Fardid and the Politics of Intellectual History in Iran

The presenter will discuss his new book about Fardid and will review some of the recent writings about Ahmad Fardid.

About the film:
This documentary explores the life and thought of the Iranian “anti-Western” philosopher, Ahmad Fardid (1910-94). Fardid, known as the Iranian Heidegger, coined the concept of Gharbzadegi (“Westoxification”), a neologism that became instrumental in critiquing the experience of Iranian modernity as culturally “debased” and spiritually “dehumanizing.” Fardid offered the notion of Ma’anvyat Sharghi (Eastern Spirituality) as the authentic source through which the secular and materialist experience of modern Iran could be transcended, giving way to a genuine mode of “being in the world.”

This film chronicles the life of a “restless” philosopher and his mission to launch a militant assault on a perceived “Westoxicated” Iran. To this end, Fardid constructed a “mystical” and “spiritual” political philosophy – strongly suggestive of his principle influence, German philosopher Martin Heidegger – rooting national identity firmly in the Iranian/Islamic tradition. In post-revolutionary Iran, Fardid became the self-proclaimed philosophical spokesperson for the Islamic Republic.

Ali Mirsepassi bases this documentary on a book project on the life and thought of Ahmad Fardid. The film features extensive interviews with Fardid’s former colleagues, associates, students, as well as scholars of modern Iran, and uses rare and previously inaccessible materials, including footage of Fardid’s debates featured on Iranian television. More broadly, the film presents a thoughtful and comprehensive intellectual history of modern Iran, from the post-Constitutional period (1906) to the post-Islamic Revolutionary era.