A story against the centre

People within a network of forces

Zokaei’s theoretical essay approaches Rabihavi through concepts drawn from Deleuze and Guattari. Workers, children, landscapes and machines form relationships through which a character’s possibilities change. He resists reading the protagonist as a self-contained centre unaffected by economic and geographical circumstances. Source 1

Makineh gives his argument a concrete setting. The boy’s changing relation to his father, work and the lost machine connects intimate experience with material pressures. Zokaei treats these shifting relations as part of the story’s form, rather than only background information surrounding an individual. Source 1

Small desires and collective life

In his reading of the strike story, a daughter’s influence on her father connects a small domestic encounter with the collective actions of refinery workers. He uses that movement to discuss minor literature and a war machine, theoretical terms whose meaning here is broader than military combat. Source 1

The essay’s claim is that voices and bodies placed at the margins can interrupt a dominant narrative centre. This remains Zokaei’s interpretation of the southern repertoire. The Radio Zamaneh and Tribune presentations share one critical argument and are not counted as independent readings. Source 1

Sources & credits

1. Ali Zokaei · war machines and nomads

   Persian theoretical essay, 23 August 2023, also posted on Tribune Zamaneh. The two presentations constitute one critical contribution.