Hamid Naficy

Northwestern University

2012 Winner

The members of the Houshang Pourshariati Iranian Studies Book Award committee were presented with a bedazzling variety of books to consider; chronologically, they ranged from pre-Islamic Iran to the first decades of the twenty-first century and came from disciplines as diverse as religious studies, political science, sociology, gender studies, and history. Among several very deserving entrants, however, the committee was enthusiastically unanimous in its final decision. Hamid Naficy’s A Social History of Iranian Cinema is the product of a lifetime of research, thinking, and scholarship. This comprehensive, multi-volume work exhaustively covers the entire history of film making in Iran, from its early experimental beginnings through its development under the Pahlavi monarchy to its re-orientation and re-emergence following the 1979 revolution. The depth and extent of the research is staggering. Naficy draws on an immense range of sources, including government reports (both Iranian and foreign), journalistic writing such as film reviews, editorials, and reportage, the memoirs of not only people directly linked to the film industry, but viewers from other walks of life, and finally the films themselves. Every page seems to utilize some previously unexplored source.

Naficy defines "cinema" as broadly as possible to embrace not only fiction filmmaking, but also documentaries, industrial promotional films, and government-sponsored propaganda (again both Iranian and foreign). He is equally concerned with the economics of film production and distribution, with the aesthetics of the films, and with the effects of film on its diverse audiences. This latter topic inspires perhaps his most interesting use of social theory, but throughout the book, a sophisticated deployment of theory is kept in balance with in-depth factual research.

Finally, cinema is fully and systematically integrated into the broader history of the economic, technological, social, and political development of Iran in the twentieth century. It is this broader sense of history that gives shape to the work as a whole and keeps the reader from being overwhelmed by the sheer mass of detail. These volumes will indeed "define the field" for many years.

Professor Naficy unfortunately cannot be here in person to accept this reward, but would like me to express his deepest gratitude for to the foundation for the Houshang Pourshariati Iranian Studies Book Award and to the Middle East Studies Association.

Finally, the members of the award committee would also like to give a short word of thanks to Duke University Press for investing in a work of this size and scope. The editing is remarkably consistent for a text of this size, and the Press should be credited for including so many illuminating and informative illustrations.

Return to List