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Biennial Ehsan Yarshater Lecture Series – Empire and Borderlands at Interplay: A Structural Approach (First Millennium BCE – First Millennium CE)
The 2022 Biennial Ehsan Yarshater Lecture Series
Featuring Professor Robert Rollinger (University of Innsbruck)
The Achaemenid Persian World Empire
Lecture 4: Empire and Borderlands at Interplay: A Structural Approach (First Millennium BCE – First Millennium CE)
The Achaemenid Empire represents a major evolutionary step in the longue durée of Afro-Asian state formations. The fourth lecture aims at illustrating the indebtedness of the Achaemenid polity to ancient Near Eastern and Afro-Asian precedents, while exploring its unicity in light of the interplay between the imperial center and the borderlands.
About the Speaker
Robert Rollinger is Professor of Ancient History and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, where he has held since 2005 the Chair for “Cultural Interactions between the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean” in the Department of Ancient History and Ancient Near Eastern Studies.
Dr. Rollinger’s scholarly interests are wide-ranging and encompass the cultural expanse between the Aegean world and the ancient Near East, with a special focus on ancient historiography, the comparative history of empires, and the Achaemenid Empire.
In addition to his tenure at the University of Innsbruck, he has held a number of prestigious chairs and fellowships worldwide: from 2010 to 2015, he was the Finland Distinguished Professor at the University of Helsinki in the Department of World Cultures, heading the research project “Intellectual Heritage of the Ancient Near East”; in 2020, he was a Getty Scholar at the Getty Villa; since 2020, he has been the NAWA Chair at the University of Wrocław, Poland, where he heads the international project “From the Achaemenid to the Roman Rule.”
Dr. Rollinger is also known for his numerous publications and important editorial work: he has been (co-)editing among others the prestigious series: Oriens et Occidens (Franz Steiner Verlag); Classica et Orientalia (Harrassowitz); Studies in Universal and Cultural History (Springer); Philippika (Harrassowitz); (The Proceedings of the) Melammu Symposia (Austrian Academy of Sciences); and Empires Through the Ages in Global Perspective (de Gruyter). More recently, he published together with Bruno Jacobs the Blackwell Companion to the Achaemenid Empire (Wiley-Blackwell, 2021), which shall serve as the new work of reference in the field.
His recent publications include: Imperien und Reiche in der Weltgeschichte: Epochenübergreifende und globalhistorische Vergleiche (coedited; Harrassowitz, 2014); Mesopotamia in the Ancient World: Impact, Continuities, Parallels (coedited; Ugarit-Verlag, 2015); Alexander und die großen Ströme: Die Flussüberquerungen im Lichte altorientalischer Pioniertechniken (Harrassowitz, 2013); Short-term Empires in World History (coedited; Springer, 2020); A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire, 2 volumes (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World) (coedited; Wiley-Blackwell, 2021); Empires to be Remembered (Studies in Universal and Cultural History) (coedited; Springer, 2022); Decline, Erosion and Implosion of Empires (Studies in Universal and Cultural History) (coedited; Springer, forthcoming).
He is a member of numerous academic organizations and research groups, among them: the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW); the German Archaeological Institute (DAI); and the Academia Europaea.
Download the lecture series program here.