The Discourse Order of the Image of Women in Iranian Movie Posters in the 1960s and 1970s

Iranian cinema first came under international attention for its prerevolutionary art cinema known as the Iranian New Wave and more widely for its postrevolutionary cinematic movement called the New Iranian Cinema. However, Iran has had a longstanding history of cinema that began in 1900, with the introduction of film technology by the Qajar court photographer Ibrahim Khan Sani al-Saltaneh Akkasbashi. The development of cinema in Iran is inextricably linked to the development of modernity and the nation-state. The cinema in Iran was an important site where modernity (tajadud) and the nation (mellat) were respectively constructed, contested, and negotiated throughout the long 20th century and into the new millennium. The history of Iranian cinema is punctuated by the two revolutions in 20th-century Iran, namely the constitutional revolution of 1905–1911 and the later Islamic Revolution in 1979. Both of these events left an indelible mark on Iran and Iranian cinema, but none more so than the Islamic Revolution. In the second Pahlavi era and just before the 1979 revolution, along with the popular commercial cinema called filmfarsi (“Persian film”), Iranian cinema witnessed the development of art-house cinema or the Iranian New Wave (mowj-e now) as a reaction to this popular cinema, which was influenced by the aesthetics of Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave. But it is largely with the New Iranian Cinema of the postrevolutionary era that Iranian cinema received worldwide critical attention, wining regular awards at prestigious film festivals around the globe. After the 1979 revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic, new guidelines were established by the state apparatus to ensure that films produced in Iran were made according to the logic of an Islamic “system of modesty” (hejab in its broadest sense). Paradoxically, these censorship guidelines forced Iranian filmmakers to develop a new filmic grammar, which in a constant negotiation with state censors, contributed to a new visual and aural film form that is distinctive to Iranian cinema. In this way, the history of cinema in Iran can be divided into four distinct periods, from the Qajar era to the first Pahlavi period (1900–1941), the second Pahlavi era (1942–1979), the postrevolutionary era with the Islamization of Iranian cinema (1980–1988), and the emergence of the New Iranian Cinema (1990s and early 2000s). In the early 21st century, there is a subtle but visible shift away from the formal and narrative strategies of the New Iranian Cinema. It is too early at this stage to categorize the formal logic and aesthetics of this new iteration of Iranian cinema, as we are in the midst of its development, but if the New Iranian Cinema was recognizable under the sign of its master practitioner, Abbas Kiarostami (d. 2016), the new trend in Iranian cinema is perhaps under the visible influence of the two-time Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi.

In recent years, Iranian ‘quality cinema’ has presented itself as a significant branch of the world’s cinematic practices and discourses. Similarly, the scholarship on cinematic aspects and approaches as well as the evolution of this cinema has attracted universal attention. The field of studies on the evolution of Iranian contemporary cinema covers a relatively broad spectrum of insights, themes, genres and approaches, which requires a systematic form of categorisation and critical evaluation. Underpinning the research strategy of the existing literary works on Iranian cinema, I have assorted them into eight thematic categories: Film directories, film auteurology, descriptive-pictorial history of Iranian cinema, analytical history of Iranian cinema, film criticism, themeology, stylistics, representation of women in Iranian cinema. Providing a practical description on each of these literary resources and sorting them according to their research strategy will help researchers to gain an explicit sense of the relevant data regarding the research scope. Moreover, critical evaluation of the existing literature will facilitate identifying the research gap in this context. Another advantage of this thematic categorisation is the ease of searching for information in the range of published scholarship on Iranian cinema.

This article assumes that cinema is one of society's media for self-reflection, reaffirmation of values and charting alternative courses of action. Specifically, I focus on female characters in Ira...

