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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20270113T160000
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DTSTAMP:20261021T170946Z
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SUMMARY:Yarshater Lecture Series: Florian Schwarz
DESCRIPTION:Myth\, Literature\, and Geography in Transoxiana from Late Antiquity to the Early Islamic Period: Siyavash at Bukhara\nFlorian Schwarz\n(Austrian Academy of Sciences)\nWednesday January 13\, 2027 at 4:00 pm Pacific Time\nRoyce Hall 306 and Via Zoom \nRegistration Link: https://forms.gle/VgZ8xmueie9azyLE7\nJoin Livestream Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/95409975203 \nThe conquest of Transoxiana\, the region beyond the river Oxus (Amu Darya)\, in the 7th to 8th centuries is generally regarded as a major historical watershed in the history of Central Asia. This view obscures deeper processes of transformation that affected the entire eastern Iranian world since long before the end of the Sasanian empire. The ideological shifts and re-ordering of the geography of power in late antique eastern Iran and Central Asia came along with a re-framing of the mythical geography of Iranian epic narratives. This presentation explores the underlying historical processes behind the complex literary representations of the story of Siyavash\, the tragic hero whose story and memory became deeply enmeshed with the historical transformations in the late antique and early Islamic Iranian East. \n  \nAbout the Speaker\nFlorian Schwarz is Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna and affiliate professor at the University of Vienna. He previously taught at the Ruhr University of Bochum and the University of Washington in Seattle. His work on the history of Iran and Central Asia from late antiquity to the early 20th century includes research on Sufi communities\, manuscript culture\, transimperial elites\, urban history\, and rural spaces. He is particularly interested in long-term transformations\, borderlands\, and trans-regional and trans-/non-imperial spaces. Among his recent publications\, a book-length chapter titled “Land Behind Bukhara” (2022)\, explores the emergence and transformation of the oasis of Bukhara as a historical landscape from antiquity to the early modern period. The author or co-editor of nine books\, he serves on the editorial boards of the Brill Handbook of Oriental Studies\, Section 1: The Near and Middle East\, two Iranian Studies monograph series for the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press\, and the book series Afro-Eurasian Transformations (Harrassowitz).
URL:https://nelc.ucla.edu/event/yarshater-lecture-series-florian-schwarz/
LOCATION:Royce 306
CATEGORIES:Iranian,Yarshater Center
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://nelc.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/2027-01-13-Schwartz-web-image.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20270217T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20270217T180000
DTSTAMP:20261021T170951Z
CREATED:20261021T170902Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261021T170951Z
UID:21450-1802880000-1802887200@nelc.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Yarshater Lecture Series: Rudi Matthee
DESCRIPTION:Civil Society and the Public Sphere in Early Modern Iran\nRudi Matthee\n(University of Delaware)\nWednesday February 17\, 2027 at 4:00 pm Pacific Time\nRoyce Hall 306 and Via Zoom \nRegistration Link: https://forms.gle/NNDEfuGBqMDGzP9E6\nJoin Livestream Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/91096921973 \nAn old Orientalist trope going back to early modern Western observers holds that a despotic state assisted by a suffocating faith\, Islam\, crowded out manifestations of public life in Islamic societies by stifling popular self-articulation\, preventing the emergence of civic pride\, and disallowing civil disobedience beyond bread riots. This presentation takes issue with this portrayal of a populace cowering in fear in the face of overpowering authority and extends existing revisionist scholarship on the issue to Safavid and Qajar Iran\, with the argument that Iran has a strong tradition of civic mindedness. This comes out in 1.) the remarkably accessible Safavid shah\, 2.) the urban maydan as an agora-like public space\, 3.) a culture that fostered intellectual debate and even countenanced freedom of conscience\, 4.) the centrality of justice and its pursuit in Iranian mythology\, 5.) epic poetry and manuals of manners and morals\, and 6.) the civic pride and communal historical consciousness that helped the elites of the scattered oases on the Iranian plateau preserve local self-rule and social purpose. Early modern Iran\, therefore\, knew an implicit “social contract\,” between subjects\, who\, though not citizens in the modern sense of the word\, claimed rights\, including the right to dissent. Their government\, which\, though often despotic\, was bound by limits that\, of needs\, it had to observe. \n  \nAbout the Speaker\nRudi Matthee obtained both a BA and an MA in Oriental Languages and Cultures from Utrecht University\, the Netherlands\, and a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of California\, Los Angeles. He serves as the John and Dorothy Munroe Distinguished Professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of Delaware. He has authored five books\, most recently Angels Tapping at the Wine-shop’s Door: A History of Alcohol in the Islamic World (Oxford UP\, 2023)\, four of which received awards. Matthee also has (co-)edited six volumes\, most recently The Safavid World (Routledge\, 2021). He currently serves as the President of the Persian Heritage Foundation. He is a two-time fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study\, Princeton (2002–2003 and 2017). He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2026.
URL:https://nelc.ucla.edu/event/yarshater-lecture-series-rudi-matthee/
LOCATION:Royce 306
CATEGORIES:Iranian,Yarshater Center
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://nelc.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/2027-02-17-Matthee-web-image.jpg
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