This thesis examines the impact of a new wonder that emerged through Iranians' travelling and observing educational progressions of advanced countries during the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. In order to analyze the wonder that affected Iran's modern philosophy of education, the study first discusses the predominant themes within Iran's educational philosophy from pre-Islamic times to Qajar's traditional elementary schools. The second part of the study focuses on examining the element of wonder in philosophy and its evolving form in cultures (...) and societies. Subsequently, the new wonder and the early signs of a modern philosophy of education for Iran are examined in the last part of the study. (shrink)

That objects of knowledge get moved across boundaries is well known. But how they get moved often goes unexamined. Modes of movement cannot be ignored when considering objects’ historical signi?cance. Put differently, how geographies are negotiated is central to the constitution of knowledge objects. This essay offers a brief assessment of the competing agencies at work in the global collections of the Enlightenment naturalist Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753). While discussing broadly the relationship between collecting and power in Sloane’s career, the (...) essay stresses the passivity and strategic weakness of the collector, and suggests how the meanings of speci?c curiosities varied according to asymmetries in their mode of transfer. (shrink)