The main purpose of this research is to examine the portrayal of gender in Iranian cinema and the subsequent effects on today ‘society, gender dynamics, and individual identity as a result of those impacts. The historical foundation of Iranian cinema, the key films in the industry, and the impact that political and cultural forces have played are all extensively discussed throughout study. Moreover, the paper delves into the portrayal of men and women in Iranian cinema, as well as the impact of the media on the formation of cultural standards and gender identities. It also analyzes the loosening of traditional gender standards, while calling attention to the predominance of destructive female characters in contemporary Iranian cinema and emphasizing the significance of sensitive male characters in that cinema. Furthermore, the study looks at how family connections are shown in Iranian films across time, as well as the delicate interplay of distinct sex, gender, and cultural features. As a result, women in Iranian cinema take on more prominent roles, but gender equality remains a challenge, and women continue to create meaningful films that resonate with audiences. The representation of masculinity in Iranian cinema is complex and varied, reflecting changing social and cultural norms in Iranian society. It is portrayed as heroic and honorable in some films, but violent and aggressive in others. This sparks a discussion about cinema’s role in shaping social norms and values, as well as the need for more diverse and nuanced portrayals of masculinity.

Purpose: In this paper, the aim is to examine film form and narrative in relation to gender identity and the politics of representation. Drawing distinctions between these methods make it possible to identify how feminist frameworks are used to examine identity, aesthetics, and ideology through film culture.
 Approach/Methodology/Design: Thematic analysis, employing a feminist perspective. Three films were selected for conducting this type of analysis: Rakshane Bani-Etemad’s ‘Nargess’, Manijeh Hekmat’s ‘Women’s Prison’ and Pouran Derakshande’s ‘Hush! Girls Don’t Scream.
 Findings: By understanding the representation of women in Iranian Cinema and the cultural/traditional norms and values of the Iranian Society, I argue that the narrative form identifies feminist perspectives, which create an Iranian feminist cinema. Combining textual analysis with a greater concern for the audience-text relationship, and the rejection of the male gaze, these films recognize texts as shaped by the struggle to make meaning amongst institutions which shapes the filmic text from different components of the socio-historical context, and which creates a relationship between feminist film and cultural studies.
 Practical Implications: Iranian female directors have been adopting a feminist approach in their films’ narrative structure dating back to the reformist period of the 90s. Through the social/political context of female characters and the counter-cinematic development of agents, circumstances, and surroundings of the systems of patriarchy and oppression, women directors have been applying feminist narrative form to their work as evident in Rakshane Bani-Etemad’s ‘Nargess,’ Manijeh Hekmat’s ‘Women’s Prison’ and Pouran Derakshande’s ‘Hush! Girls Don’t Scream.
 Originality/value: This paper analyzes the principles of female desire through these selected films, the patriarchal dominance of societal oppression, the female condition, and the examination of violence in the traditions and attitudes related to women while looking at the representation of this violence and oppression in the Iranian Society.

Policy of Religious Media in Iran: Interactive, Dynamic and Convergent System of Religious Communication

Social media has provided many opportunities for people to express, obtain, and reproduce their views, thoughts, ideologies, and even their daily routines. Perhaps the most famous person to successfully take advantage of these opportunities and become a constant trending topic around the world is former American President Donald J. Trump. The style of language he uses on social media helps spread his ideology so that he has become known as the first president of America to use social media to get his ideas across. To evaluate the keywords in the corpus of Trump’s social media that dominated the topics of social media in Iran, a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis was used as the methodology for this study. The results show that the keywords “people”, “real”, “brave”, “suffering”, and “killed” are closely related to the oppressive conditions of the Iranian people. The results also show that people who are talked about as brave figures always get help and love from Trump.

The article examines different representations of masculinity in Iranian cinema, using Shahin Gerami’s essay ‘Mullahs, martyrs, and men: Conceptualizing masculinity in the Islamic Republic of Iran’ as the basis for its analysis. The article looks at examples of post-revolutionary Iranian cinema – in particular Rakhshan Bani-Etemad’s Nargess (1992) and Kamal Tabrizi’s The Lizard (2002) – featuring male characters that can be considered in light of the masculine archetypes that Gerami identifies. This analysis is prefaced by a brief consideration of representations of masculinity in post-revolutionary Iranian cinema, in particular Masud Kimiai’s Dash Akol (1971) as an example of the luti or ‘tough guy’ genre. By considering these different representations of masculinity, the article aims to address the gender imbalance in recent studies of Iranian cinema, most of which focus predominantly or indeed exclusively on the representation of women, as well as challenge stereotypes of Iranian and/or Middle Eastern masculinity more generally.

