Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Category: Events

  • 30 Years of “Iran and the Caucasus”: A Proud Milestone

    30 Years of “Iran and the Caucasus”: A Proud Milestone

    International Conference Dedicated to the 30th Anniversary of Iran and the Caucasus


    19-21 September, 2026
    Armenia

    The Editorial Board of Iran and the Caucasus, in collaboration with De Gruyter Brill, is pleased to announce an international conference marking the 30th anniversary of the journal’s founding.

    Since its inception in 1997, Iran and the Caucasus has emerged as a leading interdisciplinary platform for scholarly engagement with the diverse historical, linguistic, literary, folkloric, textual, religious, archaeological, economic, and political dimensions of Irano-Caucasica—an expansive geo-cultural region extending from Asia Minor to the Indian subcontinent, encompassing Central Asia, Afghanistan and other territories historically situated within Greater Iran’s political orbit, inhabited by Iranian peoples, or profoundly influenced by Iranian cultural traditions including Northern Pakistan and the North Caucasus.

    We extend a cordial invitation to scholars worldwide to contribute to this academic gathering by submitting papers that critically engage with the journal’s legacy, present original research consonant with its thematic scope, and articulate new analytical perspectives on the region’s historical trajectories, contemporary dynamics, and future perspectives.

    Publication

    Selected papers will be considered for publication, after undergoing peer review, in the journal Iran and the Caucasus or as a separate volume of the conference proceedings in the Series Iran and the Caucasus Monographs.

    Individual and Panel Presentation Format

    Abstract submissions must be anonymized and should not exceed 400 words. Submissions must be sent in both Word and PDF formats. A separate file should include the following information:

    • Full name(s)
    • Institutional affiliation(s)
    • Email address(es)
    • ORCID iD(s)

    This requirement also applies to panel proposals, which may include a maximum of four participants.

    All submissions will undergo blind peer review.

    • Keynote Speeches: 40 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of discussion
    • Individual Presentations: 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of discussion

    Working Language: English

    Conference Email Address: iranandthecaucasus30@gmail.com

    Important Dates

    • Abstract Submission Deadline: 31 March 2026
    • Notification of Acceptance: 30 April 2026
    • Registration: 30 June 2026

    Participation Fee

    The conference participation fee is EUR 400, which includes:

    • Accommodation;
    • Lunches and refreshments;
    • Two banquets (opening and closing) and one dinner;
    • A cultural programme during the conference;
    • Transportation from the conference venue to Yerevan.
  • Professionals of Writing in Late Antiquity

    Professionals of Writing in Late Antiquity

    First Bahari Workshop for Early Career Scholars

    Professionals of Writing in Late Antiquity

    A workshop organised by Olivia Ramble, Yuhan S-D Vevaina, and Alessia Zubani

    13 June 2025 | 09:00 – 18:30
    Wolfson College, University of Oxford
    Professionals_of_Writing_ProgrammeDownload

  • WZO’s Annual Seminar 2025

    Three lectures as part of the World Zoroastrian Organisation’s annual seminar.

    • Alexandra Buhler: Relations between Zoroastrians in India & Iran during the late Qajar period
    • Khodadad Rezakhani: The Heart of the Empire: Ctesiphon & DilĒrānšahr in the Sasanian World
    • Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis: Royal Splendour: the art of the Sasanian kings
    WZO Seminar 2025Download
  • What is Zoroastrianism?

    What is Zoroastrianism?

    In a series of workshops, Dr Mehrbod Khanizadeh (SOAS, University of London) will explore the history of Zoroastrianism from its roots in the second millennium BCE through to the present day. He will discuss religious, historical as well as social aspects of the religion’s development.

    Dr. Mehrbod Khanizadeh currently teaches courses on Avestan, Middle Persian (Pahlavi), and Zoroastrianism at SOAS, University of London. He specialises in Zoroastrianism and ancient Iranian languages.  His recent peer-reviewed publications include an article on the genealogy of the Iranian bilingual Avestan Pahlavi Yasna manuscripts, published in the Bulletin of SOAS in 2021, and a study of the etymology of the Avestan personal name pourušaspa- published in the journal of Iran and the Caucasus in 2024. His edition of the Avestan text of chapters 9-11 of the Yasna will be published as a monograph in 2025.

    Six sessions from 25 May to 30 November 2025.

    For more information and to register, see the document below:

    WorkshopFlyerDownload
  • Zoroastrian Conversations S02 E01

    Zoroastrian Conversations S02 E01

    Prof. Yuhan S.–D. Vevaina will open the first episode of the second season of ‘Zoroastrian Conversations’ with Prof. Almut Hintze, Zartoshty Brothers Professor of Zoroastrianism at SOAS, University of London, Co-Chair of the SOAS Shapoorji Pallonji Institute, and Fellow of the British Academy.

    Date:
    Saturday, 26 April 2025
    Time:
    9 AM Pacific | 12 Noon Eastern | 5 PM London | 9:30 PM Mumbai

    Zoom meeting ID: 863 7776 2243 Passcode: FEZANA.

