Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • Closure of ‘small Humanities programmes’!

    Stop the Cuts
    Image source: http://3909.cupe.ca/files/2013/05/Stop-the-Cuts.jpg

    At BiblioIranica, we usually do not  comment on issues beyond our academic interests in ancient Iran.  However, it would be wrong, if we did not express our disappointment after hearing the news of the closure of ‘small Humanities programmes’ at the University of Copenhagen. As the University Post reports, the “Faculty of Humanities at the University of Copenhagen will shut down five smaller study programmes permanently”. A full list of the threatened programmes, and the university’s plans are published here.

    Oriental Studies have a long tradition in Denmark, and Danish scholars have made and continue to make significant contributions to Oriental and Iranian Studies. It is very distressing to read that some of the ‘small’ programmes will be closed, among which are Indology and Tibetology.

    See the following links for the history of Iranian Studies in Denmark:

  • The concept of Iran

    Sasanian SilkThe Concept of Iran in Zoroastrian and Other Traditions

    Professor François de Blois (AHRC Research Fellow, UCL)

    Date: 21 April 2016Time: 6:00 PM
    Finishes: 21 April 2016Time: 8:00 PM
    Venue: Russell Square: College Buildings
    Room: Khalili Lecture Theatre

    Series: Dastur Dr Sohrab Hormasji Kutar Memorial Lecture Series

    (more…)

  • ZOROASTRIANS OF IRAN vi. Linguistic Documentation

    Saloumeh Gholami, “ZOROASTRIANS OF IRAN vi. Linguistic Documentation,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2016, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/zoroastrians-in-iran-06 (accessed on 27 January 2016).

    This article focuses on the importance of documenting the Zoroastrian dialects of Yazd and Kerman, also known as Zoroastrian Dari (a term not to be confused with classical Persian Dari or Dari in Afghanistan).

  • Zoroastrian Dari (Behdini) in Kerman

    Gholami 2016Gholami, Saloumeh & Armita Farahmand. 2016. Zoroastrian Dari (Behdini) in Kerman. (Estudios Iranios Y Turanios. Supplementa Didactica 1). Girona: Sociedad de estudios iranios y turanios (SEIT).

     Dari (also known as Behdīnī, Gavrī, or Gavrūnī), the topic of the present book is a critically endangered Iranian language. The study of Zoroastrian Dari is of particular importance for Iranian dialectology and comparative linguistics. This language is used in a parallel way to the Persian language of the Muslim population, and one can observe strong influence from Persian, especially in the domain of the lexicon. But Dari also differs from Persian, having special characteristics common to the languages of the North-West Iranian group. Sharing of both North-West and South-West features draws our attention to the fact that the immigrants to Yazd and Kerman originally came from different regions of Iran. The primary aim of this book is to teach Kermani Dari as a living language. This book offers basic materials for those who are interested in learning Dari. The focus is not only on grammar but also includes sections on learning vocabulary, listening to original documented materials, and also writing and understanding texts. The book consists of seven chapters.

    See the table of contents here.

    Saloumeh Gholami is a scholar of Iranian linguistics at the Institute of Empirical Linguistics at the Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany.

    Armita Farahmand is a member of the Zoroastrian community in Kerman and a scholar of Zoroastrianism.

  • Richard Frye and the Tajiks

    Foltz, Richard. 2016. Richard Frye and the history of the Tajiks (Ancient Iran Series 4).

    This series is published by the Jordan Center for Persian Studies, University of California, Irvine.

  • From Oxus to Euphrates

    Daryaee, Touraj & Khodadad Rezakhani. 2016. From Oxus to Euphrates: The world of late antique Iran (Ancient Iran Series 1). H & S Media.

    For a long time, Sasanian studies were mainly cultivated by linguists and historians of religion, and the only standard work on the history of the Sasanian Empire was Arthur Christensen’s L’Iran sous les Sassanides (Copenhagen 1936; second revised and expanded edition 1944). Only in recent years, Christensen’s authority was challenged: Several new syntheses eventually allowed Late antique scholars to better understand the history and the structure of the great rival of the Roman Empire. However, we still lacked a handy, student-friendly introduction to Sasanians studies. Now, Daryaee and Rezakhani provide us with this very welcome booklet, which I highly recommend to students, to an educated audience, but also to Classical scholars (it’s never too late). Giusta Traina, Sorbonne University

  • Painted plaster and glazed brick fragments from Pasargadae and Persepolis

    Aloiz, Emily, Janet G. Douglas & Alexander Nagel. 2016. Painted plaster and glazed brick fragments from Achaemenid Pasargadae and Persepolis, Iran. Heritage Science (4) 3.

