Auch Gedanken fallen manchmal unreif vom Baum.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Avestan research 1991–2014
The first part of a survey by Almut Hintze on Avestan research from 1991 to 2014: Hintze, Almut. 2014. Avestan research 1991–2014. Part 1: Sources and phonology. Kratylos 59. 1–52. For more information and a PDF, see here.
Iran and the West
Call for Papers for a conference at the University of Warwick: Iran and the West: Converging Perspectives 1-3 July 2015
Forgotten origins of modern humanities
From the book’s webpage: ‘The humanities today face a crisis of relevance, if not of meaning and purpose. Understanding their common origins—and what they still share—has never been more urgent’. Turner, James. 2014. Philology: The forgotten origins of the modern humanities. Princeton University Press. Many today do not recognize the word, but “philology” was for centuries…
The early Islamic world
This very interesting volume has an article by Jairus Banaji On the Identity of Shahrālānyōzān in the Greek and Middle Persian Papyri from Egypt: Schubert, Alexander & Petra Sijpesteijn (eds.). 2014. Documents and the history of the early Islamic world. Leiden: Brill. Historians have long lamented the lack of contemporary documentary sources for the Islamic middle ages…
Biographical notices
BL’s Asian and African studies blog has a nice piece on George Percy Churchill’s biographical notices of Persian statesmen and notables.
Middle Persian and Parthian hymns in the Turfan Collection
Durkin-Meisterernst, Desmond (ed.). 2014. Miscellaneous hymns: Middle Persian and Parthian hymns in the Turfan Collection (Berliner Turfantexte 31). Brepols Publishers. This is an edition of a large number of fragments of Middle Persian and Parthian Manichaean hymns in the Berlin Turfan Collection. M. Boyce in the register of her 1960 Catalogue of the Iranian Manuscripts in…