Library of Congress Lecture by Mehdi Saeedi, Persian Designer and Visual Artist

As part of “The Persian Book Lecture Series”, the Library of Congress and Roshan Institute for Persian Studies at University of Maryland, College Park, present a lecture by Mehdi Saeedi, on September 14.

Born in Iran, Mehdi Saeedi is an internationally renowned artist and designer, whose work synthesizes the contemporary world of graphic design and the traditional Iranian arts of calligraphy and illustration. His artwork has been selected for exhibition in many prominent museums and collections worldwide, and has won several prestigious national and international awards. A collection of his artwork from the past 14 years will be on display at the Alex Gallery in Washington, DC, from September 2-30.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016 | 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | Thomas Jefferson Building, African Middle Eastern Reading Room, LJ-220 | Library of Congress

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Lecture and Book Signing by Dr. Ida Meftahi at the Library of Congress

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is pleased to announce a lecture and book signing by Dr. Ida Meftahi, speaking on her first book, Gender and Dance in Modern Iran: Biopolitics on Stage, as part of “The Persian Book Lecture Series” presented by the Library of Congress and Roshan Institute for Persian Studies at University of Maryland, College Park.

Dr. Meftahi is a Visiting Assistant Professor in contemporary Iranian culture and society at Roshan Institute for Persian Studies. In addition to teaching, Dr. Meftahi is the director of the Lalehzar Street Digital Archive, a project of the Roshan Initiative for Digital Humanities, as well as faculty advisor for Roshangar: Roshan Undergraduate Journal for Persian Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations from the University of Toronto (2013) for which she received a Roshan Institute Fellowship for Persian Studies. Her book, Gender and Dance in Modern Iran: Biopolitics on Stage (Routledge, 2016) investigates the way dancing bodies have been providing evidence for competing representations of modernity, urbanism, and religiosity across the twentieth century.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016 | 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | Thomas Jefferson Building, African Middle Eastern Reading Room, LJ-220 | Library of Congress

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Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies Awarded to Nicholas Boylston at Georgetown University

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is delighted to announce that Nicholas Boylston was awarded a Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies for the completion of his dissertation in academic year 2016-2017. Mr. Boylston is currently in his final year of doctoral studies in the Department of Theological and Religious Studies at Georgetown University, where he is working under the direction of his advisor, Professor Paul Heck. His dissertation entitled, “Writing the Kaleidoscope of Reality, the Significance of Diversity in 6th-12th century Persian Metaphysical Literature: Sana’i, ‘Attar and ‘Ayn al-Qudat Hamadani,” argues that the pluralist and perspectivist characteristics of the writings of these three Persian authors result from their conscious and original synthetic engagements with diverse discourses of their era, and that their works are best read holistically.

Mr. Boylston’s area of specialization is Persian literature and Islamic intellectual history through the lenses of religious, intellectual and literary pluralism. He was Preceptor of Persian in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University for academic year 2014-2015. Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute would like to commend Mr. Boylston for his contributions to Persian Studies scholarship and extends its best wishes for a successful year.

Sa’di in Love: The Lyrical Verses of Persia’s Master Poet

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute Fellow, Dr. Homa Katouzian, recently published Sa’di in Love: The Lyrical Verses of Persia’s Master Poet (I.B. Tauris), a new translation of Sa’di’s work bound to become an indispensable reference for students and enthusiasts of Iranian history, literature and culture. Sa’di (1210-1281) is a vital classical poet and a towering figure of the medieval Persian canon. Comparable in skill and stature to other Persian poets such as Ferdowsi, Hafez, Rumi and Omar Khayyam, Sa’di’s verses address universal themes of passion, love and the human condition in works which are both psychologically perceptive and beautifully crafted. Funded in part by a grant from Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute, the book provides the Persian text and Dr. Katouzian’s English translation side-by-side.

Dr. Katouzian is a historian and literary critic, with a special interest in Iranian studies. He is the Iran Heritage Research Fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and the Editor of Iranian Studies, the bimonthly Journal of the International Society for Iranian Studies. This new publication is his fourth on Sa’di.