    A PDF file of the paper is available online. (more…)

  • Pope and Historiography of Persian Art

    Kadoi, Yuka (ed.). 2016. Arthur Upham Pope and a New Survey of Persian Art (Studies in Persian Cultural History 10). Boston: Brill.

  • Shāhnāma as a Mirror for Princes

    Askari, Nasrin. 2016. The Medieval Reception of the Shāhnāma as a Mirror for Princes (Studies in Persian Cultural History 9) Leiden; Boston: Brill.

    Nasrin Askari explores the medieval reception of Firdausī’s Shāhnāma, or Book of Kings (completed in 1010 CE) as a mirror for princes. Through her examination of a wide range of medieval sources, Askari demonstrates that Firdausī’s oeuvre was primarily understood as a book of wisdom and advice for kings and courtly elites. In order to illustrate the ways in which the Shāhnāma functions as a mirror for princes, Askari analyses the account about Ardashīr, the founder of the Sasanian dynasty, as an ideal king in the Shāhnāma. Within this context, she explains why the idea of the union of kingship and religion, a major topic in almost all medieval Persian mirrors for princes, has often been attributed to Ardashīr.

    Nasrin Askari, PhD, (2012), University of Toronto, has completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of British Columbia, and will be working on her next project at the University of Oxford as a Bahari Visiting Scholar in the Persian Arts of the Book.

  • Iranian Reception of Islam

    Crone, Patricia. 2016. The Iranian reception of Islam: The non-traditionalist strands (Islamic History and Civilization 130). Collected Studies in Three Volumes. Vol. 2 edited by Hanna Siurua. Leiden; Boston: Brill.

    Patricia Crone’s Collected Studies in Three Volumes brings together a number of her published, unpublished, and revised writings on Near Eastern and Islamic history, arranged around three distinct but interconnected themes. Volume 2, The Iranian Reception of Islam: The Non-Traditionalist Strands, examines the reception of pre-Islamic legacies in Islam, above all that of the Iranians. Volume 1, The Qurʾānic Pagans and Related Matters, pursues the reconstruction of the religious environment in which Islam arose and develops an intertextual approach to studying the Qurʾānic religious milieu. Volume 3, Islam, the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness, places the rise of Islam in the context of the ancient Near East and investigates sceptical and subversive ideas in the Islamic world.

    ToC:

    • 1. Kavād’s heresy and Mazdak’s revolt
    • 2. Zoroastrian communism
    • 3. Khurramīs
    • 4. Muqannaʿ
    • 5. Abū Tammām on the Mubayyiḍa
    • 6. The Muqannaʿ narrative in the Tārīkhnāma: Part I, Introduction, edition and translation
    • 7. The Muqannaʿ narrative in the Tārīkhnāma: Part II, Commentary and analysis
    • 8. Al-Jāḥiẓ on aṣḥāb al-jahālāt and the Jahmiyya
    • 9. Buddhism as ancient Iranian paganism
    • 10. A new text on Ismailism at the Samanid court
    • 11. What was al-Fārābī’s ‘imamic’ constitution?
    • 12. Al-Fārābī’s imperfect constitutions
    • 13. Pre-existence in Iran: Zoroastrians, ex-Christian Muʿtazilites, and Jews on the human acquisition of bodies
    • List of Patricia Crone’s publications

    Patricia Crone (1945-2015), Ph.D. (1974), School of Oriental and African Studies, was Professor Emerita at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Her numerous publications include Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (1987); Pre-Industrial Societies (1989); Medieval Islamic Political Thought (2004); and The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran (2012).

    Hanna Siurua (BA, School of Oriental and African Studies; MA, University of Sussex) is a professional editor based in Chicago. She specialises in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies and has edited numerous books and articles in these as well as other fields.