This study aims to analyse power, dominance, racial discrimination, and power exercise that is narratively established through a subtle network of metaphors in a fiction work, The Kite Runner. The Kite Runner exposes the socioeconomic conditions in the borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan, revealing the differences between power manipulation and the domestic performance of powerful social groups. The work also explores how religious and status dichotomies circumvent the progress of minority groups and align their physical features with their receding power and financial features. An adopted model of critical discourse analysis (CDA) indicates power, economic, and racial dichotomies in the book while revealing the shades of metaphors through conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) in a post-colonial text. Dogmatic ideographs are perpetuated in every public sphere through language and established gradually through unprovoking tools of metaphors. The metaphors are uncovered through CMT, providing a helpful understanding of different conceptual domains. Rhetorically, CDA helped reveal the racial discrimination, human rights violations, and hatred against minorities embedded in the selected metaphors. This investigation is very significant in connection with the current scenario of cross-cultural studies, as it mainly depicts the prevailing social trends regarding two different settings. The study may benefit intelligentsia interested in post-colonial and decolonial discourse and diaspora literature. Keywords: Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis, Metaphor, Power Expansion, Racial Discrimination Agbo, I. I., Kadiri, G. C., & Ijem, B. U. (2018). Critical metaphor analysis of political discourse in Nigeria. English Language Teaching, 11(5), 95–105. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v11n5p95 Burke, K. (2017). A rhetoric of motives. In Routledge eBooks (pp. 154–164). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315080925-15 Chouliaraki, L., & Fairclough, N. (1999). Discourse in late modernity: Rethinking critical discourse analysis. Edinburgh University Press. Fairclough, N. (2000). Discourse, social theory and social research: The case of welfare reform. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 4(2), 163–195. Fairclough, N. (2012). Critical discourse analysis. International Advances in Engineering and Technology, 7, 452–487. Foucault, M. (1976). The history of sexuality (Vol. 1). https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/special/endsandbeginnings/foucaultrepressiveen278.pdf Foucault, M., & Sheridan, A. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA21964742 Gill, S. (1998). European governance and new constitutionalism: Economic and monetary union and alternatives to disciplinary neoliberalism in Europe. New Political Economy, 3(1), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563469808406330 Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman. Hosseini, K. (2003). The kite runner. New York, NY: Riverhead Books. Jawaid, A., Batool, M., Arshad, W., Kaur, P., & ul Haq, M. I. (2024). English language pronunciation challenges faced by tertiary students. Contemporary Journal of Social Science Review, 2(04), 2104-2111. https://contemporaryjournal.com/index.php/14/article/view/361 Jawaid, A. (2014). Benchmarking in TESOL: A Study of the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013. English Language Teaching, 7(8), 23-38. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v7n8p23 Jensen, D. F. N. (2006, April). Metaphors as a bridge to understanding educational and social contexts. International Institute for Qualitative Methodology. https://sites.ualberta.ca/~iiqm/backissues/5_1/HTML/jensen.htm Kövecses, Z. (2002). Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford University Press. Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd ed., pp. 202–251). Cambridge University Press. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press. Reddy, M. (1979). The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (pp. 284–324). Cambridge University Press. Talib, N., & Fitzgerald, R. (2016). Micro–meso–macro movements: A multi-level critical discourse analysis framework to examine metaphors and the value of truth in policy texts. Critical Discourse Studies, 13(5), 531–547. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2016.1182932 Van Dijk, T. A. (1988). News analysis: Case studies of international and national news in the press. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Van Dijk, T. A. (1993). Principles of critical discourse analysis. Discourse & Society, 4(2), 249–283. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926593004002006 Van Dijk, T. A. (2001). Critical discourse analysis. Discourse and Society, 4(2), 249–283. Van Dijk, T. A. (2005). Discourse and racism in Spain and Latin America. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Van Dijk, T. A. (2009). Critical discourse studies: A sociocognitive approach. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (2nd ed., pp. 62–86). London: Sage Publications. Wodak, R. (2001). What CDA is about: A summary of its history, important concepts and developments. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 1–13). London: Sage Publications. Wodak, R. (2007). Pragmatics and discourse analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

