Date: Monday, June 6, 2016
Time: 9:00am to 5:00pm
Venue: University of Birmingham
For more information, see here. Visit this link to book tickets.
This one-day symposium looks at the history of printing across both Arabic and Persian-speaking worlds from block printing in the fourteenth century to twenty-first century digital type design, and includes talks on calligraphy, type and typography, printing history, newspapers, books and printed ephemera and the cultural impact of the printed word.
Here is the preface of editor (Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi) for this new series:
With the publication of this issue, Iran Nameh is re-launched as an independent Iranian Studies quarterly. Iran Nameh began publication in fall 1982 under the auspices of the Foundation for Iranian Studies. The Foundation generously supported Iran Nameh until Winter 2016, when funding for the journal was discontinued. Via the urging of our readership and contributors, and despite serious financial difficulties, the editorial office has decided to continue the publication of Iran Nameh as an
independent, reader-supported quarterly of Iranian Studies. As of this issue, Iran Nameh is no longer affiliated with the Foundation for Iranian Studies. To continue publishing Iran Nameh as a leading scholarly journal, I urge our contributors and readers to assist us in expanding the subscription base of the journal, and to become a sustainer of Iran Nameh by their generous support.
Since 1982, Iran Nameh has served as a vital venue for the dissemination of original scholarly research on Iran. This has been particularly important due to the hyperpoliticization and ideologization of publically-available knowledge on Iran. With
the inauguration of the second series, Iran Nameh is redoubling its commitment to the publication of original and well-documented scholarship on all aspects of Iranian Studies both in Persian and English. To facilitate the timely distribution of
such new scholarship, with the inaugural issue of the second series, Iran Nameh has adopted a new “article-based” publishing model. Based on this model, submissions that have been successfully peer-reviewed and copyedited will be made available online before the scheduled time of publication. In addition to this inaugural issue, the peer-reviewed and accepted articles for the forthcoming issues will be made available online immediately after the completion of the copy-editing and layout process. With article-based publishing, Iran Nameh intends to remain up to speed with the changing world of digital publishing. A great benefit of this challenge is the timely dissemination of new research and scholarship to the readers of Iran Nameh. To prosper under this changing print-scape, I urge our contributors to continue to send their very best scholarly research to Iran Nameh. I also call on our large digital readership to renew their subscription to Iran Nameh now. This is of vital importance. We need your support. Iran Nameh cannot continue without it. Your active support is vital during this crucial transition period for Iran Nameh into an
independent reader-supported scholarly journal.
Harry Falks “Kushan Histories“ discusses new research concerning the Kushan dynasty and is based on a Symposium held from December 5-7th, 2013 in Berlin.
The first part of the book introduces the literary sources. After naming the primary sources and translations a wide range of texts presented chronologically gives an overview of the Kushan history in its totality.
In the second part of “Kushan Histories” five papers deal with different religious, military and cultural aspects of the Kushan dynasty: How were the expansion of Buddhism and the dynasty linked to each other and which role did Zoroastrianism play among the Kushans? How can new geographical perspectives prove the former existence of a military camp of the Kushans north of the Bactra oasis? Which historical data regarding Kanishka’s conquest of India can be drawn from a Bactrian inscription and what did the female deity Nana mean to the Kushans?
Corpus Avesticum III: “Phonetics and Phonology in Avestan and Beyond”
Paris, 25-26. April. 2016
The third meeting of the European research network Corpus Avesticum to be held in Paris, 25-26 April. 2016. Researchers from France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Belgium and the UK will meet to discuss various projects in preparation of a new edition of the Avesta and the special topic of this meeting.
This meeting is dedicated to the research questions mainly regarding to the “Phonetics and Phonology in Avestan and Beyond”.
Briefing: Current state of Avestological project of the members of the Network
Salome Gholami: “Newly found Avestan manuscripts from Yazd”
Martin Kümmel: “Avestan syllable structure: a look from Middle Iranian”
Götz Keydana: “Evidence for foot structure in Early Vedic”
Paul Widmer: “Phonological domains in Avestan”
Chiara Riminucci-Heine: “Av. saoka- und av. hu-xšn aora- : zwei altiranische Wortstudien”
Almut Hintze: “Proto-Indo-European *h₁u es- ‘to be good’ and Avestan vahma-“
Michiel de Vaan: “On the orthography and phonology of <h>”
Alberto Cantera & Jaime Martínez Porro: “On the treatment of n before front vowels”
Benedikt Peschl: “The transmission of anaptyxis before the endings -biš and -biio in Avestan”
26. April 2016
Armin Hoenen: “La statistique des déviations du Yasna”
Tim Aufderheide: “Zoroastrian phoneticians? Reconstructing the phonetic knowledge underlying the transmission of the Avesta”
Shervin Farridnejad: “Scribal Schools and Dialectal Characteristics in the Transmission of the Avesta”
Miguel Ángel Andrés Toledo: “Avestan and Pahlavi Paleography
in the oldest Pahlavi Widewdad Manuscripts”
Salome Gholami: “Dialectal phonological variations in the colophons”
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.
