Pahlavi eras. These western influences and involvements turned Iran into a dependent country. Although the 1979 Islamic Republic put an end to this formal western involvement, some structures of dependency on the West lingered well into the Islamic Republic. One such dependency is academic dependency in which universities in Iran follow the curricula introduced by the colonial powers. Ayatollah Khomeini’s cultural revolution speech in 1980, in which he criticized the state of dependency of the Iranian universities and highlighted the need to reconstruct and reform the universities, prompted a wide-ranging educational reassessment and reorganization. Despite this and scholars’ decades-long efforts in ending this academic dependency, programmes such as English literature studies promote the imperial values and visons. Whereas world literature is gaining momentum around the world, the English literature programmes in Iranian universities are still celebrating the Anglo-American canonical literature. Anchored within such discourse, this essay questions the lingering of this imperialistic legacy, presents ways for decolonization of English literature in Iranian universities, and proposes an approach to include literature from the four corners of the world to erase the hierarchical order. Drawing very briefly on Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s criteria for selection of literary texts in world literature, this essay adds two more criteria and introduces examples of literary works that deserve to be included in the curriculum. This produces a ‘new epistemological frame’ that not only gives legitimacy and visibility to formerly neglected and marginalized texts, but also ceases the mindless celebration of Anglo-American canonical literature. This new curriculum that aims for a ‘geopolitical reconfiguration’ of English literature accommodates both western and non-western literatures.