The Ehsan Yarshater Lecture Series

The Ehsan Yarshater Lecture Series are delivered by an outstanding scholar whose work has distinctively impacted the study of the Iranian Civilization. Each biennial lecture series consists of four to five lectures on a single theme that is subsequently elaborated and amplified into a monograph. The lectures represent original research and synthesis in all aspects of Iranian Studies, including archaeology and art history, as well as history, literature, the study of religions, and philosophy.

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    The Achaemenid Persian World Empire
     Robert Rollinger (University of Innsbruck). April 11-20, 2022.

    The series of lectures offers a novel and fresh perspective on one of the largest and most successful empires in world history, namely, the Achaemenid Persian World Empire (sixth to fourth century BCE), the central power of a (proto-)globalized world, and the driving force behind many cultural developments, whose manifold repercussions we may observe from Gibraltar to the Taklamakan Desert, from the Aegean and Scythian lands to the sub-Saharan worlds, and from the Bay of Bengal to eastern Africa.

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    Kith and Kin, Tribe, and State in Ancient Iran
     Daniel T. Potts (NYU). March 2-11, 2020.

    Kinship and the organization of family structure, both conceptually and corporeally, is a cornerstone of all societies. This series of lectures will investigate both archaeological and philological evidence for kith and kinship ties in a longue durée study on ancient Persia.

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    Sasanian Law in its Social Context
    Maria Macuch (Freie Universität Berlin). November 9-18, 2015.

    Legal texts are among the more important sources for the reconstruction of the political and economic institutions, and cultural practices, of late antique Iran, as they considerably further our understanding of past social complexities that are decisively different than our own.

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    The Phoenix Rising: Whither Iran
    Farhad Kazemi (NYU). May 5, 2010.
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    Persian Historiography
    Julie S. Meisami. May 9, 2007.
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    The Orality of the Iranian Literary Traditions
    Prods Oktor Skjærvø. May 11, 2005.
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    Persian Literature of Exile
    Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak. November 13, 2002.
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    Panthea’s Children: Hellenistic Novels & Medieval Persian Romances
    Richard Davis. November 8, 2000.
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    The Poetry of Sanā’ī
    J. T. P. De Bruijn. November 11, 1998.
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    Zoroaster in History
    Gherardo Gnoli. November 13, 1996.
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    The Many Faces of Mithra
    A. D. H. Bivar. November 16, 1994.