The Wide World of Persian:
Connections and Contestations, 1500 -Today
May 2-3, 2014
Co-Hosted by the Library of Congress and Roshan Institute of Persian Studies, University of Maryland
This conference is made possible by a Social Science Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship for Transregional Research with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
DAY ONE, Friday May 2
Whittall Pavilion, Jefferson Building
Library of Congress
10 First Street, SE
Washington, DC
9:00am – 9:15am Breakfast
9:15am - 9:30am Opening Remarks
9:30am - 11:00am Panel I: Identity and Politics
- Amin Tarzi, Marine Corps University, “Status and Politics of Persian Language in Afghanistan: A Brief Review”
- Muriel Atkin, George Washington University, “Tajiks and the Persianate World”
- Wazhmah Osman, Temple University, “Silencing the Unruly: The Lives, Legends, and Verses of Early Persian Women Poets”
11:00am – 11:30am Coffee Break
11:30am – 1:00pm Panel II: Language and Linguistics
- Pardis Minuchehr, George Washington University, “Persian as Lingua Franca: From Bosphorus to the Bay of Bengal”
- Willem Floor, Independent Scholar, “Cheraghkoshan across Time and Space, from Bulgaria to India”
- Corey Miller, University of Maryland, “Standard, National and Colloquial Varieties of Persian”
DAY TWO, Saturday May 3
Van Munching Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD
9:30am - 9:45am Breakfast
9:45am Opening Remarks
10:00am – 11:30am Panel III: Interchange and Exchange
- Rajeev Kinra, Northwestern University, “The Learned Ideal of the Mughal Wazīr: The Life and Intellectual World of Prime Minister Afzal Khan Shirazi (d. 1639)”
- Daniel Sheffield, Princeton University, “The Language of Heaven in Safavid Iran and Mughal India: Persian and Cosmology in the Thought of Āẕar Kayvān and his Followers”
- Ruzbeh Jamshidi, University of Maryland, “India as a Refuge: Anti-Arab Writing in Persian in India”
11:30am -1:00pm Lunch
1:00pm – 2:30pm Panel IV: Style and Script
- Alireza Korangy, University of Virginia, “Trans-regionalism and Mannerism: Some Notes on Sabk-i Hindi, its Post-Rationalized Contestations and the Persona of the Beloved”
- Simon Rettig, Freer|Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution, “Script United? The Persianate Sphere and nastaʿliq Calligraphy around 1600”
- Fatemeh Keshavarz, University of Maryland, “Poetry as Politics, Worship, and Education: The Cosmopolitan World of Sa‘di of Shiraz”
2:30pm - 3:00pm Coffee Break
3:00pm - 4:00pm Closing Roundtable: Persianate Studies in Academic Disciplines
- Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, University of Maryland (Iranian Studies)
- Ahmet Karamustafa, University of Maryland (Islamic Studies)
- Rajeev Kinra, Northwestern University (South Asian Studies)