Events

Department of Religion Colloquium: Professor Avinoam Shalem (Columbia): "What’s in a pair of trousers? The Politics of Shi’ite Devotion and Nation Building in the Zurkaneh (زورخانه)."  

 Focusing on a pair of leather-embroidered trousers, displayed in the National Museum of History of Azerbaijan (Baku) and datable to late Qajar era (1900) or early Pahlavi period (circa 1925), this lecture discusses the performative aspects associated with the act of wrestling in the ‘house of strength’ (the Zurkaneh) in Iran. Thus, moving from the object to the invisible body of the wrestler, the varied meanings associated with the long tradition of martial exercises, body control, and mystical Sufi ideas of spiritual engagement with the holy and the divine, are brought together to establish a well-planned Pahlavi propaganda that promoted the health of nation.