What do “folk” tales have in common with mystical treatises and advice literature for rulers? And why did a learned author at a medieval royal court decide to compile these seemingly unrelated literatures in one work for his educated, elite audience? The themes and linguistic styles of what is generally known as folk tales, at least in an Iranian context, are generally understood to be suitable for the taste and understanding of the uneducated people, not the members of the elite, who are usually presented as advocates of high culture. If these tales were meant for...
William James Hall Room 105, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
What do we mean when we say that classical Persianate poetry is highly conventional? Can we find traces of classical poets’ encounters with the real world in their beautiful but cliché-filled descriptions of ruby wine, idol-beloveds, and the multicolored silk garments of springtime? Through a few short case studies drawn from the most famous verse of Rūdakī, Farrukhī, and Yūsuf Khāṣṣ Ḥājib, I will suggest some ways that the material history of the Silk Road and the ecological study of seasonal cycles might help us to reconsider the mimetic functions and the operations of vaṣf, or...
Lecture by Mary Elston, Alwaleed Bin Talal Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University
Co-sponsored by the Alwaleed Bin Talal Seminar in Islamic Studies, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies
12 Quincy Street, Barker Center, Room 133 – Plimpton Room
Lecture by Ayesha Irani, Associate Professor of Asian Studies, University of Massachusetts in Boston
Co-sponsored by the Alwaleed Bin Talal Seminar in Islamic Studies, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and the Department of Asian Studies
45 Francis Avenue, Harvard Divinity School, Williams Chapel
The Harvard Undergraduate Theologos Society, in partnership with The Alwaleed Islamic Studies Program and The Department for Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations is delighted to invite you to this year’s Inaugural Symposium lecture offered by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, President of Zaytuna College.
Please purchase a ticket to confirm your attendance: ...
William James Hall Room 105, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Céline Debourse, Postdoctoral fellow, Mandel Scholion Research Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Dr. Céline Debourse studies history and cult in the city of Babylon during the Persian, Seleucid, and Parthian periods. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Vienna in 2020. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Mandel Scholion Research Center in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is also an active member of the Center of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires at the University of Helsinki.
Sever Hall Room 113, 25 Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
Odette Boivin, Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Near Eastern Archaeology, University of Münster
Odette Boivin obtained her PhD in Assyriology at the University of Toronto in 2016 with a thesis on mid-second millennium Babylonian history. An adapted version of it was published as a...