Orientalist Framing of Post-Revolutionary Iran: A Study of Iranian-American Memoirs

Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the deposition of the pro-American Pahlavi regime in Iran, an interest in the country as a mythical, complex, and conflict-ridden place has magnified among the American public. Exilic Iranian memoirs began to emerge after the 1979 Iranian Revolution and surged after September 11, 2001, claiming to provide an authentic depiction and explanation of the Iranian society and politics and the ways in which it relates to the West and Western interests. The present article aims to analyze the ways in which post-Revolutionary Iran has been framed through memoirs written by Iranian- Americans. Through a framing analysis of fifteen selected memoirs on Iran, the article identifies and presents six main frames in the analyzed texts based on Edward Said’s Orientalism. The paper concludes that instead of providing a more or less objective depiction that acknowledges the diversity and heterogeneity of the Iranian society and politics, the selected texts reflect the existence of an industry of memoirists that produce content depicting Iran in an orientalist way. Such an approach further inhibits any meaningful understanding and rectification of the existing misconceptions.