Lara Fabian works as an Assistant Professor of Iranian Archaeology in the Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department. Her upbringing was peripatetic, but most of her adult life was spent on the east coast: coming to California has, therefore, been a big transition for her. Nevertheless, it has also been a very transformative, eye-opening, and rewarding one—and not the first major life change she has undergone.
Long before coming to UCLA to teach in September 2023, Lara attended University of North Carolina School of the Arts at age eighteen to work as a scenic artist in Theatrical Set Design, which involves designing sets for theaters, films, and more. She was initially drawn to the “entertainment industry” by her love of art, creativity, and storytelling, though she soon discovered that the “industry” aspect is at the forefront of this career path. Though she appreciated the experience and learned a great deal working as a scenic artist, she decided to change her path and get a traditional undergraduate education.
Prompted to shift her focus, Lara began pursuing her B.A at Hunter College in New York City, eventually majoring in Classical Archaeology. After graduating, Lara moved to Pennsylvania for graduate school, specializing in Art and Archeology of the Mediterranean World. During this time, she spent about 18 months in the South Caucasus and Russia working in archives for her dissertation. In 2018 she attained her Ph.D. from University of Pennsylvania, which she defended after starting a long-term post-doctoral project in Germany, where she helped write a series of handbooks on ancient economic history. During the stretch of her work, Lara lived in a small town in southern Germany and taught several courses at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and continued to co-direct a fieldwork project in the South Caucasus.
The scope of Lara’s work is vast—in part because archaeology is such an expansive field, but also because her specific area of study is quite niche. Focusing on Iran and broader Southwest Asia in the Iron Age and later, particularly the Achaemenid through Sasanian periods, Lara has a particular interest in a set of “intrinsic research questions” about how this space operated in the past. Alongside these research questions, Lara explores scholars’ “responsibility to tell these bigger stories,” which means not letting “our research of the ancient past be boxed in by the boundaries of the modern world.” This is one of Lara’s many research goals, which requires working across borders and maintaining a breadth of familiarity with different regions.
In particular, Lara’s work focuses on the South Caucasus as a nexus of interaction between the Iranian, Mediterranean, and Steppe spheres across the Achaemenid and Sasanian periods. One broad research question she considers is how local people interacted with and reacted to the pan-regional political structures on their borders (e.g., the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Arsacid, and Roman empires), investigating how they navigated between these imperial formations and the mobile pastoralist federations based and active in the Eurasian Steppe. For those who are unfamiliar with “mobile pastoralism,” like myself, Lara describes it as another term for “nomadism;” however, the term “pastoralism” is preferred and more commonly used by scholars to avoid negative connotations (e.g., the association of nomads with ‘bandits’ or ‘outsiders’). Furthermore, this area of study seeks to understand how different communities in the ancient world that existed on borders communicated their various identities.
As Lara illustrated, scholarship is all about “building on top of” the work of previous or coexisting colleagues, which evokes a process of working with “fragments” of knowledge in archaeology. This is an ongoing process, but through the combination of individual and collaborative effort, a more complete picture of the past may be developed—one which Lara hopes to contribute to. Lara emphasized that archeology is the study of “old people not old things,” meaning that in this field the object of inquiry is not actually the object. While museums
are about the preservation of the object, archeology centers on past communities and societies—some that didn’t leave a lot behind to investigate. For instance, Lara highlights that because in Iran we do not have an extensive narrative history written by the Parthians (Parthia was an ancient region in northeastern Iran and the center of the Parthian Empire), and because South Caucasus scholarship is still very unexplored (compared to other regions and histories), it is vital that we come to understand how we—particularly scholars—can integrate this part of the world into our understanding of overall history, especially when it has been long ignored. I could not help feeling intrigued by the fact that although Lara chose to stray away from the path she was on as a scenic artist in order to pursue archaeology, she is still able to create connections between the two and use the knowledge and creativity she acquired through the former to fuel her current research in the latter.
When I asked Lara what her experiences working at UCLA have been like, she highlighted that the field of Iranian studies makes UCLA unique, as there are not many places to study her particular subject (a product of modern geopolitical realities and how disciplines have been structured for a long time). There are few places in the country where she would be able to teach this specific area in the company of as many colleagues she has. As Lara pointed out, this is really important because it provides support to a tradition of study even in the face of serious challenges. For that, coupled with her love for the school’s vibrant community, Lara has an immense appreciation for UCLA and her chance to work for the university.
Though I consider every aspect of Lara’s academic and career journey to be fascinating, she further sparked my interest with her “fun fact,” which is that she enjoys Kung Fu. An activity she has engaged in since she moved to Germany, Lara considers Kung Fu one of many physical activities that can provide a therapeutic outlet for mental and intellectual exertions, acting as a nice complement to the intensity of her research and academic pursuits. That combined with her rigorous and multi-faceted research make for a diversely unique repertoire of skills!
We are very grateful to have such a dedicated and devoted assistant professor, scholar and researcher working in the NELC Department. We are excited and enthusiastic to see all of the things she will continue to accomplish here at UCLA!
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Brinn Wallin is a first-year transfer student at UCLA who works as a Student Administrative Assistant for KNAG. She is studying English and Creative Writing, alongside her research on the poet Sylvia Plath. Originally from Sacramento, where her beloved family and dog currently live, Brinn graduated early from high school and attended community college before transitioning to UCLA. In her spare time she enjoys spending time at the beach with friends, playing piano, listening to music, running, and trying different coffee shops in LA.