Moa Viebke, Author at Roshan

Congratulations to Roshan Institute Fellow, Dr. Payman Vafaee, on his new appointment at Columbia University

May 30, 2017

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is pleased to share the news that Dr. Payman Vafaee has just been appointed as full-time Lecturer at Columbia University in the Department of Applied Linguistics. He will be teaching M.A. and Ph.D. level courses in Second Language Assessment, Second Language Acquisition and Quantitative Research Methods. Dr. Vafaee has also recently been appointed Director of Research and Development at Second Language Testing Inc., in Princeton, NJ, where he focuses on the development of tests of language skills and the translation of standardized tests.

Dr. Vafaee earned his Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition from the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park, in 2016. While at UMD, he taught Persian classes at the Roshan Institute for Persian Studies, under the leadership of Professor Fatemeh Keshavarz, and was awarded a Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies for the completion of his doctoral dissertation, “The Relative Significance of Syntactic and Vocabulary Knowledge in Second Language Listening Comprehension”. Dr. Vafaee has publications in peer-reviewed journals such as Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and has presented at numerous international conferences.

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute extends its congratulations to Dr. Vafaee for his achievements and to Professor Keshavarz for her excellent work in carrying out the mission of the Institute.

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News from the Persian Language and Culture Studies Program at CSU Fresno

May 17, 2017

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute would like to congratulate the nine recipients of Roshan Institute Scholarship for Excellence in Persian Studies at California State University, Fresno for the 2016-17 academic year. While these students are pursuing degrees in a wide variety of subjects, they have all demonstrated a deep interest and commitment to learning and sharing Persian language and culture.

Courses in the Persian Language and Culture Studies program at CSU Fresno are taught by Dr. Partow Hooshmandrad, Roshan Institute Endowed Faculty in Persian Language and Culture. In Fall 2017, Dr. Hooshmandrad will be on leave from CSU Fresno. She has been awarded a Visiting Scholar position at UC Berkeley’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies for the duration of her sabbatical leave. During this period she is planning to begin the process of writing a book on the musical culture of the Kurdish Ahl-e Haqq (AH) of the Guran region in Iran, and continue her performance studies on the AH musical repertoire. Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute congratulates Dr. Hooshmandrad and wishes her a productive semester while at UC Berkeley.

Middle East Studies Lecturer, Dr. Negin Tahvildary will be teaching Persian language and culture courses while Dr. Hooshmandrad is on leave in Fall 2017. She will also be coordinating a number of events to promote Persian culture including musical performance, film screenings, lectures and other activities.

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Second Issue of Roshangar: the Undergraduate Persian Studies Journal at the University of Maryland

May 14, 2017

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is happy to announce the publication of the second issue of Roshangar, the undergraduate journal in Persian Studies at Roshan Institute for Persian Studies, University of Maryland. This biannual academic publication is totally designed and run by a group of talented undergraduate students, under the guidance of former Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute Fellow, Ida Meftahi, Visiting Assistant Professor at Roshan Institute for Persian Studies.

The second issue of the Journal features high-quality articles promoting interdisciplinary undergraduate student research in numerous fields including Persian studies, history, literature, and sports. The electronic copy of this peer-reviewed journal is available on the Roshangar website, which features a blog dedicated to book and film reviews, interviews with artists and academics, reporting on local Persian events, and short pieces on all aspects of Persian culture from around the world. The Journal Facebook and Instagram pages also feature short posts on fashion, history, and topical issues related to Persian culture.

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“Writing the Iranian Revolution: Memory, Testimony, Time” Conference at the University of Washington, May 12-13, 2017

May 12, 2017

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is pleased to sponsor the conference, Writing the Iranian Revolution: Memory, Testimony, Time, on May 12-13, 2017, at the University of Washington. The conference is organized by Dr. Selim Kuru, Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, and Director of the Persian and Iranian Studies Program.
The conference will take a critical look at the 1979 Iranian Revolution as represented in essays, fiction, poetry, memoir, speeches, film, and other arts, and examine the ways that writers, artists, politicians, and intellectuals have depicted the origins and development of the Islamic Republic and the legacy of the revolution in Iranian society and culture today.

The opening keynote lecture, “Imam Hussein and the Little Black Fish: Literary Tropes and Political Allegories of the Iranian Revolution,” will be presented by Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In this talk, Professor Ghamari will discuss how such bifurcated narratives fail to capture the spirit that gave rise to the revolutionary movement, a spirit that had roots in cultural, literary, historical, and political singularities of the period.

