Iran and French Orientalism

Clever, exciting, timely: Julia Hartley’s wonderful book completely reinvents the way we think about Iran and France. By revealing the vast array of devices, ideas, styles, and writing that are all too often dismissed as mere “Orientalism “, she demonstrates Iran’s exemplary place at the heart of nineteenth century literary, historical, musical, and cultural production. She takes us on marvelous trajectories that show how Oriental themes are good to think with in the strong literary sense, and that figures as varied as Hugo, Gautier, Michelet, Dieulafoy, Dukas, and Bibesco aren’t just responding to or participating in imperialism; they are also reckoning with Iran’s rich literary heritage and each other. * Ziad Elmarsafy, Professor, University of St Andrews, UK *Hartley’s new book makes a resounding case for the specificity of Iran as perceived and instrumentalised within nineteenth-century French discourse. Written in an elegantly lucid style, this is an important contribution to French transcultural studies that significantly nuances any notion of a monolithic Orientalism. * Jennifer Yee, Professor, University of Oxford, UK *[The] work is a thought-provoking read with a lot of important material and does much to open up the study of Orientalism to new sources and perspectives. * French Studies Journal *

Julia Hartley is a Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Glasgow. She was previously Laming Fellow at the Queen’s College Oxford and Edward W. Said Visiting Fellow at Columbia University. She is the author of Reading Dante and Proust by Analogy (2019) and peer-reviewed articles in Iranian Studies and Nineteenth-Century French Studies.