Archive for February 22nd, 2025
Shii News – Academic Items
1. Pourdavoud Lecture Series Video Available: Carlo G. Cereti
The Rise of Persian: Understanding the Evolution of Writing in the Sasanian and Early Islamic Periods
This talk explores the evolution of writing during the Sasanian and early Islamic periods, shedding light on the long-term process that led to Persian becoming the lingua franca in Western and Central Asia from Iran to the borders of China. With the groundwork laid by pioneering scholars, we now have a stronger foundation for reading and understanding Middle Persian documents in their many forms. As Bernhard of Chartres observed, “we are but dwarves on the shoulders of giants,” benefiting from the invaluable contributions of previous generations.
Our understanding of Middle Persian script has progressed in many key areas ranging from 3rd century royal inscriptions to the legends found on coins and gems, and the wider array of secular texts written in ink on various materials. These include legal and commercial texts, letters, ostraca, and dipinti found on walls and stuccos. Notable examples include the dipinti from Dura Europos (3rd century CE), Pahlavi papyri from the Sasanian occupation of Egypt (7th century), and parchments from the Iranian highlands (7th century). Additional comparable texts were found in the Indian subcontintent and range from the Quilon Copper Plates (9th century), to Parsi inscriptions in the Kanheri caves close to Mumbai (11th century) and to Nestorian crosses in Chennai and Kerala.
While substantial evidence exists from the early and late Sasanian periods, a gap persists in our record from the central Sasanian centuries. This may be due to limited archaeological investigation in major Sasanian cities, though sociolinguistic shifts—perhaps after the Mazdakite movement disrupted the social order—may also have influenced the spread of writing. This analysis aligns with the scholarly interests of Ehsan Yarshater, who offered profound insights into Iranian National History, and invites further interdisciplinary inquiry to fully understand Persia’s enduring impact on the Islamic world.
Recorded: January 29, 2025
Event: Pourdavoud Lecture Series
Citation: Cereti, Carlo. “The Rise of Persian: Understanding the Evolution of Writing in the Sasanian and Early Islamic Periods” Pourdavoud Lecture Series. January 29, 2025.
by Carlo G. Cereti (University of California, Irvine)
2. IQP 2025 Nowruz Festival (2025 March 30 – April 9)
Presidential Address: Qom, Tehran old road, After Bus Terminal, Farabi Campus, University of Tehran,
Tour Costs: US$3500
The IQP 2025 Nowruz Festival in Qom, Tehran, etc. is just a few weeks away! As you plan your trip, please note the following special events on the program, which starts on Saturday 30 March:
Qom: Qom Seminary and traditional Islamic education system
Qom: Ayatollah Marashi Najafi Int. Library
Qom: Ayatollah Sistani Int. Library
Qom: Museum of Religion and Life
Qom: Meeting with scientific-Qur’anic figures
Qom: Islamic Sciences Computer Center for the Production of Islamic Sciences Softwares.
Tehran: Tehran Big Bazar
Tehran: National Museum of the Holy Quran
Tehran: University of Tehran
Isfahan: Historical Monuments
Shiraz: Persepolis Monuments
Shiraz: Tombs of Hafez and Saadi Shirazi
Mashhad: Razavi Shrine and Museums of Astan Quds Razavi
Yazd: Historical Monuments
Conference: Fifth International Conference on the Holy Quran and the Holy Bible
All volunteers in Qur’anic and Islamic Studies attending the IQP IQP 2025 Nowruz Festival are welcome to join. All needed (Food/travel/Hotel, …) except your visa and traveling to Int. Imam Khomeini Airport will be scheduled in advance. For Registration you can correspond via info@zabanshenasitarikhi.ir
3. The Latin America and Caribbean Islamic Studies Newsletter
Vol. 5, no. 1 | Winter 2025
https://mailchi.mp/12de60ff1efb/latin-america-caribbean-islamic-studies-newsletter-vol5-no1
4. The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies
in collaboration with the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago jointly present:
Lessons from the Age of ‘Ajam: Teaching Persian with the Seventeenth-century Archive
Shaahin Pishbin, University of Oxford, Queen’s College
Saturday, 1 March 2025, 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time (Canada and US)
Zoom Meeting Registration:
https://utoronto.zoom.us/meeting/register/2ZqVLChRSUSCWCmdpjVsgg
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Abstract:
Coinciding with the turn of the Islamic millennium, the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries arguably represent the high watermark of Persian’s history as a transregional, cosmopolitan lingua franca. What can this rich period of the language’s history teach students today about Persian and the stories Persian speakers tell themselves (and others) about their language?
