Events – Arash Zeini

An autumn course in Zoroastrianism

Pir-e Sabz, Zoroastrian pilgrimage site in central Iran. Photo: Courtesy of Kaiyan Mistree. Copyright: UiB.

The University of Bergen (Norway) and the Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies at SOAS, University of London, offer this autumn (23–27 September 2019) a short course on Zoroastrianism. This free course takes place in Rome and offers international students an opportunity to immerse themselves in the study of this religion with its rich history. The course is taught by Sarah Stewart (SOAS) and Michael Stausberg (Bergen) who will be joined by Jenny Rose (Claremont). Application deadline is 24 June 2019.

The Multimedia Yasna

“Alt-Iranistik” has always been considered a small and exotic field, a so-called “Orchideenfach”. Despite its small size and the limited financial resources available for research, Alt-Iranistik is an unexpectedly vibrant field. The many job announcements of the past year will hopefully continue as a trend and create stable research and teaching environments for the many talented people active in the field. May there be more announcements like this:

SOAS academic awarded European Research Council grant of €2.5 million to study core ritual of Zoroastrianism

Congratulations to Prof. Hintze for receiving this important grant.

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.

Amélie Kuhrt to deliver the Harold Bailey Lecture 2015

The Harold Bailey Lecture 2015

Friday 11th December, 5.30pm at FAMES, Cambridge

Professor Amélie Kuhrt, FBA – The King Speaks: The Persians and their Empire

Sasanian law in its social context

The 2015 UCLA Biennial Ehsan Yarshater Lecture Series will be delivered by Prof. Maria Macuch:

Sasanian law in its social context

November 9-18, 2015

Third Perso-Indica Conference

The Sultanate Period and the Early Mughal Empire

3rd and 4th September, 2015 – Conference
University of Delhi, India

Conference_Program
Abstracts
Flyer and Map

Call for papers

We are now accepting notes and reviews for the next issues of DABIR. Please contact us, if you would like to contribute a paper.

The journal accepts submissions on art history, archaeology, history, linguistics, literature, manuscript studies, numismatics, philology and religion, from Jaxartes to the Mediterranean and from the Sumerian period through to the Safavid era (3500 BCE–1500 CE). Work dealing with later periods can be considered on request.

Before submitting your contribution, please read our submission guidelines. Contributions can be sent as an attachment to out e-mail.

The family tree of Iranian

Dr Agnes Korn (University of Frankfurt) will be addressing the Indo-European Seminar on the subject

The family tree of Iranian and its problems

At 4.30 pm on Wed. June 17, Room 1.11, Faculty of Classics, Sidgwick Site Cambridge (CB3 9DA)
Tea will be served from 4.15

The chronology of early Islam

Wright Lecture Series, Easter Term 2015

The Chronology of Early Islam

Prof. François de Blois

The calendar and the system of timekeeping in Central Arabia at the beginning of Islamic history are discussed extensively in Arabic religious and scientific literature. My paper is an attempt, on the one hand, to confront these data with contemporaneous epigraphic and historic material and, on the other, to assess the arithmetical and astronomical plausibility of the data. This in turn sheds light on the problem of the chronology of early Islam and the reliability or otherwise of the sīra and maghāzī literature.

Digital humanities and text re-use

The concept of text re-use in early Islamic historiography was first brought to my attention by François de Blois, whose courses were always so much more than just an introduction to a language such as Middle Persian. Recently, it has been Sarah Savant, who has drawn attention to text re-use and its application in the study of early Islamic literature. And now there is this very exciting Hackathon taking place in Göttingen in July 2015: