March 23- March 29

Discussion of the causes and effects of the Iranian Revolution.

Study Guide for the week of  March 23

  1. Read De Fronzo, chapter 7. Then go to http://vlib.iue.it/history/index.html for any segment that you do not understand. Answer the questions below in your own words. MLA students: see additional reading below.
  2. Please view at least one of the following documentaries: Death in Tehran through our library’s Films on Demand database, about the 2009 election protests and the killing of Neda, a female protestor, whose death was captured on a cell phone; 20th Century with Mike Wallace: Crisis in Iran. Death of the Shah and the Hostage Crisis, a 1998 documentary with old footage of the Shah and the hostage crisis, available in our library’s database Academic Video Online; Generation K about the Internet generation in Iran, filmed in 2011, available in our library’s database, Academic Video Online; Women and Islam: Islam Unveiled, Parts1 and 2, in our library’s database Academic Video Online; or the 2001 PBS documentary, Muslims, available in VHS and DVD at the Munday Library.
  3. Submit your review (following the guidelines on the syllabus, III B) under “Assignments” in Blackboard by March 29th @noon. 
  4. By March 27th @ midnight, post an answer to two questions assigned to you on the discussion board; and by March 29th @ Noon, post a response to another student’s answers.

De Fronzo:

  1. Compare and contrast Shia and Sunni Muslim beliefs. To which sect do the majority of Muslims belong? To which sect do most Iranians belong?
  2. Examine why the British decided to oust the Qajar Dynasty in the 1920s and replaced it with the Pahlavi Shah?
  3. Analyze why the Reza Shah abdicated in 1941 in favor of his son, Muhammed Reza Shah Pahlavi.
  4. Assess the effects of 1953 coup led by General Zahedi against the Mossadeq government.
  5. Analyze the reasons for the 1963 opposition against the Shah. Who was the leader of the opposition?
  6. Examine the social, economic, and political problems in Iran on the eve of the revolution.
  7. Apply De Fronzo’s “five factors” to the Iranian Revolution.
  8. Analyze how globalization was manifested in Iran and in the Iranian Revolution.
  9. Assess the reasons on the part of Iraq and the US that De Fronzo gives for the Gulf War. Do you agree?
  10. What were the effects of the Islamic revolution in Iran on the women of Iran? (This is not clear from De Fronzo. Look it up if you do not know it).

MLA students: please do the above reading, as well as finish reading Shirin Ebadi’s Iran Awakening, if you chose this rather than Ghonim’s book.  Write a one to one-and-a half page (250-350 word) summary and analysis of this book. In one of the paragraphs, analyze how the revolution affected Ebadi and her family. Also post an answer to one of the study guide questions for March 27th. If you chose the Ghonim book, finish reading it; and please answer two of the study guide questions for March 27th.  (Your Ghonim summary will be due on April 8th).

Estimated time: reading -5 hrs.; viewing documentary and writing review- 3 hrs.,; answering questions, reviewing other students’ postings, and posting comments-2.5 hrs. Total: (10.5 hrs.) Additional reading and writing time for MLA students: (5hrs.)