Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is delighted to announce that Assef Ashraf was awarded a Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies for 2014-2015. Mr. Ashraf is currently in his final year of doctoral studies in the Department of History at Yale University, where he is working under the direction of his advisor, Professor Abbas Amanat (also Director of Yale Program in Iranian Studies), and dissertation committee members, Professors Alan Mikhail and Paul Bushkovitch. Mr. Ashraf’s Ph.D. dissertation is entitled “From Khan to Shah: Political Culture, State Formation, and Patronage in Qajar Iran, 1785 – 1834” and examines governance practices in the context of the consolidation of power and the creation of a state by the Qajars.
Mr. Ashraf’s area of specialization is the history of the Middle East. More broadly, his interests include the history of Iran from the early modern to the present, comparative early modern Muslim empires, travel literature, and the culture and economy of gift-exchange. Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute would like to commend Mr. Ashraf for his contributions to Persian Studies scholarship and extends its best wishes for a successful year.