This current issue piece aims to address the harmful exclusion of people with disabilities in the Iranian media. In a case study, this author collected news related to statistics of HIV-positive people covered by popular news websites written in the Persian language between June 2011 and June 2012. Within the analysed electronic texts, no reference was made to the number of HIV-positive people with disabilities. Under the rubric of critical discourse analysis, one can argue that this lack of representation may also be linked to a more general level of discourse that constitutes the marginalization of people with disabilities. This damaging exclusion both legitimizes and reproduces the ideology that people with disabilities are social minorities who can be excluded to the benefit of powerful people. This current issue piece also discusses the potential negative consequences of excluding HIV-positive people with disabilities from the discourse of HIV/AIDS in the media. Ultimately, the conceivable reasons for the Iranian government failure or refusal to publish the statistics of HIV-positive people with disabilities will be provided. Studies from various countries could shed more light on the exclusion of HIV-positive people with disabilities in the media and the interplay between HIV/AIDS and disability issues.

What counts as critical policy analysis in education? Over the past 30 years, a tightening of national educational policies can be seen in the USA and across the globe. Over this same period of time, a growing number of educational policy scholars, dissatisfied with traditional frameworks, have used critical frameworks in their analyses. Their critical educational policy work has contributed to a unique intellectual landscape within education: critical policy analysis. This article presents a qualitative exploration of the critical policy analysis approach to educational policy studies. Participants included scholars known to utilize critical theoretical frameworks and methods in their research. Through a historical approach that makes use of oral history interviews with educational policy, we developed an understanding of the critical approach to policy studies, its appeal among critical education policy scholars, and the rationales driving its use.

Mainstream writing instruction risks marginalising non-dominant voices if not consciously adapted using critical multicultural frameworks. This study analyses Mary Lynn Rampolla's widely used A Pocket Guide to Writing in History through a Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) lens, taking notes on voice, power dynamics, and participation elements. The analysis uncovered alignments like the focus on active reading and argumentation. However, tensions emerged regarding the lack of collaborative learning and critical framing of academic conventions. Findings suggest that relying solely on mainstream writing advice risks student empowerment and critical consciousness deficiencies. Writing instructors should supplement individual skill-building with critical perspectives and participatory activities. While conventional guides provide useful starting points, realising the transformative goals of critical multicultural education requires balancing mainstream approaches with conscious efforts to incorporate collaboration, student voice, and critical framing. Further research should build on this study to strengthen writing pedagogy for diversity and equity. It could involve collaborative ethnographic studies in diverse classrooms to examine real-world applications, affordances and limitations. Additionally, studies comparing findings across guides using critical frameworks like CHAT, Critical Race Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis could offer a deeper analysis of patterns and equity implications.

Artistic Cinema is a social phenomenon that emerges under certain conditions in any society and could be explained and analyzed by other social factors. This article benefits from a sociological approach to deal with the post- revolutionary advancements of Iranian artistic Cinema regarding the cinematic knowledge products. Existing evidence and documents reveals significant difference in amount and quality of artistic cinema products before and after revolutionary. The difference is a considerable growth in these products during 1980s and 1990s and remarkable international success for Iranian artistic cinema as well. Therefore, by changing the social conditions of knowledge in post-revolutionary Iran, the volume and diversity of cinematic knowledge has been increased and the context of the artistic cinema has been changed. Artistic Cinema is a phenomenon dependent on specific audiences, aesthetic filmmakers, and most importantly, the social conditions that make its manifestation possible. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n13p659

