Joshua D. T. Hall
Graduate Student
Born in Missoula, Montana, Joshua D.T. Hall received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Montana in Central and Southwest Asia studies and English literature, and read for an MPhil in Islamic Studies and History at the University of Oxford after being awarded the Ertegun Graduate Scholarship. Now pursuing a doctorate, his chief scholarly interests include medieval and early modern Persian poetry with a special focus on Hafez; literary translation; Islamic philosophy with particular stress on Avicenna; and the Bahá’í Faith. He has published in The Journal of Bahá’í Studies, where his article “Bahá’u’lláh and the God of Avicenna” discusses the Bahá’í reception of Avicenna’s metaphysical theology and his historic argument for the existence of God. In future work, Joshua intends to apply an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Persian poetry by analysing the aesthetic and creative contributions of Persian thinkers in light of the Avicennian heritage of rationalist thought in Iran and its interaction with diverse schools of discourse, including Sufism and kalām, in the late Middle Ages.
