People
The Institute is home to Faculty members from several different Schools whose academic specialisms extend from Achaemenid Iran to the contemporary period and cover a range of different disciplines. This collection of specialists places St Andrews at the forefront of international research into all aspects of the Iranian past. Our teaching is structured around individual research interest.
Professor Ali M Ansari FRSE FRHistS FRAS
Professor of Iranian History, School of History
Founding Director, Institute of Iranian Studies
Professor Ali M Ansari FRSE FRHistS FRAS
Professor of Iranian History, School of History
Founding Director, Institute of Iranian Studies
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 3027
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/people/aa51
- More information
- Ali Ansari‘s books include, Iran, Islam and Democracy: the politics of managing change, Modern Iran, and Confronting Iran. His research interests are focused on the political development of modern Iran, as well as Iran’s relations with the West from the early modern period. He is currently working on a book about Iranian nationalism with a particular focus on competing ideologies and political myths. In this context he is particularly interested in the development of historical narratives and mythologies about Persia/Iran. His teaching reflect these interests, and he is involved in the provision of the core course for the postgraduate degree in Iranian Studies, as well as offering a dedicated module on Iran and the World from 1921.
Prof. Ansari is also available to supervise students choosing the Directed Reading module as well as MLitt Dissertations. Students interested in pursuing doctoral research should, In the first instance submit a proposal and abbreviated reading list (no more than two pages)
- External appointments
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- Senior Associate Fellow, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)
- Honorary Vice President, British Institute of Persian Studies
- Academic Committee, Iran Heritage Foundation
Dr Tim Greenwood
Reader in Medieval History, School of History
Director, Institute of Iranian Studies
Dr Tim Greenwood
Reader in Medieval History, School of History
Director, Institute of Iranian Studies
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 3301
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/people/twg3
- More information
- Tim Greenwood specialises in the study of late Antique and medieval Armenia, including interactions with, and reflections of, Sasanian Iran, Byzantium and the wider Persianate and Islamicate worlds. His research explores political, social, and cultural features of pre-modern Armenia through literary, epigraphic and material sources. The joint author of a study of the late sixteenth century artist Hakob Jughayets‘i, who died in Isfahan in 1613, he has recently completed a trilogy of articles on Armenian and Sasanian Iran. Following the publication of his translation and commentary on the Universal History of Step‘anos Taronets‘i (Oxford, 2017), he is presently preparing a monograph on medieval Armenian legal culture.
- External appointments
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- Honorary Secretary, Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies
Professor Thomas Harrison
Professor of Ancient History, School of Classics
Professor Thomas Harrison
Professor of Ancient History, School of Classics
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 2615
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/classics/people/tehh
- More information
- Thomas Harrison’s research areas include Greek history and historiography, especially Herodotus’ Histories, Greek religious belief, Greek contact with and representations of ‘barbarian’ peoples; the Achaemenid Persian empire; reception and the history of scholarship, especially in relation to Herodotus and to the ancient Near East. He is currently completing a long-planned monograph on the role of belief in classical Greek religion. Subsequent planned projects include: a book on Herodotus and his reception for a wider audience (for Princeton University Press); edited volumes on the Achaemenid Persian Empire and on Thucydides and religion; and a monograph on Greek racism.
- External appointments
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- Chair, Classical Association of Scotland
- Co-editor, Bloomsbury Companions in Greek and Roman Tragedy, and Bloomsbury Archaeological Histories
- Co-editor, Ancient Religions and Cognition (Cambridge University Press)
Dr Dimitris Kastritsis
Senior lecturer in Ottoman History, School of History
Dr Dimitris Kastritsis
Senior lecturer in Ottoman History, School of History
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 3055
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/people/dk19
- More information
- Dr. Dimitris Kastritsis is Academic Fellow in Ottoman History. His book The Sons of Bayezid: The Ottoman Civil War of 1402-1413 and its Representation (Brill, 2007) studies the dynastic and civil struggles following Timur’s defeat of the Ottomans at the Battle of Ankara (1402). He has worked on medieval chronicles in Persian alongside those in Ottoman Turkish, itself a language modelled on Persian and impossible to understand without it. In general, he is interested in questions of imperial ideology and representation in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the Ottomans were facing rival empires such as the Safavids of Iran. The Ottoman-Safavid conflict had an internal dimension concerning the character of the Ottoman state, which by that time had become highly centralised along Persian and Islamic lines, whereas the Safavids had begun as an empire with a strong Turkic tribal base. Thus the study of Iranian civilisation is not limited to modern Iran, but concerns the larger Islamic world from the Balkans to South Asia, including the Ottoman Empire.
- External appointments
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- PI, Historiography and Historical Consciousness in the Fifteenth-century Ottoman Empire (funded by the British Academy)
Dr Tanya Lawrence
Associate Lecturer in Iranian and Middle Eastern History, School of History
Dr Tanya Lawrence
Associate Lecturer in Iranian and Middle Eastern History, School of History
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 3027
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/people/tel2
- More information
- There is no biography (!).