Introduction: identity has been one of the most important aspects of shaping the social identity of individuals and social groups in Iran, and such a major and fundamental force has historically played a role in social changes in Iran. Moreover, identity is not a closed and homogeneous whole and has a variety of dimensions and components. On the other hand, the media, especially and television, are not always detached from their social and political space, so they represent the content of their message, influenced by the dominant socio-political discourses, in a special way, highlighting a number of dimensions and ignoring others. Method: This study seeks to study how different religiosity dimensions of social classes are represented in post-revolutionary Iranian cinema. The dimensions of religiosity considered in the present study are derived from the Glock and Stark's model of religiosity, as well as the implications of the class is based on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of distinction in which, the composition and volume of various capitals are involved in the class formation. Finally, these two theoretical levels are analyzed in the context of Stuart Hall's constructivist approach to representation. Out of the dozens of movies in Iranian cinema, two levels of theoretical and typical sampling was conducted and finally two film in each decade that were theoretically more closely aligned with the research criteria were selected and analyzed. The films included: Pure Repentance (1983), Two Blind Eyes (1984), from Karkheh to Rhein (1991), Smell of Camphor, Scent of Jasmine (2000), A House Built on Water (2001), Book of Law (2008), Scandal (2012) and Sensitive Class (2013). These films have been examined by John Fisk's Critical Semiotics at three levels of reality, representation, and Results and discussion: Finally, the combination and integration of the first two levels is represented in the last level, i.e., ideology. Critical semiotics of films have also shown that the representation of the five dimensions of religiosity of each social class, influenced by the discourses of each decade, has undergone significant changes, including reduction in the religiosity dimensions of the lower class, especially emotional dimension, compared to the 1960s, the relative stability of the dimensions of middle-class religiosity from the 1970s onwards, and the growing emphasis on the ritual dimension of religiosity of the upper class in the last decade. Such changes and fluctuations in the representation system of itself have been affected by changes in the discourses that govern each decade. Conclusion: The results of this study, on the other hand, confirmed that cinema, based on its representative nature, show the complex relations between the fundamental forces in Iranian society, namely religiosity and class relations, through the lens of cinema. It is important to note, however, that in comparison with literature of the study, which considers religious cinema to be stable in contrast to current trends in society, or without considering class formations, or impose single discourse on Religious subjects, this study shows that despite the existence of specific political, social and economic discourses in each decade, such discourses do not affect the dimensions of religiosity of all classes in a similar and integrated way, moreover, representation of the dimensions of religiosity of different social classes have had significant fluctuations and changes.

