Auch Gedanken fallen manchmal unreif vom Baum.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Interreligious Dialogue in Medieval Bamiyan
This blog first appeared on the website of the Invisible East Programme. Historical documents, as opposed to narrative and religious primary source material, are an invaluable resource for the historical study of daily life and ordinary people. Micro-historical research, thus moves away from panoptic imperial historiography and often focuses on the history of smaller states,
Bahari Research Fellow
As of today, I continue my work at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford, as a senior ‘Bahari Research Fellow’. I resume work on my usual research topics: Zoroastrianism in late antiquity and epistolary traditions within the Iranian world. I’m grateful to Yuhan Vevaina for the friendship, opportunity & the
Berkeley Working Papers in Middle Iranian Philology
Adam Benkato and I have finally launched our journal, Berkeley Working Papers in Middle Iranian Philology, where we intend to publish short and longer articles or research reports on the philology and epigraphy of the Middle Iranian languages (Middle Persian, Parthian, Bactrian, Sogdian, Chorasmian, Khotanese). We start the Working Papers with issue 0, Towards a
The birth of the abestāg
I am delighted to be giving a lecture as part of the Pourdavoud Center Lecture Series on 11 January 2023. I will talk about the role of the Sasanians and philology in the creation and transmission of the abestāg, which is my preferred term for the collection of the texts we have come to know
Book Award
I am delighted and honoured to be the recipient of the inaugural AIS Book Prize for Ancient Iranian Studies for my book, Zoroastrian Scholasticism in Late Antiquity: The Pahlavi version of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti. The prize was announced at the 13th Biennial Iranian Studies Conference, which took place in Salamanca, Spain. As I have said
Were Sogdians Iranian?
This question is being discussed on Twitter, and I was tagged to respond. I honestly don’t know how to do it in a meaningful way on Twitter, as embedded responses are often lost and not seen. I stay away from sub-tweets and believe this topic is too hot to be touched on Twitter anyway :)