Find out more about Dr. Homa Katouzian

Professor Farhat Ziadeh, founder of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Washington, dies at the age of 99

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is sad to announce the passing of Professor Farhat Jacob Ziadeh, a distinguished scholar of Islamic law, on June 8, 2016, at the age of 99. Professor Ziadeh was born in Ramallah, Palestine. He graduated from the American University at Beirut, then studied law at the University of London where he received his LL.B. degree in 1940. After being a part-time Lecturer in Arabic, then a full-time Professor, at Princeton University, he was invited by the University of Washington in 1966, to develop and head a new program in Near Eastern studies. In 1970, the University formally established the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Literature with Professor Ziadeh as his Chairman. From 1975 to 1982, he also served as Director of the University’s interdisciplinary Near Eastern Center. Professor Ziadeh was elected President of many academic associations and served on numerous boards. In 2001, the University of Washington established The Farhad J. Ziadeh Distinguished Lecture in Arab and Islamic Studies, in honor of Professor Ziadeh’s contributions to Islamic law, Arabic language and Islamic Studies.

A celebration of Professor Ziadeh’s life will be held at the University of Washington Club on August 13, 2016, at 1:00 p.m.

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is proud to have established in 2003 the Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies to provide support to future generations of graduate students in the Persian and Iranian Studies Program in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization.

Eleventh Biennial Conference of the International Society for Iranian Studies – August 2 – 5, 2016

The Eleventh Biennial Conference of the International Society for Iranian Studies will be held on August 2 – 5 in Vienna, Austria. Organized under the leadership of the International Society for Iranian Studies President, Professor Touraj Atabaki, and members of the organizing committee, the Eleventh Biennial Conference will include more than 100 panels with over 400 presenters who are renowned faculty members, active scholars, and promising students in Persian Studies. A number of additional events such as book launches, concerts, receptions and readings will also take place.

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is delighted to continue its support of the Biennial Conference this year and congratulates the International Society for Iranian Studies and all participating presenters for their outstanding efforts to promote Persian Studies scholarship.

Find more about the Conference

Abbas Kiarostami, Iranian Award-winning Film Director, Dies at Age 76

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute mourns the passing of acclaimed Iranian film director, photographer, artist and poet, Abbas Kiarostami on July 4, 2016, in Paris at the age of 76. Kiarostami was one of the most influential Iranian artists, who gave the Iranian cinema the international credibility that it has today.

Kiarostami was born in 1940 in northern Iran. After a degree in fine art at Tehran University, he worked as a graphic designer and for a film ad agency before joining the Centre for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanun) in 1969. It was during his two decades at Kanun that Kiarostami worked on what is known as the Koker trilogy, the three films that established his international reputation as a director of considerable sensitivity and intellectual rigor: Where Is the Friend’s Home? (1987) won the Bronze Leopard at the Locarno film festival, Life, and Nothing More (1992) and Through the Olive Trees (1994). Kiarostami’s upward ascension as a major film director was confirmed in 1997, when his seventh feature, Taste of Cherry –a study of a man driving around looking for someone to help him commit suicide– was awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is honored to have supported the achievements of Abbas Kiarostami through a series of London-wide events held in 2005, in partnership with the Iran Heritage Foundation and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Persian Learning in the Ottoman World, 1400-1800, Lecture by Dr. Murat Umut Inan at the University of Washington

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is pleased to announce Imperial Ambitions, Mystical Aspirations: Persian Learning in the Ottoman World, 1400-1800, a lecture by Dr. Murat Umut Inan, hosted by the Persian and Iranian Studies Program and the Turkish and Ottoman Studies Program at the University of Washington.

Dr. Murat Umut Inan is the Ahmanson-Getty Post-Doctoral Fellow at the UCLA Center for 17th and 18th Centuries Studies. He received his Ph.D. in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Washington in 2012. His research interests focus on Ottoman and Persian literatures, and on the literary, cultural and textual relations and transmissions in the medieval and early modern Islamic world. Currently, he is completing a book manuscript entitled Ottomans Reading Persian Classics: Literary Reception and Interpretation in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, where he explores the reception of Persian language and literary classics in Ottoman literature, scholarship, and society between 1300-1600.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016 | 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. | CMU 202 | University of Washington

“Hossein Omoumi from Isfahan to Irvine” Film Screening and Educational Concert

The documentary film, “Classical Persian Music – Hossein Omoumi from Isfahan to Irvine”, was successfully premiered along with an educational concert by Professor Hossein Omoumi and his students on May 22, 2016, at the University of California Irvine. Funded in part with a grant from Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute, the documentary introduces the history and beauty of classical Persian music through Professor Hossein Omoumi’s innovations in education and musical technology. Dr. Omoumi, Maseeh Professor of Persian Performing Arts at the University of California, Irvine, is an internationally recognized musician, master of the Persian reed flute (ney), teacher and scholar. He has made it his life’s mission to provide global access to classical Persian music.