In this talk, I will draw attention to insights and ideas about the Persian language circulating in the seventeenth century, hoping to create some critical distance between modern students and certain long-standing totems of Persian’s linguistic ideology. Drawing on a variety of sources that discuss the grammar, geography, aesthetics, origins, and cosmic destiny of the Persian language itself, such as dictionaries, literary treatises, and occult literature, I will historicize and contextualize some of the stereotypical claims and attitudes students might encounter when learning the language today. For example, the sources under consideration will help answer some of the following questions: what do Persian speakers mean when they claim Persian to be an exceptionally poetic and idiomatic language? What explains Persian speakers’ sometimes fraught relationship with Arabic? How did notions of Persian’s primordial connection to a place called “Iran” become established? Why are some Persian speakers considered more “authoritative” than others? In partially answering such questions, I will discuss the pedagogical advantages of sensitizing students of Persian to the political, social, and cultural contexts of the seventeenth century out of which much of the languag
5. ONLINE Lecture “Between Byzantium and Modernity: Portraits of Civic Virtue in Late Ottoman Les-vos” by Dimitris Krallis (Simon Fraser University), Harvard University, 28 February 2025, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm EST
In a rich family archive from the Island of Lesvos that dates to the 19th and early 20th centuries, various documents outline fascinating ways in which members of the family in question negotiated modernity and the transition from Ottoman rule to Greek nationhood. This talk will introduce the archive and consider the ways in which Byzantine notions of domestic virtue competed with new ideas in the North Aegean.
Information and registration: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/between-byzantium-and-modernity
6. HYBRID Roundtable “Making and Unmaking of Ottoman Borders”, Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative, New York University, 6 March 2025, 11:30 pm CET
This roundtable brings together scholars to discuss the making and unmaking of Ottoman borders in the last century of the empire. The participants will reflect on the definition of what constitutes borderlands in relation to their academic works, and what are the processes in which various experiences of territoriality can be conceptualized within the Ottoman context.
Information and registration: https://nyu.zoom.us/meeting/register/kAmiTPU7RM2VmnevvvljLA#/registration
7. ONLINE Book Launch “Murjana – A Tale of Love and Passion in Medieval Baghdad” by Dr. Ghada Karmi, Middle East and North Africa Centre at Sussex (MENACS), 18 March 2025, 18:00–19:30 CET
It is spring of the year 830. Baghdad, the capital of a vast Islamic empire, is one of the world’s most glorious cities. The Caliph’s court has become a dazzling academy of poets, musicians, philosophers, and theologians – a picture of a vibrant, self confident, pleasure-loving society. The Sunni-Shia divide, religious fanaticism, and the stirrings of Islamist extremism all started then. These themes emerge as the story of a passionate love that ends in murder unfolds.
Registration: https://universityofsussex.zoom.us/j/92804789851
8. Workshop “Connecting Constantinople: Objects, Empire, and Inter-Civic Relationality”, Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul & Netherlands Institute in Turkey, Istanbul, 13 June 2025
From Constantine’s transfer of the Palladium from Rome to Constantinople, to Sultan Selim I’s symbolic acquisition of the keys to the Ka’aba, objects, both tangible and symbolic, have played a pivotal role in shaping and symbolizing the connectivity between Constantinople and its urban counterparts. This workshop offers new insights into the intricate dynamics of urban connectivity from antiquity to the present day.
Deadline for abstracts: 16 March 2025. Information: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/onderzoekschool-medievistiek/nieuws/2025/februari/call-for-papers-connecting-constantinople
9. Extended deadline: “35th Deutscher Orientalistentag (DOT)” and “31st Congress of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO)”, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 8-12 September 2025 The DOT has been regularly convened by the “Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG)” since 1921. It is the biggest conference of Oriental Studies in the German speaking area and an internationally important conference for the research of languages, cultures and societies of the Near East, Asia and Africa. Contributions of the DAVO-Congress will be presented within the 21 sections and panels of the DOT, which are thematically and organisationally connected to the sections.
Extended Deadline for abstracts: 28 February 2025.
Information: https://www.dot2025.fau.eu/files/2024/08/Call-for-Papers-DOT-2025_ENGLISH.pdf
10. 7th Conference of the European Network for Teaching Arabic (ENTA-7): “Literature and Culture in a Changing Arabic Language Classroom”, SOAS, University of London, 12 September 2025
Papers are invited on research that has implications on teaching and learning Arabic as a foreign language. Themes: – Classical literature and heritage texts: their incorporation into modern curricula. – Modern literary and cultural products: their incorporation into modern curricula. – Cinema and the Visual Arts: Arabic and optic regimes. – History, Religion and Society: inclusion and impact. – Content-Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and the Arabic classroom. Etc.
Deadline for abstracts: 28 February 2025. Information: https://enta.network/enta-7-call/
11. Articles for Journal “Turkish German Studies (TSG)”, Istanbul University Press
TGS is a platform for the exchange of academic research on all aspects of Turkish German Studies, including literary and cultural studies, linguistics, media and communication studies, sociology, political science, history, and edu-cation. In addition to contemporary topics, such as analyses of cultures of immigration, we seek to publish scholar-ship on Turkish German cultural contact, in the broadest sense, throughout history.
Deadline for articles: 30 April 2025. Information: https://iupress.istanbul.edu.tr/en/journal/tgs/announcements/call-for-papers-turkish-german-studies-tgs-2025-issues
- February 22, 2025
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment