Search for other papers by Reza Ashouri Talooki in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
This article analyses Firoozeh Dumasâs memoirs, Funny in Farsi and Laughing Without an Accent, to examine how Iranian-American homemaking is constructed as a dynamic, embodied and sensory process in diaspora life writing. Drawing on recent scholarship in diaspora studies, the sociology of home and life writing, the article introduces and develops the concept of âmultisensory homingâ as an innovative interdisciplinary framework. This approach theorises diasporic belonging as materially constituted through everyday embodied practicesâtasting, smelling, laughingâthat go beyond symbolic or nostalgic models of home and extend existing spatial and temporal paradigms by centring humour and affective materiality. The discussion situates Dumasâs work in relation to classic and recent diaspora theory as well as Iranian-American humour and life writing, highlighting its distinctive intervention: a sensorially grounded focus on everyday resilience and cultural negotiation as an alternative to trauma-centric or political accounts, offering new insight into the relational practice of homemaking for migrants and minorities across contemporary transnational contexts.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Ahmed, S. 2004. âAffective economiesâ, Social Text 22 (2): 117â139.
-
Ahmed, S. 2010. âKilling Joy: Feminism and the History of Happinessâ, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 35 (3): 571â594.
-
Ahmed, S. 2013. Strange Encounters: Embodied Others In Post-Coloniality. London: Routledge.
-
Ahmed, S. 2014. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
-
Bennett, J. 2020. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822391623.
-
Bhabha, H.K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
-
Bird, J.B. Curtis, T. Putnam and L. Tickner. eds. Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change, London: Routledge, pp. 59â69.
-
Blunt, A. and R. Dowling. 2006. Home. London: Routledge.
-
Boccagni, P. 2017. Migration and the Search for Home: Mapping Domestic Space in Migrantsâ Everyday Lives. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58802-9.
-
Boccagni, P. and A.M. Brighenti. 2017. âImmigrants and Home in the Making: Thresholds of Domesticity, Commonality and Publicnessâ, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 32 (1): 1â11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-015-9487-9.
-
Boccagni, P. and P. Hondagneu-Sotelo. 2023. âIntegration and the Struggle to Turn Space into âOurâ Place: Home-making as a Way Beyond the Stalemate of Assimilationism vs Transnationalismâ, International Migration 59 (6): 276â290. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12846.
-
Bourdieu, P. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Translated by R. Nice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
-
Clifford, J. 1997. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
-
Cresswell, T. 1996. In Place/Out of Place: Geography, Ideology and Transgression. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
-
Cwerner, S.B. 2001. âThe Times of Migrationâ, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 27 (1): 7â36. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830125283.
-
Dumas, F. 2003. Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America. New York: Random House.
-
Dumas, F. 2008. Laughing Without an Accent: Adventures of an Iranian American, at Home and Abroad. New York: Random House.
-
Farsad, N. 2016. How to Make White People Laugh. New York: Grand Central Publishing.
-
Fortier, A.-M. 2000. Migrant Belongings: Memory, Space, Identity. Oxford: Berg.
-
Ghandeharion, A. and S.S. Sheikh Farshi. 2017. âHomi Bhabha and Iranian-American Literature of Diaspora: Is Firoozeh Dumasâs Funny in Farsi Postcolonially Funny?â Forum for World Literature Studies 9 (3): 489â504.
-
Goldin, F. 2015. Leaving Iran: Between Migration and Exile. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press.
-
Hai, A. 2018. âLaughing with an Iranian American Woman: Firoozeh Dumasâs Memoirs and the (Crossâ) Cultural Work of Humourâ, Journal of Asian American Studies 21 (2): 263â300. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jaas.2018.0015.
-
Harvey, D. 1999. âTime-Space Compression and the Postmodern Conditionâ, in Waters M. ed. Modernity: Critical Concepts in Sociology, Vol. 4, London: Routledge, pp. 98â118.
