Category: Events

  • Iran Graduate Student Workshop (IGSW)

    To build bridges across Persian and Iranian Studies programs, scholars from New York University’s Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Department and the Gallatin School (ISI-NYU), Princeton University’s Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Middle East Center announce the Iran Graduate Student Workshop (IGSW). The workshop will provide a valuable venue for academic exchange and production, giving distinguished young scholars of the field an unrivalled opportunity to present and promote their research. On April 29-30, 2016, Princeton University will host the first meeting of this joint workshop, to be followed by similar gatherings at the other campuses every two years.

    The first workshop cohort will consist of PhD students that are near ABD status and preparing their dissertation proposals (i.e., typically in their 2nd or 3rd year of graduate work). This cohort will participate again, as discussants, in the second workshop, to be held in 2018, i.e. towards the end of their graduate work. Applicants must focus on modern Iran, other countries of the Persianate world, or diasporas, or conduct relational histories and comparative work; and will be drawn from disciplines and programs in the humanities and social sciences, including anthropology, art history, economics, history, literature, politics, sociology, and related fields.

    For more information see this.

  • Ideology, power and religious change in antiquity

    Plakat_IPRCA2015Ideology, Power and Religious Change in Antiquity, 3000 BC – AD 600 (IPRCA)

    International Summer School organized by Graduate School of Humanities Göttingen (GSGG)

    20 – 24 July 2015, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (Archäologisches Institut und Sammlung der Gipsabgüsse)

    In the modern world, political as well as religious leaders make use of ideological messages to legitimize and advertise their power. Especially during periods of transformation and change, it is important for leaders to demonstrate their strengths and capacities in order to unify their subjects. By presenting themselves as the right men in the right place they could win their subjects’ loyalty and thus legitimize and safeguard their own positions. This practice is however not a modern invention, it is rooted in ancient traditions and habits.

    The summer school focuses on ideological messages communicated by leaders in the ancient world (Ancient Near East, Greece and Rome, c. 3000 BC – AD 600) during periods of religious change (periods characterized by the rise, expansion or dominance of new religions, specific religious factions, sects or cults that caused changes in or threatened existing social, religious and/or power structures). Which messages were communicated by central and local authorities as well as specific religious authorities in these epochs? What do these messages tell us about the nature of power exercised by leaders?

    The pre-arranged sessions to discusse the different subjects and questions are:

    • Session 1 Ancient Mesopotamia
    • Session 2 Ancient Anatolia, Levant and Iran
    • Session 3 Classical Greece and the Hellenistic World
    • Session 4 Roman Republic and Empire
    • Session 5 The Byzantine Empire

    Programme:

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  • Silks from the Silk Road: Origin, Transmission and Exchange

    Sasanian SilkSymposium

    Silks from the Silk Road: Origin, Transmission and Exchange

    Hangzhou, China, Oct. 11th –Oct. 13th, 2015

    In June 2014, the Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang’an-Tianshan Corridor jointly nominated by China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan was inscribed on the World Heritage List, making the ancient Silk Road a common wealth of human beings.

    Parallel to the cognominal exhibition, held at the China National Silk Museum from Sept. 15th to Oct. 14th, 2015, which include masterpiece ancient silk textiles and other treasures related to the Silk Road from 24 Chinese museums and archaeological institutions of eight provinces, the symposium will present the following six sections:

    • Silk Road and Technical Exchange
    • Archaeological Findings of Silk in China
    • Archaeological Findings of Silk outside China
    • Silks on the Silk Road from the Perspective of Linguistics
    • Maritime Silk Road and Chinese Export Silk
    • Silks on the Silk Road from the Perspective of Anthropology

    See here  for more details and the programme, speackers and topics.

    Some talks relevant to Iranian Studies are:

    • Matthehew Canepa: “Sasanian Persian silks in archaeology findings and stone relief illustration
    • Bi Bo: “Silk in Sogdian Literature”
    • Mohammad Bagher Vosoughi: “Silk in Persian Literature”

     

  • Susa and Elam

    International conference: Susa and Elam: History, Language, Religion and Culture

    6-9 July 2015, Université catholique de Louvain

    Program

    Monday 6 July

     Opening lecture: Elizabeth Carter: Reassessing the Elamite contribution to the Luristan Bronzes

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  • Zoroastrianism in Iran and India: Then and Now

    Call for Applications

    The Institute of Religious Studies at the University of Zurich (UZH) invites to the summer school:

    Zoroastrianism in Iran and India: Then and Now
    August 30th – September 2nd 2015

    Zoroastrism is one of the oldest living religious traditions today. It shaped the Persian Empire and strongly influenced other religions, such as Judaism and Islam.
    Zoroastrian communities today in Iran, India and in the diaspora are faced with typical challenges of modernity. They are confronted with the need to negotiate the preservation of tradition in the light of requirements of tolerance and the preservation of identity in an age of globalization.
    Our Summer School appeals primarily to Master students and PHDs and will be conducted bilingually (English-German).
    In lectures and workshops both historic and contemporary socio-scientific subject areas (rituals, beliefs, conflicts, etc.) are discussed with the contributors.
    In the discussion with Zoroastrian guests the contemporary situation in India and Switzerland in particular will be analyzed.

