The Connected Histories of James Baillie Fraser's The Kuzzilbash: A Tale of Khorasan
The Connected Histories of James Baillie Fraser's The Kuzzilbash: A Tale of Khorasan
This presentation focuses on James Baillie Fraser’s novel The Kuzzilbash: A Tale of Khorasan (1828). This relatively neglected work of historical fiction is a story of adventure, romance, and identity exploration set against the backdrop of General Nader’s (later Nader Shah Afshar, r. 1736-1747) rise to power. It explores the intricacies of tribal relations in Iran’s north-east Khorasan region, with particular attention to Tekeh Turkmen society and their strife for autonomy and self-determination in a period of dynastic upheaval. Brenden’s work on The Kuzzilbash consists of a comparative reading between Fraser’s text and Thomas Moore’s versified tale ‘The Veiled Prophet of Khorasan’, the first section of his book-length poem Lalla Rookh (1817). He employs Moore’s poem and its allegory between Abbasid Iran and Ireland, to support my reading of the parallel that Fraser develops between Turkmen societies and Scotland’s Highland clans during the period of the Jacobite rebellions.
About the speaker:
Dr Brenden Benjamin recently received his PhD from the University of St Andrews. He is a scholar of Iranian cultural history and comparative literature, with additional specialisations in postcolonial theory, nineteenth-century British literature and culture, and French colonial history. His research methodology is interdisciplinary and multilingual, with an emphasis on the points of intersection, connection, and overlap between societies, cultures, and temporal epochs. He is particularly interested in how oral narrative traditions and works of fiction contribute to identify formation and collective cultural memory.