-
Hutcheon, L. 1994. Ironyâs Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony. New York: Routledge.
-
Karim, P.M. 2006. Let Me Tell You Where Iâve Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press.
-
Laclau, E. 1990. New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. London: Verso.
-
Lloyd, J. and E. Vasta (eds). 2017. Reimagining Home in the 21st Century. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786432933.00006.
-
Maghbouleh, N. 2020. The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503603431.
-
Malek, A. 2025. Culture Beyond Country: Strategies of Inclusion in the Global Iranian Diaspora. New York: NYU Press.
-
Massey, D. 1993. âPower-Geometry and a Progressive Sense of Placeâ, in Bird, J. Curtis, B., Putnam, T. and Tickner, L. eds. Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change, London: Routledge, pp. 59â69/
-
Miranda-Nieto, A. and E. Gubrium. 2025. âSomatic agency and the sensory construction of familiarity among Ecuadorian migrants in the Netherlandsâ, Ethnic and Racial Studies: 1â17. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2025.2562656.
-
Moaveni, A. 2005. Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran. New York: PublicAffairs.
-
Mobasher, M.M. 2025. Iranians in Texas: Migration, Politics and Ethnic Identity. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
-
Mozaffari, F. and R. Conley. 2020. âGroup and Female Solidarity: Humour in Funny in Farsiâ. ä¸çæå¦ç 究论å: 644â665.
-
Nafisi, A. 2003. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. New York: Random House.
-
Naficy, H. 2001. An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
-
Pratt, M.L. 1992. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge.
-
Ralph, D. and L.A. Staeheli. 2011. âHome and Migration: Mobilities, Belongings and Identitiesâ, Geography Compass 5 (7): 517â530. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2011.00434.x.
-
Smith, S. and J. Watson. 2010. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. 2nd ed. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
-
Soja, E.W. 2008. âThirdspace: Toward a New Consciousness of Space and Spatialityâ, in Miller, D.P. and Zheng G.Y. eds. Communicating in the Third Space, London: Routledge, pp. 63â75.
-
Willecke, M. 2024. âPractices of Homing: How People with Temporary Living Arrangements Create Home(s) through Practicesâ, Housing, Theory and Society 41 (4): 255â272. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2024.2436349.
| å ¨é¨æé´ | è¿å»ä¸å¹´ | è¿å»30天 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| æè¦æµè§æ¬¡æ° | 186 | 186 | 27 |
| å ¨ææµè§æ¬¡æ° | 10 | 10 | 2 |
| PDFä¸è½½æ¬¡æ° | 36 | 36 | 9 |
Search for other papers by Reza Ashouri Talooki in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
This article analyses Firoozeh Dumasâs memoirs, Funny in Farsi and Laughing Without an Accent, to examine how Iranian-American homemaking is constructed as a dynamic, embodied and sensory process in diaspora life writing. Drawing on recent scholarship in diaspora studies, the sociology of home and life writing, the article introduces and develops the concept of âmultisensory homingâ as an innovative interdisciplinary framework. This approach theorises diasporic belonging as materially constituted through everyday embodied practicesâtasting, smelling, laughingâthat go beyond symbolic or nostalgic models of home and extend existing spatial and temporal paradigms by centring humour and affective materiality. The discussion situates Dumasâs work in relation to classic and recent diaspora theory as well as Iranian-American humour and life writing, highlighting its distinctive intervention: a sensorially grounded focus on everyday resilience and cultural negotiation as an alternative to trauma-centric or political accounts, offering new insight into the relational practice of homemaking for migrants and minorities across contemporary transnational contexts.
| å ¨é¨æé´ | è¿å»ä¸å¹´ | è¿å»30天 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| æè¦æµè§æ¬¡æ° | 186 | 186 | 27 |
| å ¨ææµè§æ¬¡æ° | 10 | 10 | 2 |
| PDFä¸è½½æ¬¡æ° | 36 | 36 | 9 |