If you are looking for a quick takeaway from this review, here it is: I have never read a better book about Mormon scripture, and maybe not about any scripture from any religious tradition. The book is meticulously researched, both critical and sympathetic, but never apologetic nor debunking. The author aims to understand, laying out the origins and textual history of the Pearl of Great Price and its significance, both in the development of Mormon theology and as a tool for understanding Joseph Smith's prophetic vocation.For the author, the title page shows this: Terryl Givens with Brian M. Hauglid. The acknowledgments, all written in the first person singular, offer this explanation: “The conception behind this book was Brian Hauglid's. His work with the Book of Abraham, its controversies, and its textual history was an important element in its composition” (vii). I understand this to mean that Givens is responsible for the book's overall arrangement and conclusions and probably most of the research outside of the Book of Abraham, but that much or even most of the research dealing with the Book of Abraham originated with Hauglid.Discussions of the origins of the Pearl of Great Price, a book of scripture within the Latter-day Saint canon, have stirred up considerable controversy in recent decades, especially in regard to the connection between the Book of Abraham and the Egyptian papyri from which Joseph Smith claimed to translate it. Not a few have left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because many well-qualified scholars have concluded that those papyri, produced in the Hellenistic period, have nothing to do with Abraham. Given that both Hauglid and Givens have strong connections with Brigham Young University, some prospective readers might worry that the book might stray from the scholarly straight and narrow—alas, I did so worry—not into the morass of apologetics, but perhaps into looking too often into the rearview mirror to lessen the impact of critical scholarship on Mormon readers. Instead, Givens proceeds from a trenchant critical analysis into a nuanced and sympathetic treatment of Joseph Smith, presenting him as a Bible student, interpreter, seer, and prophet with a clear and focused message to those with ears to hear.The book has four chapters. The first two, on the Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham, respectively, are comprehensive and lavishly footnoted treatises. Givens ties together details from Joseph Smith's writings and letters, Mormon and non-Mormon newspapers, travelers’ accounts, and the works of Mormon apologists and opponents alike; his detective work leaves no stone unturned, no clue unfollowed. Of particular interest to scholars of religion, he shows how the content of each book has contributed to important aspects of Mormon belief and practice, especially with regard to the preexistence of souls, God's otherness and ability to suffer, the continuity of the divine covenant, the single plan of salvation, celestial marriage, temple theology, the priesthood, and theosis. While the Book of Mormon was acknowledged as scripture well before either of these two, its story holds the key to few distinctively Mormon doctrines. The Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham, conversely, laid down the scriptural basis for much of what makes Mormonism distinctively Mormon, linking the faith of the patriarchs with that of Joseph Smith and the Latter-day Saints. Although not canonized until 1880, Givens demonstrates that the content of both texts (as well as the rest of the Pearl of Great Price) had been considered as scripture since the 1830s.The author also makes an excellent case for the interdependence and even intertextuality of Joseph Smith's work on the Bible and much of the Pearl of Great Price. Diary entries, printing dates, and parallel content show that Smith's work on the patriarchal narratives and the Gospels went hand in hand with the revelation and translation of new scripture, the new always in dialog with the old, sometimes supplementing, sometimes with striking revisions and corrections. Enoch, in particular, emerges as an important figure, laying the basis for Latter-day Saint doctrines of gathering and the priesthood.Chapter 2 (The Book of Abraham) offers a thoroughgoing history of the Egyptian papyri purchased by the Mormon community from Michael Chandler in 1835 that, according to Joseph Smith and other church leaders, were the source from which the Book of Abraham was translated. Givens describes the Egyptomania of the period and then-current views of ancient Egyptian beliefs and practices, essential context for understanding the enthusiasm for the supposed connection between Hebrew, Egyptian, and the pure language of Adam. At the time of the translation project, knowledge of ancient Egyptian was in its infancy. Once Smith determined that the papyrus scrolls that he had purchased were the personal records of the biblical patriarchs Abraham and Joseph, he and other Mormon leaders undertook what they believed was a detailed study of Egyptian in order to provide a competent translation. Unlike the Book of Mormon (translated using the Urim and Thummim) or the Book of Moses (given through revelation), the English Book of Abraham purported to be a translation from an existing Egyptian text and that Smith and others had acquired sufficient proficiency from their study to produce an accurate translation.By the early twentieth century, when Egyptian was no longer so mysterious, scholars and religious opponents had cast serious doubt on any connection between these papyri and the Book of Abraham, as well as Smith's competence in Egyptian. In 1913 Robert Webb and Justin Wells (both Mormons) independently solicited the opinion of prominent Egyptologists regarding the connection between the papyri and the Book of Abraham. The consensus was largely dismissive: “bosh,” “rubbish,” “idiotic” (145). Since that time, however, several Mormon Egyptologists have renewed the investigation, with varying conclusions. One of the most prolific was Hugh Nibley, who claimed that no real judgment is possible because, in his opinion, the original scrolls have been lost. Givens's discussion of this controversy is a model of judicious reporting. The reader is presented with the conclusions of both Mormon and non-Mormon scholars, concluding that while it is possible that the papyri used by Smith are lost, it is also clear that Smith and his aides possessed no real understanding of