See also the previous posts on the First and Second Meeting of Corpus Avesticum.
The Oxford Postgraduate Conference in Assyriology (OPCA) 2016 will take place on April 15th-16th at Wolfson College, Oxford. It will be the fifth annual OPCA. A number of presentations relate to Iranian Studies.
What is the role of the material world in shaping the tensions and paradoxes of imperial sovereignty? Scholars have long shed light on the complex processes of conquest, extraction, and colonialism under imperial rule. But imperialism has usually been cast as an exclusively human drama, one in which the world of matter does not play an active role. Lori Khatchadourian argues instead that things—from everyday objects to monumental buildings—profoundly shape social and political life under empire. Out of the archaeology of ancient Persia and the South Caucasus, Imperial Matter advances powerful new analytical approaches to the study of imperialism writ large and should be read by scholars working on empire across the humanities and social sciences.
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos.
About the Autor LORI KHATCHADOURIAN is Assistant Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University.
The Turfanforschung (Turfan Studies) at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities offers in 2016 a summer school providing an introduction to the field of Turfan Studies, which deals with the many languages and scripts used along the Silk Road as well as the histories and cultures of those who used them. The summer school will center around the two main languages of Turfan research. Sogdian, a middle Iranian language, was widely used as a lingua franca in Central Asia since the 1st c. A.C. Old Turkic was the language of Turkic nomads which had a strong influence on the Silk Road since the middle of the 6th c. After the migration of the Uyghurs it was also used as the main language in the Turfan area under Uyghur rule until 14th c.
The courses in this summer school will be given by the staff of the Turfanforschung and the Katalogisierung der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland (Arbeitsstelle Berlin): A. Benkato, D. Durkin-Meisterernst, Y. Kasai, S.- Ch. Raschmann, C. Reck, A. Yakup. There will also be guest lectures by I. Colditz, M. Peyrot and L. Sander.
Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Jägerstraße 22-23,
10117 Berlin
Topics: 1. Scripts
Sogdian script
Uyghur script
Turkic Runic
Nestorian script
Manichaean script
Brāhmī script
2. Language: Old Turkic
language course with reading
lecture for linguistics
3. Language: Sogdian
language course with reading
lecture for linguistics
4. Language: Tocharian
5. Turfan studies
history of the Turfan expeditions
Central Asian book culture
history
religions
research history
Because a minimum number of participants are required for the summer school to take place, we ask for a binding registration by 20th May 2016 at rabuske@bbaw.de or in writing at: Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften AV Turfanforschung, Jägerstraße 22-23, D-10117, Berlin.
The third Yašt (“hymn”) in the collection of the 21 (22) YAv Yašts is dedicated to (the deity, prayer and the divine correspondence of the fire) Aša Vahišta “Best Order”. The text formulates an (eschatologically significant) ritual context and a magical (= medical) charm. Due to the ritual and medical importance of Yt 3, various translations into Middle and New Persian can be found. They provide insights into the interpretation of the text by the later Zoroastrians.
Ardwahišt Yašt is the third in the series of Avestan hymns addressed to individual divinities. It is devoted to one of the greatest of the Zoroastrian Aməša Spəntas, Aša Vahišta. The Ardwahišt Yašt is itself accordingly recited in rituals to cure the sick.
Götz König is a scholar of Zoroastrianism and a philologist working on ancient and Middle Iranian languages. He is currently a deputy professor at the Institute of Iranian Studies, Free University of Berlin, Germany. He has made important contributions to the study of Old, Middle and New Iranian Zoroastrian literature. His two monographs, “Die Erzählung von Tahmuras und Gamšid” (Wiesbaden 2008) and “Geschlechtsmoral und Gleichgeschlechtlichkeit im Zoroastrismus” (Wiesbaden 2010), have to be highlighted. They convey an impression of his refined philological technique which is at the service of a history of Iranian culture.
Arabic and Persian Printing History and Culture
Arabic and Persian Printing History and Culture
Khatchadourian, Lori. 2016. 
