Hollywood Cosmopolitanisms and the Occult Resonance of Cinema

Authors

  • Alireza Doostdar University of Chicago Divinity School

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/cis.32526

Keywords:

Iran, cosmopolitanism, cinema, spirituality, occult, Satanism

Abstract

This article examines various circulations of Hollywood productions in Iran and the ways in which audiences, critics, cultural administrators, and activists relate to them. I am particularly concerned with what I call “Hollywood cosmopolitanisms,” forms of receptivity to religious and cultural others as mediated by the U.S. film industry. Rather than dividing attitudes toward Hollywood in terms of openness and refusal, or cosmopolitanism and counter-cosmopolitanism, I suggest that we attend to different modes of openness: those that are overtly acknowledged, those that are concealed, and those that pass altogether unrecognized but make their mark in the form of “occult resonance.”

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Published

2019-10-23

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Doostdar, A. (2019). Hollywood Cosmopolitanisms and the Occult Resonance of Cinema. Comparative Islamic Studies, 13(1-2), 121-149. https://doi.org/10.1558/cis.32526