John C. Campbell's scientific contributions

... In analyzing the veneration of Martyr Polarak as one that permeates the dream-world and is experienced sensorially, intermingled with atmospheres, I illustrate a synchronization of the real and the imaginal through images from dreams and a this-worldly fragrance. There is a large array of scholarly literature that analyzes the political and social relevance of the notion of martyrdom as epitomized in 'the Karbala paradigm' (Fischer 1980;see also Aghaie 2004;Deeb 2006;Gilsenan 2000;Keddie 1983). In these works, the emphasis lies on the symbolic order that involves martyrs: in Shia discourse, 'salvific and passive' Islam is distinguished from the 'revolutionary and active' power of the martyrs of Karbala as a force of social cohesion and mobilization. ...

... Shari'ati noted that even in the most technologically advanced society, the 'traditional' in man could never be fully extinguished or over-looked (Sachedina, 1983). By using religion to understand his society Shari'ati disagreed with his teacher, Franz Fanon, who held the view that religion should be abandoned in order to be ideologically equipped to either defeat the imperialistic powers or launch a revolution against their government (Keddie, 1981). On the contrary, he sought to use an already-established "ideology" in the Islamic world in order to create the necessary political apparatus to achieve the same revolutionary end. ...

... The year 1989 marked a turning point in relations: the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, Moscow's withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the collapse of communism were all factors leading to an improvement in relations. Under both President Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, Iran-Russia relations resumed, marked mainly by the selling of Russian weapons to Tehran and the promise to complete the unfinished Bushehr nuclear reactor (Keddie and Gasiorowski 1990). ...

... The shah compared what he labeled Iran's 1960s "White Revolution" with the examples of Meiji Japan and Bismarckian Prussia. 18 Other countries took the same approach in speedier fashion, thus appearing all the more radical. Unlike Anatolia, in Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, and greater Syria, land enclosures by tribal chiefdoms and landlords had intensified during the early-twentieth-century imperial breakdown. ...

... The long-and short-term outcomes of this revolution have been extensively debated, but it did result in partially breaking the centuries-old stranglehold of the landed elite, and many of these walled, mud-brick villages were abandoned at the time of the White Revolution or shortly afterwards. Landlord villages and the "feudal" form of land tenure and social organization they represent have been studied and reported in a range of historical and ethnographic accounts from many different geographical areas of Iran (e.g., English 1966;Hooglund 1982;Keddie 1980;Lambton 1953), and it is clear that they underpinned the Iranian way of life for many centuries (Bausani 1962;Garthwaite 2005). However, even within texts devoted to exploring and understanding rural history and the roles of those owning and those working the land, farmers (more usually designated "peasants") remain an amorphous, ahistorical mass, who were subject entirely to the will of the landlord and lived in extreme poverty (e.g., English 1966;Hooglund 1982;Keddie 1980;Lambton 1953). ...