Photography and politics in Iran in the Naseri period (1848-1896)

Abstract

This dissertation is written to address the history of photography of Iran during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah. The fundamental characteristic of this period is breaking new ground in social and political realms. During this period, Iran was introduced to the vast usages of photography employed both by the state and society, as well as a politicized society condemning the Shah as the illegitimate ruler. Consequently, nine years after the assassination of the Shah, usage of photography and politicization of society gained a decisive thrust. With the avail of the socio-politic dynamics of the era, this dissertation discusses the Legitimation Crisis of the Shah and utilization from photographs as political tools. We initiated this study to investigate the mutual effect between the political realm and the photographs of the era. Therefore, to see how the political realm of a past country, which adverted diversified photographic usages, can be reverberated through the photographs, exercising an interpretive strategy of reading outward from the photographic images coherent with the socio-politic parameters of the era is pursued.