Bilingual Lecture Series: Calendar and Identity: Why did the Persian solar calendar survive for 1400 years and become an important feature of Iranian identity?
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Calendar and Identity:
Why did the Persian solar calendar survive for 1400 years and become an important feature of Iranian identity?
Monday, April 7, 2025 at 3:00pm, Bunche Hall 10383
Alternate live stream on Zoom:
https://ucla.zoom.us/j/95885037418
(No need to register in advance, just click the link at 3:00pm on April 7 to join.)
Since the end of the Sasanian era, the Persian solar calendar—and the associated rite of Norouz—has endured and grown to become a significant feature of Iranian, and to some extent the Persianate, cultural identity. With Hijra as its starting point but based on vernal equinox, it is a unique solar time reckoning throughout the Muslim world and beyond. This talk explores the circumstances that allowed its survival and adoption as a national calendar of Iran at the turn of the 20th century.
About the Speaker
Abbas Amanat is William Graham Sumner Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University. Since 1983, he has taught history of early modern and modern Iran, Shi’ism, modern Middle East, and the Persianate world at Yale. He has authored eight books, most recently Iran: A Mod-ern History (Yale University Press, 2017) and Ahd-e Qajar va Sowda-ye Farang in Persian (London, 2021). He has edited and coedited thirteen volumes and published numerous articles, encyclopedia entries, and op eds. His forthcoming books include A Study of the Solar Calendar and Iranian Identity (2024 in Persian); A Study of Historiography and Reconstruction of National Identity in Iran (2024 in Persian and 2025 in English); A New Biography of Fatemah Zarin-Taj Baraghani Qorrat al-Ayn Tahereh (OneWorld, 2025 in English); Companion of Qajar Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2025); and Circle of Justice: Persian Art of Governance (Yale University Press, 2026). Amanat served as the Chair of the Yale Council on Middle East Studies and as the Director of the Yale Program in Iranian Studies. He was the editor-in-chief of the journal of Iranian Studies and he is the editor-in-chief of the forthcoming series Sources for the Study of the Persianate World.