Parse: An Exploration of Critical Topics in Iranian Studies

In the 90th episode of Parse, dive into the poetic retelling of Nizami Ganjavi’s timeless love poem, Leyli u Majnun, by the award-winning poet and illustrator, Yann Damizen. In this book launch, you will hear from Aqsa Ijaz and Thomas Harrison who re... more

In the 89th episode of Parse, Professor Carlo Cereti will present and discuss several passages taken from the Avesta and from Pahlavi literature, highlighting the chronological development of Zoroastrian thought about the end of times. The earliest t... more

The 88th episode of Parse is an excerpt of a presentation given by Professor Nicolas Sims-Williams on surviving documents in the ancient Bactrian language, an Eastern Iranian language that has long been extinct. Numerous documents in Bactrian dating ... more

In the 87th episode of Parse, Learn more about the carefully illustrated worlds of celebrated artist Shiva Ahmadi, one of the featured artists in the exhibition Being & Belonging: Contemporary Women Artists from the Islamic World and Beyond, which to... more

The 86th episode of Parse, is an except of Jenny Rose’s illustrated talk, based on research for her most recent book – Between Boston and Bombay: Cultural and Commercial Encounters of Yankees and Parsis 1771-1865 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). Her book ... more

The 85th episode of Parse provides some reflections on the archival traces of the Gulistan harem and its residents during Nasir al-Din Shah’s reign (1848-1896). The Gulistan harem was a woman-dominated homosocial space, housed in a unique domestic in... more

The 84th episode of Parse is on Aziz Ahmad’s observations on “Hindu historiography,” in his book, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment. The speaker in this talk, Supriya Gandhi, examines select Persian writings by eighteenth and ninet... more

Bringing together cinema studies, Middle East studies, Black studies, and postcolonial theory, Parisa Vaziri’s new book, Racial Blackness and Indian Ocean Slavery explores African enslavement in the Indian Ocean through the little-known history of Ir... more