The Social, Political, and Psychological Affordances of Pandemic Humor and Satire in the United States of America and Iran

This essay compares and contrasts the responses of U.S.-American and Iranian citizens to the current health crisis by investigating a corpus of humorous items, collected through a survey tool on the website of the University of Amsterdam between March and July 2020, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis shows that humor was used as a coping and adaptive strategy in both contexts. Individual coping is more evident in the United States, where political criticism is frequently relegated to the media and press. This difference is partly due to censorship and similar impediments to the freedom of expression in Iran where the (traditional) media and press are either run or strictly regulated by the government. Two more themes were conspicuously more prevalent in U.S.-American humor: first, racism and xenophobia, especially directed against Asians; second, hoarding and scarcity of basic commodities, particularly toilet paper. While U.S. Americans and Iranians were frustrated by the inadequate responses of public officials, they found different strategies and outlets to express their frustrations. Economic and cultural differences also influenced the unfolding of the health crisis and its consequences in these two contexts, which explains the prominence of certain themes and motifs in the corpus

Ecocriticism and Persian and Greek Myths about the Origin of Fire

In his article Ecocriticism and Persian and Greek Myths about the Origin of Fire Massih Zekavat argues that some contemporary ecological biases are rooted in ancient thought. Further, Zekavat argues that the study of mythology is relevant to the understanding of culture and ecology thus assisting ecocriticism. The investigation of man/woman, culture/nature, and human/nature binary oppositions conveys that Greek and Persian myths are mostly anthropocentric and androcentric. Zekavat postulates that one way to revise contemporary ecological conceptions is to study myths to shed light on the mind and context of their creators and believers, their representation of natural phenomena, and their continuous impact on future generations through their adaptive and appropriative resonances in cultural production

Book review: Chattoo, Caty Borum & Feldman, Lauren (2020). A Comedian and an Activist Walk into a Bar: The Serious Role of Comedy in Social Justice. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Book revie

World Literatures in Secondary School Curricula in Iran

In his article World Literatures in Secondary School Curricula in Iran Massih Zekavat argues that the inclusion and teaching of works of world literature is significant at the secondary school level because it introduces students to a dialogic and polyphonic world where difference is appreciated. Further, Zekavat posits that the pedagogical use of reading world literatures would be the case in particular in countries and cultures where essentialist and homogenizing objectives and practices of culture prevail. Zekavat\u27s argumentation is based on the recent revival of Goethe\u27s concept of Weltliteratur in the U.S. as a pedagogical tool and practice of reading and postulates that it would be applicable in particular to secondary education in Iran