The conference will close with a performance by the Hamsaz Ensemble, featuring Bahar Movahed (vocals), Ali Samadpour (tar), Shahin Shahbazi (tar), Payam Yousef (kamancheh), Babak Daneshvar (oud), and Sina Dehghan (percussion). They will perform an evening of original and traditional Persian music sung to the poetry of Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Mehdi Akhavan-Saless, and M.R. Shafi’i-Kadkani.

Find out more about the Conference

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Launch of The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Lecture Series at the University of Maryland, College Park

May 11, 2017

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is honored to announce the launch of The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Lecture Series at UMD Roshan Institute for Persian Studies. The Series is named in honor of Dr. Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali, the Founder, Chair and President of Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute.

Roshan Institute for Persian Studies will celebrate the launch of the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Lecture Series at UMD with an event featuring the documentary film, “Classical Persian Music: Hossein Omoumi from Isfahan to Irvine,” followed by “Voices for Spring,” a concert by Maestro Omoumi and musicians Jessika Kenney, Amir Koushkani and Hamin Honari. Maestro Omoumi is an acclaimed musician, scholar and master of the Persian reed flute called “ney”.

He is the Maseeh Professor in Persian Performing Arts at the University of California, Irvine, and has devoted the past 20 years developing an innovative method for teaching Radif—the large, complex repertoire of classical Persian music. In 2013, he was awarded a Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies for the production of the documentary film that focuses on the life of Professor Omoumi as a performer and teacher from Isfahan to Irvine, as well as on his innovations in the field of teaching classical Persian music.
The event is free and open to the public.

Saturday, March 11, 2017 | 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. | Tawes Hall, Ulrich Recital Hall, Room 1121 | University of Maryland, College Park

Find out more about the event

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Congratulations to Professor Carl Ernst, winner of the inaugural Global Humanities Translation Prize

May 5, 2017

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is proud to share that Professor Carl Ernst has recently been awarded the inaugural Global Humanities Translation Prize by the Global Humanities Initiative, in partnership with Northwestern University Press. Professor Ernst received the $5,000 prize for translating and annotating the classical Arabic poems of Persian mystic Mansur al-Hallaj. Executed for heresy in 922 CE, Al-Hallaj is a pivotal figure in the literary and mystical cultures of the Islamic world, and yet this will be the first comprehensive English edition of the poems attributed to Hallaj. Of the 118 poems translated by Professor Ernst, half have never appeared in English before. The manuscript will be published in spring 2018.

William R. Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor, Carl W. Ernst, is a specialist of Islamic studies and the co-Director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His published research, based on the study of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, has been mainly devoted to the study of three areas: general and critical issues of Islamic studies, premodern and contemporary Sufism, and Indo-Muslim culture.

Co-founded in 2015 by Laura Brueck, Associate Professor of Asian languages and cultures, and Rajeev Kinra, Associate Professor of history at Northwestern University, the Global Humanities Initiative is supported jointly by the Buffett Institute and the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities at Northwestern.

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute congratulates Professor Ernst on this well-deserved recognition.

Find out more about the Global Humanities Translation Prize

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First North American Conference in Iranian Linguistics at Stony Brook University, April 27-30, 2017

Apr 27, 2017

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is proud to sponsor the first North American Conference in Iranian Linguistics (NACIL 1), on April 27-30, 2017, at Stony Brook University. NACIL 1 is hosted by the Department of Linguistics at Stony Brook University, led by Chair and Professor, Dr. Richard Larson.

The Iranian language family hosts some of the densest variation in grammatical systems on the planet. Despite the remarkable scientific potential of the Iranian language family as a “laboratory” for comparative study, and unlike the situation with nearly every other major language family, no conference has ever been held in the US specializing exclusively in languages of the Iranian family. NACIL 1 aims at filling this gap.

The conference is organized by Professor Richard Larson, who has a long-standing research interest in the languages of the Iranian family and on their implications for linguistic theory. Conference keynote speakers include Iranian linguistics scholars: Dr. Jila Ghomeshi, University of Manitoba; Dr. Geoffrey Haig, Universität Bamberg; Dr. Simin Karimi, University of Arizona; and Dr. Pollet Samvelian, Université Paris III.

Find out more about the Conference

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Louvre Museum Celebrates Five Years of Educational Partnership with the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Fund

Apr 4, 2017

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is pleased to announce a special reception at the Louvre Museum on April 4, 2017, starting at 2:30pm, to celebrate the establishment of the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Fund at the Museum five years ago.

