Historicizing Ibtizal as a Counter-Aesthetics Corporeal Criterion

Relatively understudied and prevalently deployed in the cultural discourse of contemporary Iran, the term “degenerate” ( mubtazal ) has historically been used to devalue and dismiss a range of arts, most of which belong to the realm of popular culture. While in the leftist discourse the term contrasted the valorized politically conscious “committed” ( muti‘ahhid ), in other contexts degenerate connoted a lack of artistic quality and tastelessness. When applied specifically to performing bodies (performance in its broad sense), the term degenerate incarnated certain types of corporeal qualities, gender performativity, and affect. The term was especially prevalent in the art discourse of the Tudeh Party’s, Iran’s major Marxist organization, which during its heydays in the 1940s,  heavily invested in culture and arts as the media of politics. Engaging major literary and artistic figures of the era, the cultural ventures of the party involved producing a number of publications on the topic, and a range of performative forms including theatre, music, and choreographed political demonstrations those of which have greatly shaped Iranian cultural thought and performative politics to this day.

Focusing on the gendered and corporeal aspects of the term “degeneration” ( ibtizal ) and its binary oppositions “committed” and/or “artistic,” this paper aims to historicize and  unpack these terms in the Tudeh Party’s discourse on arts and public performative politics, such as performing and visual arts, political demonstrations and meetings, celebrations, speeches, political behavior, and anthems. My primary sources for this study include documents and periodicals of the Tudeh Party as well as those belonging to the embassy and consulate of the Soviet Union, and organizations with strong ties to it, such as VOKS, and memoirs of members of the Tudeh Party. An in-depth analysis of these notions and the moral and aesthetic qualities they entail is critically important for understanding contemporary Iranian arts, cultural criticism, and public political performance.