    Location
    KAA E-11
    Religionswissenschaftliches Seminar
    Kantonsschulstrasse 1
    8001 Zürich

    • Registration is open until June 30th.
    • Please register via E-Mail: sekr_luedd@theol.uzh.ch
    • There is no participation fee.
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  • Iran and the West: Converging Perspectives

    1–3 July 2015, University of Warwick
    Call for papers.

    Introductory speaker: Dr James Hodkinson, the University of Warwick
    Keynote speaker: Prof Ali Ansari, the University of St Andrews.

    The conference cordially invites scholars from diverse fields to contribute towards a wide-ranging interdisciplinary conference which aims to further our understanding of Iranian perceptions of the West and Westerners and Western perceptions of Iran and Iranians, from c. 500 BC until the present day. The aim of this conference is to improve our understanding of Iranian and Western cultural perceptions of the other’s culture, people, and politics, both from popular and elite viewpoints, and the points of convergence and divergence between them.

    for more information click here

  • Animals in Ancient Material Cultures: Conference at the Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam

    Call for Papers:

    Animals in Ancient Material Cultures

    Conference at the Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam

    In the wake of recent interest on both sides of the Atlantic in the subject of Animals in Antiquity, papers are invited for an international conference to be held at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam on 15 – 16 October 2015. Speakers from all disciplines are welcomed to present papers on the theme of Animals in Ancient Material Cultures, broadly from ca. 5000 BCE to 500 CE, from the Near East to Europe. The focus of the papers will be on representations of animals in the material world and visual evidence of archaeological objects and/or works of art. Speakers are encouraged to make ample reference to objects from the collection of the Allard Pierson Museum.
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  • The Zoroastrian and Manichaean religious controversy

    CdF_Seite_1_Seite_1Symposium on the Zoroastrian and Manichaean Religious Controversy:

    «Ils disent que…». La controverse religieuse zoroastriens et manichéens.

    12—13 June 2015, Collège de France

    The two day conference seeks to investigate different topics regarding the “Zoroastrian and Manichean Religious Controversy”. It is organized within the framework of the chair “History and culture of pre-Islamic Central Asia”, Frantz Grenet (Collège de France) and with the scientific support of Jean-Daniel Dubois (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Studies).

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  • The prince and the pir

    The prince and the pir: Dervishes and mysticism in Iran and India

    The British Museum

    11 March – 8 July 2015

    Room 34 /Open late Fridays

    This small display presents works on paper and objects exploring depictions and attributes of Sufi dervishes from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

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  • Corpus Avesticum meeting: “Ḫorde Avesta”

    Corpus Avesticum | Meeting in Berlin 22–23 May 2015

    Institute of Iranian Studies, Freie Universität Berlin

    The Project of Corpus Avesticum (CoAv) is a pan-European Co-operation that aims at making the Zoroastrian Texts, called the Avesta accessible in a new Edition. The current one stems from 1896 and is erroneous with regard to many crucial aspects, the most important of which is the amalgamation of the liturgical and exegetical text witnesses.

    The next meeting of the European research network Corpus Avesticum will take place in Berlin. 22. and 23. May 2015 researchers from Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK will meet at Free University of Berlin to discuss various projects in preparation of a new edition of the Avesta.

    This meeting is dedicated to the research questions mainly regarding to a new edidion of the Ḫorde Avesta/Khorde Avesta.

    Program:

    • Paul Widmer/Florian Sommer: “Vortrag zur Fehlertypologie in den Yašt-Handschriften bzw. den Einfluss derselben auf das Verständnis der Grammatik”.
    • Almut Hintze: “The Vištāsp Yašt and an obscure word in the Hadoxt Nask”.
    • Leon Goldman: “On the Sanskrit Yasna manuscript S1″.
    • Alberto Cantera: “On the wāz gīrišnīh”.
    • Mehrbod Khanizadeh: “A Preliminary Study on the Relationships Between the Pahlavi Version of the Exegetic Yasna Manuscripts”.
    • Celine Redard: “On the Paris Mss”.
    • Antonio Panaino: “The corpus of the Yašts and their Pahlavi Translations. Considerations about a Textual Loss and its Reasons”.
    • Götz König: “Research on the Bayān Nask. State of the Art”.
    • Miguel Ángel Andrés Toledo: “The Drōn Frawardin Yašt Ceremony in the Avestan Manuscripts”.

    The other members of the research group CoAv are also Arash Zeini (London), Kianoosh Rezania (Bochum), Salome Gholami (Frankfurt), David Buyaner and Shervin Farridnejad (Berlin).

    *Image: An illustrated copy of the Avestan Wīdēvdād Sāde. Copied in Yazd, Iran, in 1647 ( © British Library RSPA 230, ff. 151v–152r). Published in: Farridnejad, Shervin. 2014. The Avestan Manuscript 4060 (RSPA230), Videvdad Iranian Sade of the British Library. (Avestan Digital Archive Series 75). Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca.