ABSTRACT
This chapter argues two things: first, nations are commodities produced and reproduced through mass-mediated and commercial cultures, and second, nations are not only imagined communities but also affective communities. It illustrates the transformation of Iran from a carpet nation to nation as a carpet involves two occurrences. The first one is the fetishization of Oriental and Persian carpets as encompassing a supernatural and magical force, a material thing with ambivalent immaterial power in their Orientalist portrayal. The second one involves the nation coming to life through the carpet as its spirit. If in the first occurrence, the carpet is domesticated in order to fix the boundaries of the Oriental and the Occidental, then in the second instance, the carpet as a mnemonic commodity becomes the material evidence of the mythical time of the nation, a time beyond reach, guaranteeing the futurity of the nation.