The first endowed Fund to be established within the Louvre Endowment Fund, the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Fund supports educational programs relating to Persian arts and culture from any period from antiquity to the present day. The Fund also awards annual fellowships to outstanding scholars engaged in research and publications relating to Persian arts and culture. To date, several major Persian-related publications, conferences, concerts, guided tours, archaeological projects and research programs have been made possible at the Louvre, thanks to the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Fund.

At the special reception on April 4, four of these major projects will be presented to attendees by the Museum’s leading curators. Annabelle Collinet from the Department of Islamic Art will introduce Islametal, a research concerning the understanding of materials and techniques that led to the production of metal wares in the Great Iranian World (c.10th-15th centuries). Delphine Miroudot, also from the Department of Islamic Art, will present the Medieval Kâshi project, which helps understand the production of Iranian lustre tiles from the 13th–14th centuries. Cathy Losson will explain the guided tours held each year in the Departments of Near Eastern Antiquities and Islamic Art in celebration of Noruz. And, Marielle Pic will describe a new project that will enable a 3D reconstitution and interactive presentation of the Palace of Darius the Great at Susa, accessible to the public in the Department of Near Eastern Antiquities.

Following the presentation of the main Persian programs proudly funded by the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Fund, attendees will be invited to a private visit of the collections held at the Department of Near Eastern Antiquities.

If you wish to attend, RSVP to axelle.chabert@louvre.fr by March 27, 2017.

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Second Annual Persian Cultural Week at The George Washington University

Mar 23, 2017

In celebration of Noruz, the Persian New Year, the George Washington University Language Center and the George Washington University Persian Program proudly present the second annual Persian Cultural Week. From March 23 to March 30, 2017, GWU will hold a number of Persian cultural activities, including poetry readings, music, traditional dance and film screening, in addition to lectures on GWU’s campus.

Persian Cultural Week starts on Thursday, March 23, with a Meet & Greet event in the tradition of the Persian Deed va Bazdeed, followed by a lecture by Maricar Donato entitled, “Iran and Its Splendor Lecture: A Report by Tourist Guides Returning from Iran. Noruz Night, a traditional music concert with performances by Kazem Daroudian and a GW Dance Group, will be held on Saturday, March 25. On Tuesday, March 28, GWU will screen “Taxi,” a movie by internationally acclaimed Director Jafar Panahi. The next day, on Wednesday, March 29, Dr. Norma Moruzzi (University of Illinois, Chicago) will present a lecture entitled, “Iranian Women and Society: Finding a Critical Lens into the Politics of Daily Life. GWU Persian Cultural Week will end on Thursday, March 30, with poetry readings in Farsi and English.

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is delighted to support these events and the Persian Program at GWU, led by Dr. Pardis Minuchehr.

All lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, and to RSVP, contact the GW Language Center at language@gwu.edu.

Meet & Greet, followed by “Iran and Its Splendor” lecture: Thursday, March 23, 2017 | 6:00-8:00 PM | Phillips Hall #209

Noruz Night: Saturday, March 25, 2017 | 5:00-7:30 PM | Funger Hall #108
Movie Night: Tuesday, March 28, 2017 | 6:00-8:00 PM | Phillips Hall #209
Lecture by Dr. Norma Moruzzi: Wednesday, March 29, 2017 | 3:30-5:30 PM | 1957 E St. #505
Poetry Readings: Thursday, March 30, 2017 | 3:30-5:00 PM | Gelman Library #702

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Dr. Austin O’Malley appointed new Roshan Institute Assistant Professor in Persian and Iranian Studies at the University of Arizona

Mar 22, 2017

The University of Arizona is pleased to announce that Dr. Austin O’Malley has been appointed to the position of Roshan Institute Assistant Professor in Persian and Iranian Studies, established thanks to an endowment from Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute in 2016. Dr. O’Malley will be housed in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies and will work with the newly established Roshan Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Persian and Iranian Studies (Roshan GIDP) at the University of Arizona’s Graduate School.

Dr. O’Malley (University of Chicago, 2017) is a scholar of Persian literature, language, and culture, whose research focuses on didacticism and rhetoric. He is currently pursuing a program of scholarly research with several active publication lines, including two monographs and multiple peer-reviewed journal articles.

Directed by Roshan Institute Chair in Persian and Iranian Studies, Dr. Kamran Talattof, the Roshan GIDP offers MA, PhD, and Minor degrees focusing on modern or classical Persian literature, Iranian (or other Persian speaking societies’) culture, history, religion, social organization, and politics.

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute congratulates Dr. Austin O’Malley on his new appointment and welcomes him to the Roshan GIDP at the UA.