Following the success of the May premiere, with 250 in attendance, Professor Omoumi has been invited to bring the same program to the University of Maryland, College Park, on October 18; Swarthmore College on October 20; Oklahoma University on November 5; Oklahoma State University on November 6; and to London and Tehran the second half of November.

Watch the film trailer on YouTube

Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs Exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Opening April 27 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs, an international loan exhibition featuring spectacular works of art created under Seljuq rule, in the 11th through 13th centuries. The Seljuqs were a Turkic dynasty of Central Asian nomadic origin that established a vast, but relatively short-lived empire in West Asia (present-day Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey). On display at this special MET exhibition will be approximately 270 objects -including luster painted ceramics, silk textiles, manuscripts, and ornate metalwork- on loan from American, European, and Middle Eastern public and private collections. Many of the institutions have never lent works from their collections before. Organized by Sheila Canby, the Patti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge, Department of Islamic Art, the exhibition runs from April 27 through July 24, 2016.

Exhibition programs include a performance on May 15 of Feathers of Fire, a cinematic shadow play adaptation of a tale from the Shahnama by artist Hamid Rahmanian. Also included is a scholarly symposium on June 9 through 11. Professors Robert and Carole Hillenbrand (Institute of Iranian Studies, University of St. Andrews) will deliver a joint keynote address on the historical context of Seljuq art, namely of the regions stretching from Merv to Mosul. Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is proud to support both programs.

Find out more about Court and Cosmos at The MET

LOST ENLIGHTENMENT: Lecture and Book Signing by Dr. Fred Starr

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is pleased to announce Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane, a lecture and book signing by Dr. Fred Starr, hosted by the Library of Congress and Roshan Institute for Persian Studies at University of Maryland, College Park.

Dr. Fred Starr is the founding Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, a joint transatlantic research center affiliated with the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University in Washington (where he is a Research Professor) and the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm.
The lecture is free and open to the public.

Thursday, May 5, 2016 | 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. | Thomas Jefferson Building, African Middle Eastern Reading Room, LJ-220 | Library of Congress

Find out more about the event

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

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is proud to announce the first 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 electronic copy of this peer-reviewed journal is available on the Roshangar website, which also features film and book reviews, interviews with scholars and artists, as well as highlights of local Persian events.

The Finale in the Roshan Institute Lecture Series will recognize the outstanding contribution of UMD undergraduate students to Persian Studies and the launch of Roshangar.

Tuesday, May 3, 2016 | 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. | Roshan Institute for Persian Studies, Jmz1220 | University of Maryland College Park

Publication of “Gender and Dance in Modern Iran: Biopolitics on Stage” (Routledge, 2016) by Dr. Ida Meftahi

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is delighted to announce the publication of Gender and Dance in Modern Iran: Biopolitics on Stage by Dr. Ida Meftahi, Visiting Assistant Professor in contemporary Iranian culture and society at Roshan Institute for Persian Studies, University of Maryland.

Gender and Dance in Modern Iran: Biopolitics on Stage investigates the ways dancing bodies have been providing evidence for competing representations of modernity, urbanism, and religiosity across the twentieth century.

Focusing on the transformation of the staged dancing body, its space of performance, and spectatorial cultural ideology, this book traces the dancing body in multiple milieus of performance, including the Pahlavi era’s national artistic scene and the popular café and cabaret stages, as well as the commercial cinematic screen and the post-revolutionary Islamized theatrical stage. Engaging with a range of methodological and historiographical methods, including postcolonial, performance, and feminist studies, this book is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle East history and Iranian studies, as well as gender studies and dance and performance studies.

Find more about Dr. Meftahi’s Book

New Roshan Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Persian and Iranian Studies at the University of Arizona

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is delighted and proud to announce a new endowment to the University of Arizona to establish the Roshan Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Persian and Iranian Studies at the Graduate School, and support the program’s components, including a new endowed faculty chair and an endowed professorship, the Master of Arts and doctoral programs that are currently under development, and programmatic activities.