    Zoom and other information: https://fezana.org/conversations/

  • The Achaemenid Persian Empire and its Non-Western Borderlands: A Change of Paradigm

    The Achaemenid Persian Empire and its Non-Western Borderlands: A Change of Paradigm

    The conference will once again centre on the Achaemenid Empire and those borderlands that research has only sporadically looked at so far: the Central Asian east, India and the Indian Ocean in the south-east, as well as the steppe regions in the north and north-east. The focus here is on interactions not only in spatial but also in temporal dimensions and thus on the systematic recording of innovations, breaks and continuities.

    Organized by Robert Rollinger

    Fri 21 November – Sat 22 November, 2025

    Innsbruck, Austria

    Ágnes-Heller-Haus (Innrain 52a)

    Program:

    Opening
    10:00-10:30 Welcome Address
    Brigitte Truschnegg (Innsbruck) | Dean of Studies, Faculty of Philosophy
    and History
    Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck) | Organizer

    Section 1
    Chair: Melanie Malzahn (Vienna)
    10:30-11:15 Formation of Frontier: New archaeological perspectives on nomadic-sedentary interaction between Lake Aral and Sogdiana (800-500 BCE)
    Sören Stark (New York)

    11:15-12:00 The Imperial State/Political Formation of the Achaemenids. Nomads, Frontiers and Empires, between Central Asia and the Steppes
    Bruno Genito (Naples)

    12:00-13:00 Lunch Break

    Section 2
    Chair: M. Rahim Shayegan (Los Angeles)
    13:00-13:45 Local Evolutions of Central Asian Polities during the Achaemenid Period
    Johanna Lhuillier (Lyon)

    13:45-14:30 The Northern Frontiers in History and Myth
    Anca Dan (Paris)

    14:30-15:00 Coffee Break

    Section 3
    Chair: Bernhard Palme (Vienna) & Suchandra Ghosh (Hyderabad)
    15:45-16:30 Persians in Northern Gandhara: An Achaemenid Mirage?
    Elisa Iori (Venice), co-authors Omar Coloru (Bari) & Luca Maria Olivieri (Venice)


    15:00-15:45 The Vine of the King: Monarchic Ideology between the Iranian and Indian Worlds
    Claudia Antonetti (Venice)


    16:30-17:00 Coffee Break

    Section 4
    Chair: Florian Schwarz (Vienna) & Josef Wiesehöfer (Kiel)
    17:00-17:45 Cultural Heritage as Political Negotiation on the Boundaries of the Achaemenid Empire
    Jenn Finn (Chicago)


    17:45-18:30 Alexander, India and Western Asia Minor: Imperial Borderlands in Comparison
    Julian Degen (Innsbruck)

    18:30 Buffet

    Saturday, Nov 22
    Section 5
    Chair: Nina Mirnig (Vienna) & Robin Coningham (Durham)
    09:30-10:15 The Mauryas and Achaemenids: Looking afresh at old Theories
    Upinder Singh (Sonipat)

    10:15-11:00 The Impact of Achaemenid Writing in India and the Linguistic Background to the Aramaic Ashoka Inscriptions
    Holger Gzella (Munich)


    11:00-11:30 Coffee Break

    Section 6
    Chair: Wu Xin (Bryn Mawr)
    11:30-12:15 A Kingdom of Clay (and Parchment): Tracing the Indus Province through Parsa Administration
    Gian Pietro Basello (Naples)


    12:15-13:00 How Persian was Chorasmia? Reassessing the Achaemenid Imprint in Northeastern Central Asia through Fieldwork
    Michele Minardi (Naples)


    13:00-14:00 Lunch Break


    Section 7
    Chair: Touraj Daryaee (Irvine)
    14:00-14:45 Connecting Centres and Borderlands: The Upper Satrapies as Hubs of Routes
    Hilmar Klinkott (Kiel)

    14:45-15:30 Revolt and Sedition in the Eastern Satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire: An Unsolvable Mystery?
    Orestis Belogiannis (Strasbourg)

    15:30-16:00 Coffee Break

    Section 8
    Chair: Kai Ruffing (Kassel)
    16:00-16:45 Persian Elites and the Achaemenid Northeast: Negotiating Power in the Borderlands
    Yazdan Safaee (Innsbruck)

    16:45-17:30 Interaction between Central Asia and the Achaemenid Empire
    Jan Tavernier (Louvain)

    17:30-18:00 Concluding Remarks | Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck)

    19:00 Conference Dinner

  • Summer School of Oriental Languages

    Summer School of Oriental Languages

    The Summer School in Oriental Languages is a unique opportunity to study languages and scripts that are often described as rare, even though they are spoken or have been spoken by millions of speakers, in the form of major and minor courses. This summer school offers top-level teaching and the most recent research findings in Oriental languages and literature, with ECTS credits awarded upon validation.

    From the website

    The Summer School of Oriental Languages is organised by the University of Lausanne and will be held at the Venice International University (Italy), from 10–19 July 2025.

