Categories
Reviews

Review: The transmission of the Avesta

Piras, Andrea. 2014. Review of Alberto Cantera (ed.): The transmission of the Avesta. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 104. 365–368.

Read the review here. More information on the volume is available here.

Categories
Events

The visual world of Persianate culture

A promising and interesting conference hosted by the University of Edinburgh coinciding with the launch of their Masters in Persian Civilization. Congratulations to the University and all who made the conference and the Masters possible. This international conference also coincides with ‘the anniversary exhibition of Rashid al-Din’s World History in Edinburgh (1 August – 31 October 2014), [and explores] the importance of the visual in the Persian world. The conference aims to examine the historic role of visual culture in the shaping, influencing, and transforming of Persian cultures over successive centuries.

For more, see the conference website. More information on the degree is here.

Categories
Articles

Topographies of power

Canepa, Matthew. 2014. Topographies of power: Theorizing the visual, spatial and ritual contexts of rock reliefs in ancient Iran. In Ömür Harmanşah (ed.), Of rocks and water: Towards an archaeology of place (Joukowsky Institute Publication 5). 55–92. Oxford/Havertown, PA: Oxbow Books.

Categories
Journal

DABIR: Digital Archive of Brief notes & Iran Review

DABIR, published by the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture at the University of California, Irvine, is a new open access journal focusing on publishing brief notes rather than full length articles. Our aim is to speed up the publishing process, hoping to enable researchers to communicate and share their ideas more quickly.

Please visit the journal’s website, Facebook, Twitter or Google+ pages.

Categories
Articles

The language of heaven in Safavid Iran

Congratulations to Dan Sheffield and Alireza Korangy on publishing this excellent Festschrift. Dan’s own very interesting contribution to the volume:

Sheffield, Dan. 2014. The language of heaven in Safavid Iran: Speech and cosmology in the thought of Āẕar Kayvān and his followers. In Alireza Korangy & Daniel Sheffield (eds.), No tapping around philology: A Festschrift in honor of Wheeler McIntosh Thackston Jr.’s 70th birthday. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Read the article here. See this page for more information on the volume.

Categories
Articles

Approaches to the study of ‘time’

Although not newly published, I mention this article by Stausberg as it relates to Rezania’s work on the concept of time in Zoroastrianism.

Stausberg, Michael. 2004. Approaches to the study of ‘time’ in the history of religions. Temenos 39/40. 247–268.

Rezania, Kianoosh. 2010. Die zoroastrische Zeitvorstellung. Eine Untersuchung über Zeit- und Ewigkeitskonzepte und die Frage des Zurvanismus (Göttinger Orientforschungen III.
Reihe Iranica, Neue Folge 7). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

Categories
Articles

The ethics and praxis of Mehr and Mithras

Pourshariati, Parvaneh. 2013. The ethics and praxis of Mehr and Mithras and the social institution of the ʿayyārs in the epic romance of Samak-e ʿayyār*. Journal of Persianate Studies 6. 15–38.

Giving a very brief and introductory summary of the many avatars of the Iranian god, Mithra, throughout Eurasia, as well as the primordial functions of the god, this article proceeds to discuss the Iranian Mithraic world-view, as seen in the ethics and practices of the “chivalrous” brother-hoods and sisterhoods of the ʿayyārs. Through a preliminary examination of the Parthian epic romance of Samak-e ʿayyār, we shall argue here that this literary epic provides us with a fascinating template for decoding not only; 1) the ethics, “ideal” social mores and praxes and the ideo-logical super-structures of the “chivalrous” brotherhood, or ʿayyars, of Iran, but also; 2) what was in effect the ethics of Mithraic brotherhoods and sisterhoods of the Iranian world.

Read the article here.

نسخه‌ی فارسی این مقاله را اینجا ببینید.

Categories
Books

Yaghnobi Studies

A collection of papers resulting from the Italian ‘expeditions’ to the Yaghnob Valley:

Panaino, Antonio, Andrea Gariboldi & Paolo Ognibene (eds.). 2013. Papers from the Italian missions in Tajikistan (Yaghnobi Studies I). Mimesis.

Categories
Reviews

Review: Remembering and forgetting the Persian past

Elizabeth Urban has reviewed Sarah Bowen Savant’s very important The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and Conversion for Marginalia:

However, The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran will prove fascinating to anyone interested in identity narratives and how authors shape the past in the service of the present. Savant builds a bridge between the history of Persia and the memory of Persia, and atop this bridge we can clearly witness the inherent tension in any identity between the old and the new.

Read the full review here.

Categories
Events

Eighth European Conference of Iranian Studies

The first call for the eighth European Conference of Iranian Studies (ECIS8), St. Petersburg, 15–19.09.2015:

The President and the Board of the Societas Iranologica Europaea have the pleasure to invite you to the 8th Conference of Iranian Studies to be held in Saint Petersburg, at the State Hermitage Museum and Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, from Tuesday September 15 till Saturday September 19, 2015.

Should you decide to present a paper, please fill the pre-registration form available at the site of the conference, http://ecis8.orientalstudies.ru/ and send an abstract not exceeding half a page (1500 characters) by November 1, 2014 to the organizing committee at the following e-mail address: ecis8@yandex.ru.