This endowment is uniquely poised to make a real impact for the training of Persian and Iranian studies scholars and Persian language teachers, for generations to come. The endowment also marks the first Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute graduate program among its network of endowed programs in Persian Studies throughout the world.

Kamran Talattof, a professor in Middle Eastern and North African Studies, will hold the Roshan Institute Chair in Persian and Iranian Studies, and also will serve as the initial Director of the Roshan Graduate Interdisciplinary Program’s executive committee. The Roshan Institute Professor in Persian and Iranian Studies has yet to be named.

This is Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute’s second endowment to the University of Arizona. In 2003, an endowment for Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies was established in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies. The two endowments combined bring Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute’s total gifts to $2.3 million in support of the renowned Persian and Iranian Studies program at the University of Arizona.

Read more about the Endowment at UA

Congratulations to Dr. Mohammad Gharipour on His Recognition as Emerging Scholar by Diverse Magazine

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute would like to congratulate Dr. Mohammad Gharipour on his recent selection by Diverse: Issues In Higher Education as one of the twelve minority scholars who are making their mark in academia. Diverse magazine’s selection of Emerging Scholars is based on a number of factors, the most important being uniqueness of scholarship, commitment to teaching, community service, scholarly awards, honors, and academic accomplishments.

Dr. Gharipour, a tenured Associate Professor in the Morgan State University (MSU) School of Architecture and Planning, is a specialist of architectural and landscape history, and holds a Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology. He has received recognition for his academic achievements from the Society of Architectural Historians, Morgan State University, and the National Endowment in Humanities, among others. Dr. Gharipour is the author of Persian Gardens and Pavilions: Reflections in Poetry, Arts and History (I.B. Tauris, 2013) and the Editor of several other books on Islamic architecture. He is also the Director and Founding Editor of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture, an interdisciplinary journal which focuses on detailed analysis of the practical, historical and theoretical aspects of architecture in the historic Islamic world, with a focus on both design and its reception.

Read Diverse’s article on Dr. Gharipour

“Classical Persian Music – Hossein Omoumi from Isfahan to Irvine” Documentary

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is proud to announce the completion of the documentary film, Classical Persian Music – Hossein Omoumi from Isfahan to Irvine,” which introduces the history and beauty of classical Persian music through Professor Hossein Omoumi’s innovations in education and musical technology. Dr. Omoumi, Maseeh Professor of Persian Performing Arts at the University of California, Irvine, is an internationally recognized musician, master of the Persian reed flute (ney), teacher and scholar. He has made it his life’s mission to provide global access to classical Persian music.

The film engages a diverse audience, following the life of Professor Omoumi while also providing insight into Persian music itself. The film also briefly presents a series of eleven lessons called “Pish-Radif” (Pre-Radif or overture to Radif) created by Professor Omoumi that are designed to introduce students to the main musical structures of classical Persian music systems in a short time by working on eleven of the twelve complex systems in Radif. Those interested in knowing more about the history and structure of classical Persian music and poetry and their relation to one another and learning the Pish-Radif may refer to the website and the iBook of Pish-Radif.

Find more about Pish-Radif

Object in Context: Louvre Museum Research Programs on the Medieval Iranian World

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is proud to announce “Object in Context” at the Louvre Museum on April 5, 2016, from 9am to 5pm.

This day-long program will present the first results of two major research programs focusing on metal wares and metallic lustre wares from the Medieval Iranian World: Islametal and Medieval Kashi projects, both proudly funded by the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Fund at the Louvre.

Islametal concerns the understanding of materials, techniques and gesture of creation that led to the production of metal wares in the Great Iranian World ( c.10th-15th centuries). One of its main goals is to find out how, where, for whom and in which production context those objects were made. The project is led by Annabelle Collinet from the Department of Islamic Art at the Louvre, with the assistance of Vana Orfanou, the second Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Fellow at the Louvre.

The Medieval Kâshi project focuses on Medieval Iranian tiles from the 13th–14th centuries. Their contextualization is based on the survey of main collections of Iranian lustre tiles in Iran, Europe, and the United States. This project is co-led by Delphine Miroudot from the Department of Islamic Art at the Louvre and Dr. Maryam Kolbadinejad from the Islamic Azad University in Tehran.

