Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Category: Events

  • Communication in the Achaemenid Empire

    The second international Summer School on Communication in the Achaemenid Empire: Achaemenid Elamite, Bisotun and the Persepolis Archive will be taking place at the Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia on 12–21 May 2014.

    1. 4 days on Bisotun (1 day repetition of grammar, 3 days reading)
    2. 4 days Persepolis Fortification Archive and Achaemenid culture
    Every day 15–18 by Wouter Henkelman

    3. 3 days Old Persian Inscription of Bisotun
    13–15 by M. Jaafari-Dehaghi

    Application deadline is May 5, 2014. For more Information please contact: Dr Jaafari-Dehaghi.

  • Public lecture I

    Persepolis1. Mythical kings, empire and multiculturalism: The case of the Achaemenids

    The Achaemenids (550–330 BCE) ruled over a vast and multicultural empire, encompassing numerous indigenous and conquered traditions. How did these various groups co-exist in the administration of the empire and influence Achaemenid ideals of kingship? This lecture will explore relevant Zoroastrian topoi and examine their afterlife in the Achaemenid era.

    Speaker: Arash Zeini
    Where: University of St Andrews, School of Classics, Swallowgate, S11.
    When: 30 April 2014, 17:30.

  • Procopius’ Persian tales

    Procopius’ Persian Tales: entertainment, history or morality fable?

    Geoffrey Greatrex (Ottawa) will consider the opening chapters of the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea’s Persian Wars, in which he introduces his theme, the wars fought between the Romans and Sasanian Persians in the sixth century A.D. He recounts a series of intriguing stories about the Persian court and Persian history in the fifth and early sixth centuries. The puzzle remains as to how seriously these tales should be taken…

    Date & time: 25 April 2014; 17:30
    Location: AIIT, Cambridge

  • The Sasanian Empire as a garden

    The Sasanian empire as a garden: The walls and rivers of the Sasanian Empire

    This lecture by Touraj Daryaee (UCI) looks at the physical and ideological boundaries which the Sasanians created for the idea of Iranshahr. In this late antique construct, inside the empire, protected by walls and rivers was imagined as a garden where order and beauty was in existence. Outside of the walls and the rivers it was seen as place of wilderness and disorder. This binary division was at the centre of Sasanian ideology which projected peace and power inside, while danger for its people lay outside of its boundaries.

    Speaker: Touraj Daryaee (UCI)
    Where: AIIT, Cambridge
    When: 23 May 2014, 17:30.

  • Go east, young man!

    Go east, young man! A personal journey

    In this informal talk the Chair of the Ancient India and Iran Trust, Nicholas Sims-Williams, will describe his research on the Sogdian language and literature, in particular on the Christian texts from the Turfan oasis in Western China, and will try to answer a question which he is often asked: What led you to study such an obscure subject?

    Speaker: Nicholas Sims-Williams (SOAS)
    Where: AIIT, Cambridge
    When: 16 May 2014

  • Reading history anew

    Dr Dieter Weber to speak on Reading history anew: Pahlavi documents from early-Islamic times at the School of History, University of St Andrews on Thursday 3 April 2014 at 5.15pm.

    For Dr Weber’s list of publications, see here.

  • Patterns of argumentation in late antique and early Islamic interreligious debates

    A workshop taking place on 21–22 February 2014 at King’s College London.

    Visit the workshop website. The programme is available here.

    The workshop ‘Patterns of Argumentation in Late Antique and Early Islamic Interreligious Debates’ brings together a group of experts on late antique and early Islamic religious texts to reflect on this type of literature. We will discuss how religious ideas in the Eastern Mediterranean world (6th-8th c. CE) were shaped by the challenges of rival religious groups, and especially what patterns of argumentation were employed within the genre of religious disputation in order to formulate answers to critical questions from inside and outside the community.

  • The use of Tafsir in translating the Koran

    A conference taking place on 28 February 2014 at the Warburg Institute.

    Visit the conference website.

    The purpose of the conference is to assess the significance of tafsir (Muslim interpretations of the Qur’an) in western translations of the Qur’an from the Middle Ages to the late nineteenth century. The speakers will discuss which tafsir were used, how they were treated, and how they affected western knowledge of Islam.

  • EAGLE 2014 International Conference

    International Conference on Information Technologies for Epigraphy and Digital Cultural Heritage in the Ancient World

    29 September–1 October 2014, Paris, France

    Organised by EAGLE with the support of Collège de France Chaire Religion, institutions et société de la Rome antique and École Normale Supérieure.

    For more information, see here.

  • Introduction to TEI and oXygen

    As part of our group’s ongoing engagement with the Yasna, I will be leading a one day workshop on TEI and oXygen. This is an internal meeting with the aim of introducing the participants of the Yasna project to the ideas behind encoding texts and exploring features offered by the oXygen XML editor.

    This is the first session in a series of meetings to be held at the Ancient India and Iran Trust, Cambridge.

    Date & time: Saturday 25 Jan 2014; 14:00–18:00
    Location: AIIT, Cambridge