Urban Culture in Tehran

Fully illustrated book with unique sketches, photographs and illustrationsInvestigates Tehran's new-generation alternative cultural scene through its spatial arrangements and their genealogiesAnalyses in detail the politics and semiotics of space making adopted by the Tehran middle-class urbanite, and unfolds their territory-making strategies

I: Introduction.- II: 'The Quiet Encroachment of the Ordinary'.- Resistance in the city and theories of civil resistance.- City as a ground for plays of power.- Tehran: Power and resistance in the city.- The everyday practice of resistance in the city.- The use of space: Cultural resistance and its allegories in Tehran.- Possibilities and platforms of cultural resistance in Tehran.- III: The Types.- III.1. Alternative Bookshops.- Introduction.- Historiography.- Genealogy of the independent and alternative bookshops in Tehran.- Conflict of capitalism and culture.- Official and alternative bookshops: State-run, Independent, Unofficial and alternative (second-hand) and street.- Underground bookshops (second-hand and street booksellers) as a space of resistance.- Bookshop as a cultural platform for events and actions.- The community of independent underground bookshops.- A map of alternative bookshops in Tehran.- Spatial arrangements of alternative bookshops.- List of Case studies.- III.2. Alternative Cafés.- Introduction.- Historiography of the café in the modernised Tehran.- Genealogy of café as a space of resistance.- Alternative Café, and Coffee Shop.- A map of alternative cafés in Tehran.- Social coordinates of alternative café.- Café as a space of resistance.- Semiotics of architectural elements in café.- Endurance and instability of alternative cafés.- List of Case studies.- III.3. Domestic Art Gallery.- Introduction.- housing the alternative art gallery.- A map of galleries in Tehran.- List of case studies.- Notes.- Bibliography.-Image Credits.