    For more information about the programme, registration, and ECTS requirements visit the website. The deadline for registration is 30 May 2025.

  • New Epigraphic Discoveries from Ancient Bactria

    New Epigraphic Discoveries from Ancient Bactria

    Friday 21 March

    5:30pm-7:00pm

    Nicholas Sims-Williams, Ancient India & Iran Trust; SOAS University of London

    New Epigraphic Discoveries from Ancient Bactria

    Further details: https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/events/new-epigraphic-discoveries-ancient-bactria

    Booking is required for this talk. To book a place, email info@indiran.org

    Bactria is the Greek name for the area around the city of Bactra, modern Balkh in northern Afghanistan. During most of the first millennium CE, the principal language of this region was Bactrian, a language related to modern Persian and Pashto but written in a local adaptation of the Greek alphabet. This language was almost unknown until the discovery over the past 30 years or so of a large body of Bactrian documents written on parchment, together with a few important inscriptions carved on stone. In this talk I will discuss some of the most recent discoveries, concentrating on what they contribute to our understanding of the history of the region. The earliest, an inscription of the Kushan king Vima Taktu discovered in Tajikistan in 2022, dates from the beginning of the 2nd century CE. Although very short, it has made possible the partial decipherment of an accompanying text in a previously undeciphered script and language. The latest, the inscription of Jaghori in southern Afghanistan, is dated in the mid-8th century and records a battle between a local and an Indian prince, possibly a prelude to the replacement of the dynasty of the ‘Turk Shahis’ by that of the ‘Hindu Shahis’. In between these two extremes comes a still unpublished collection of letters written on birchbark, which seems to be the archive of a local ruler who was a vassal of the Sasanian kings of Iran in the late 4th century.

    Nicholas Sims-Williams is Emeritus Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, SOAS University of London, and Chair of the Ancient India & Iran Trust.

  • Zoroastrian Hermeneutics in Late Antiquity

    Zoroastrian Hermeneutics in Late Antiquity

    Pourdavoud Lecture Series

    Zoroastrian Hermeneutics in Late Antiquity

    The Sūdgar Nask of Dēnkard Book 9

    Wednesday, April 2, 2025 at 4:00pm Pacific
    Royce Hall 306

    Hybrid Zoom option available
    Registration required

    Speaker: Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina

    The Sūdgar Nask of Dēnkard Book 9 is a commentary on the ‘Old Avesta’ of the 2nd millennium BCE produced in Pahlavi (Zoroastrian Middle Persian) in the Sasanian (224–651 CE) and early Islamic centuries. This commentary is a value-laden, ideologically motivated discourse that displays a rich panoply of tradition-constituted forms of allegoresis. It mobilizes complex forms of citation, allusion, and intertextuality from the inherited Avestan world of myth and ritual in order to engage with and react to the profound changes occurring in Iranian society. Despite its value and importance for developing our nascent understanding of Zoroastrian hermeneutics and the self-conception of the Zoroastrian priesthood in Late Antiquity, this primary source has attracted scant scholarly attention due to the extreme difficulty of its subject matter and the lack of a reliable translation. This 2-volume work represents the first critical edition, translation, and commentary of this formidable text which will contribute to the philological, theological, and historiographical study of Zoroastrianism in a pivotal moment in its rich and illustrious history. Reading the Sūdgar Nask is a hermeneutic process of traversing texts, genres, and rituals in both the Avestan and Pahlavi corpora, thus activating nodes in a web or network of textual and meta-textual relations that establish new forms of allegoreses or meaning making. It is argued that this entire hermeneutical complex of weaving a ‘new’ text composed of implicit proof text and explicit commentary renews, extends, and, ultimately, makes tradition.

  • The Bible in its Ancient Iranian Context

    The Bible in its Ancient Iranian Context

    An international conference convened by:
    M. Rahim Shayegan, UCLA
    William Schniedewind, UCLA
    Catherine Bonesho, UCLA

    March 13-14, 2025 | 306 & 314 Royce Hall
    UCLA

    Co-sponsored by:
    The Pourdavoud Institute for the Study of the Iranian World
    The Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies

    Although there has been renewed interest in the Persian period in biblical scholarship, the profound impact of the ancient Iranian world on the biblical books of Esther and Daniel has often been taken for granted. From their dynamic portraits of foreign kings and Jewish communities in the imperial court to their use of Iranian institutions and literary traditions, it is impossible to disentangle the books of Esther and Daniel from their ancient Iranian contexts. This conference foregrounds the influence of the ancient Iranian world on Esther and Daniel and its lasting impact on ancient Jewish communities.

    In organizing this conference, we hope to offer a truly interdisciplinary analysis of Esther, Daniel and ancient Iranian Studies by inviting speakers specializing in subjects related to Second Temple Judaism, Hebrew Bible, and the Achaemenid Empire. Topics explored at the conference include Jewish constructions of the diaspora and Persian court, Achaemenid religions, Aramaic scribalism, and imperial ideology and hybridity.

    Zoom Webinar Link

    Download the Conference Program

    Download the Abstract Booklet