This course introduces students to major themes in Iranian history and culture and builds a critical framework for understanding some of the challenges that face modern Iran today. In reading modern fiction, ethnography, historical narratives, primary sources, and theoretical texts covering local and oral history, revolutions, Islam and secularism, democracy and theocracy, and the role of cinema, students examine the Western production of knowledge about Iran and rethink what we know about such categories as history, culture, and gender.