Dr. Keshavarz’s Lecture and Book Signing at the Library of Congress

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is pleased to announce a lecture and book signing with Dr. Fatemeh Keshavarz, speaking on her new book Lyrics of Life: Sa’di on Love Cosmopolitanishm and Care of Self, as part of The Persian Book Lecture Series at the Library of Congress.

Dr. Keshavarz is the Roshan Institute Chair in Persian Studies and Director of the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a published poet and author of six books including Reading Mystical Lyric: the Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi, Recite in the Name of the Red Rose: Poetic Sacred Making in Twentieth Century Iran, and Jasmine and Stars: Reading More than Lolita in Tehran. In 2009, her NPR appearance on ‘On Being: The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi’ received the Peabody Award, and she received the Hershel Walker Peace and Justice Award.

Lyrics of Life focuses on the works of the master medieval poet Sa‘di of Shiraz (d. 1291), one of the funniest, most influential and lyrical figures in classical Persian poetry.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016 | 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. | Thomas Jefferson Building, African Middle Eastern Reading Room, LJ-220 | Library of Congress

Find out more about the event

Noruz Mobarak from Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute!

cherished Persian celebration goes back at least 3000 years and is about “Celebrating Life renewal in health and harmony with nature”

Noruz – literally “New Day” – is the Persian New Year and symbolizes renewal and rebirth. The celebration of Noruz dates back several thousand years, to the time of the Achaemenids. Noruz starts at the exact instant of the Vernal Equinox, which occurs each year around the 21st of March, the first day of spring. This most important Iranian holiday is a time for family and friends to gather together and is marked with a myriad of activities affecting everything from preparations and celebrations to food, clothing, gift giving, charity, and many other social and family activities.

Haftsin (Haft Seen) is the spread, around which the Family gathers to celebrate Noruz. Iranians take pride in putting together an attractive and elaborate spread to represent both spiritual and worldly symbols promising a happy start of the New Year. The Persian word Haft means seven and Sin refers to the sound /S/ in the language. Usually a nice embroidered fabric is used as the foundation of the spread. On the spread seven specific items starting with the sound /S/ are displayed. The set is prepared a day or two before Noruz and given a place of honor in the house to remain 13 days following Noruz. Additional items are also placed on the Haftsin that will signify renewal, life, happiness, spiritual purity, prosperity, fertility, growth, good health and all things one desires for the New Year. This celebration is one of hope, promise and good fortune to enjoy and share with friends and family.

List of items for Haftsin

# Name Definition Symbolism
1 Sabzeh Spring Sprouts Growth, prosperity and togetherness
2 Senjed Dry fruit of lotus, “mountain-ash” Tart and sweet tastes in life
3 Seeb Apple The oldest beneficial fruit
4 Samanu Wheat Pudding A sweet prepared with the extract of young growth of wheat
5 Serkeh Vinegar An astringent agent, medicinal
6 Somagh Crushed Sumac Berries The oldest beneficial condiment derived from a plant
7 Seer Garlic The oldest bulb with medicinal Value
8 Sekkeh Coins, (Silver and Gold) Permanence and prosperity
9 Sombol Hyacinth Flower Life development: flower from the bulb to the roots
10 Mahi Gold fish Life energy
11 Ayne A Mirror Purity and clarity
12 Sham’ Two Candelabras Spiritual light and warmth
13 Tokhm-e Morgh Decorated Eggs Life in potential
14 Scriptures Koran, Bible, Torah, etc. Blessings and faith
15 Sepand, Esfand Wild Rue Incense against the evil eye that helps the lungs function

Louvre Museum: A Day in Persian Art, Guided Tours

Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is delighted to announce that the Louvre Museum will host again “A Day in Persian Art” guided tours as part of Noruz celebration.

Due to the success of the event since 2014, the Louvre is hosting the guided tours on two separate days this year: Thursday, March 17, and Friday, March 18, 2016. Led by Fabienne Martet, Manager of Outreach and Education Program, the tours offer a unique opportunity to discover the wonders of Persian art and culture held at the Islamic Art and the Near Eastern Antiquities galleries.

The guided tours last an hour and a half, and are made possible with the support of the Elahe Omidyar Mir-Djalali Fund at the Louvre Museum.