ancient Egyptian, a position that now appears to have the support of some Mormon scholars.1What I found most remarkable was not what I expected. My PhD is in Near Eastern Languages, and I was particularly interested to learn more about Smith's Egyptian studies. Givens moves far beyond this simple concern to provide a thoughtful and stimulating discussion on the nature of revelation and inspiration, namely, what it meant to Joseph Smith to be a prophet and how that understanding resulted in the Book of Abraham, whatever its connection to Egyptian papyri. Smith believed he was translating a text from one language to another, but something much more nuanced and fascinating was taking place. While biblical and literary scholars have much to gain from the critical, literary, and historical analyses provided here, religion scholars, in particular, should not miss Givens's profound treatment of the Prophet and inspiration. For example, his application of Levi Strauss's discussion of bricolage to Smith's prophetic work is compelling and provocative.A small but significant part of the Pearl of Great Price is Joseph Smith's revision of Matthew 24. Although Smith produced many revisions of the text of the King James Version, all of which were published by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1867, only Matthew 24 has been incorporated into the Latter-day Saint canon. Givens explores the meaning of translation in regard to this work and offers a reasonable hypothesis as to why only the revisions to Matthew 24 have been canonized.Givens's first two chapters on the Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham are lengthy and detailed investigations with a combined 689 endnotes. Chapters 3 and 4, in contrast, are briefer, treating the two other parts of the Pearl of Great Price: an account of Smith's story as visionary, and, lastly, an examination of the rationale for publishing the Thirteen Articles of Faith.In chapter 3, Givens notes that Mormonism, in contrast to all other Christian denominations since the New Testament, has elevated the story of its founder to scriptural status. The opening section of this chapter, therefore, is appropriately subtitled “Recentering Joseph.” Here we learn that the initial version of Parley Pratt's 1837 work, Voice of Warning, did not mention Joseph Smith once in its two hundred pages. Smith, who was certainly at the center of early Mormon life and faith and played a central role in the revelation and production of its other scriptures, was strangely absent from early evangelistic descriptions of the faith. Givens describes Smith's journey from an original reticence in making public a deeply personal story to a recognition that the story needed to be proclaimed as a significant element of Mormon bona fides. Claims of divine encounters in both Europe and America were well known, but only Smith's achieved such prominence, for reasons that Smith himself well understood.The final chapter considers the canonization of the Thirteen Articles of Faith. Although Smith himself, and many other early Mormon evangelists, found credalism of any kind repugnant, the Prophet eventually decided it would be beneficial to set forth a few essential points of Mormonism. Earlier, he had rejected, often and eloquently, credalism of any kind as a restriction of human freedom and the pursuit of truth. Givens cites Pratt's “A Dialog between Joe Smith and the Devil,” wherein Satan and Joe Smith were on the verge of an agreement until Satan voiced his approval of creeds, an unthinkable concession. What changed? Citing Rodney Stark's work on the need for some, but not too much, tension between the followers of a new religion and the outside community, Givens posits that the articles, focusing on themes that were mostly held in common with Christians of other denominations, and without detailing specific and controversial Mormon doctrines, were intended to show non-Mormon Christians that Mormons shared many beliefs with them and were willing subjects of legitimate government authority. Unlike many of the early Christian creeds, the articles were not intended as a credo to distinguish orthodoxy from heresy.I would like, however, to point out two areas that I found less satisfying than others. These are minor concerns and might be more pertinent to biblical scholarship than Mormon studies, but I will offer them up as suggestions for a future edition.First, in the Book of Moses section dealing with Enoch, following a helpful summary of the contents of the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch, the author states: “Our focus here is not in resolving the question of influence or access but in plumbing the nature of those parallels and modifications in the Enoch tradition that Smith produced, asking what they reveal about his prophetic project, and how they factored into the shaping of Latter-day Saint writings and teachings” (47). I am sorry that Givens considered this outside his focus. I would have thought it an important detail in a critical study of this scripture and would have liked to read Givens's views.Second, the use of the term “translation.” The first time I heard of the “Joseph Smith Translation” of Matthew 24, I expressed surprise since I did not know he had studied Greek. While I later learned that he and other Mormon leaders did study Hebrew, I had not understood that translation was being used in a way unfamiliar to me. Mormons do not teach that he was looking at Greek manuscripts while doing this translation but was revising the King James Version under divine inspiration. While this is not translation as biblical scholars understand it, this use of the word has the merit of long usage and was well understood by Mormons. When, however, we turn to the Book of Abraham, Joseph Smith believed that he was translating Egyptian hieroglyphs into English. The dispute about how exactly the Book of Abraham came to be, whether through translation, inspiration, or otherwise, is debated by Mormons and raises serious questions that receive different answers. In this case, Givens appears to support the conclusion that there was likely no translation from Egyptian but engages in a lengthy and, to me, unhelpful discussion of an expanded idea of translation. Why? If Joseph Smith did not know Egyptian, it might be better to drop the linguistic analogy for a more precise and useful description.But this is caviling. I cannot recommend the book too highly. It is now the indispensable book on the Pearl of Great Price.