Dr Parmis Mozafari
Associate Lecturer in Persian, School of Modern Languages
Dr Parmis Mozafari
Associate Lecturer in Persian, School of Modern Languages
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 3639
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/modern-languages/people/persian/pm215
- More information
- Dr Parmis Mozafari did her BA (Music) and MA (Art History) in Iran and received her PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Leeds for which she was granted ‘ORSAS’ and ‘Tetley and Lupton’ scholarships. She is a Santoor player and has taught art history and music in Iran and ethnomusicology, Persian music and Persian language in the UK. Her research interests include music iconography, the aesthetics and symbolism of musical instruments, music and national identity; music and female performers in Persian literature, contemporary religious art and music in Iran, and the role of religious minorities in Iran’s musical culture. She is currently finalising her monograph on female performers in Iran. She has published the following articles: Carving a Space for Female Solo Singing in Post-Revolution Iran in Karima Laachir and Saeed Talajooy (eds), Resistance in Contemporary Middle Eastern Cultures: Literature, Cinema and Music (2012, Routledge), and Dance and the Borders of Public and Private Life in Post-Revolution Iran in Annabelle Srebreny and Massoumeh Torfeh (eds), Cultural Revolution in Iran: Contemporary Popular Culture in the Islamic Republic (2013, I.B. Tauris).
Professor Andrew C S Peacock FSA
Professor of Middle Eastern History, School of History
Professor Andrew C S Peacock FSA
Professor of Middle Eastern History, School of History
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 3083
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/people/acsp
- More information
- Professor Andrew Peacock specialises in the history, culture and literature of the Persianate world from early Islamic to early modern times, including Anatolia, Central Asia and India in addition to Iran. He has a particular interest in the manuscript heritage of these regions. Major publications include The Great Seljuk Empire (2015) and Early Seljuq History (2010).
- External appointments
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- Director of Research, School of History, University of St Andrews
- Director, Mediaeval Research Programme, British Institute of Persian Studies
- Governing Council, British Institute of Persian Studies
Dr Siavush Randjbar-Daemi
Lecturer in Modern Middle Eastern History, School of History
Dr Siavush Randjbar-Daemi
Lecturer in Modern Middle Eastern History, School of History
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 3058
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/people/srd5
- More information
- Siavush’s core research interests lie in the evolution of the state in modern and contemporary Iran, and the contribution to the public sphere, particularly in periods of relative pluralism, such as the early 1950s or 1979-1981, of a variety of actors, from crowds formed by subaltern parts of society to socio-political elites.
His first book, The Quest for Authority: A History of the Presidency from Revolution to Rouhani, is the first full-length monograph to focus on the presidential institution in the Islamic Republic, from its inception to the present day. Siavush is a keen student of the evolution of the Iranian press, and has collaborated with the University of Manchester Library in the creation of Nashriyah (www.library.manchester.ac.uk/nashriyah) the first openly-accessible repository of relevant Iranian periodicals from the 20th century. He is currently also producing a number of outputs on the life and times of several publications of the 1979 and 1951-53 period.
Besides Italian and English, Siavush’s work has been published in several Persian language media, including the Akhbar-e Rouz, Asr-e Nou and Radio Zamaneh websites, and the Andisheh-ye Pouya, Bukhara, Negah-e Now and Shahrvand-e Emrouz journals published in Iran.
- Recent articles
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- The Tudeh Party of Iran and the peasant question, 1941-53
Randjbar-Daemi, S., 2020, In: Middle Eastern Studies. 56, 6, p. 969-987 - “Down with the monarchy”: Iran’s Republican Moment of August 1953
Randjbar-Daemi, S., 2017, In: Iranian Studies. 50, 2, p. 293-313 - Looking back at Mashruteh: late Pahlavi narratives on the Constitutional Revolution
Randjbar-Daemi, S., 15 Nov 2016, Iran’s constitutional revolution of 1906: narratives of the Enlightenment. Ansari, A. (ed.). London: Ginko Library, p. 223-238
- The Tudeh Party of Iran and the peasant question, 1941-53
Dr Angus Stewart
Lecturer in Middle Eastern History, School of History
Dr Angus Stewart
Lecturer in Middle Eastern History, School of History
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 1752
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/people/ads
- More information
- My research focuses on diplomatic and cultural encounters in the Eastern Mediterranean region in and around the thirteenth century. My first book considered relations between the Mamluk Sultans and the Armenians of Cilicia; more recently I have looked at the arrival of the Mongols in the region, and more generally at their reception by those they had dealings with to the west of their empire, in the Middle East and Europe.
At Postgraduate level I contribute to the MLitt programmes in Middle Eastern History, Iranian Studies, Mediaeval History and Mediaeval Studies.
- Appointments
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- Director of Postgraduate Studies (Taught), School of History
Dr Saeed Talajooy
Lecturer in Persian Literature, School of Modern Languages
Dr Seed Talajooy
Lecturer in Persian Literature, School of Modern Languages
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 3563
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/modern-languages/people/persian/st83
- More information
- Dr Talajooy has taught and published on literature, drama and cinema in Iran and the UK, and is currently teaching comparative literature and Persian literature modules. His research is on the point of convergence between cultural theory and literature, performance and film and on the reflections of the changing patterns of Iranian identities in Persian literature and Iranian theatre and cinema. It involves analysing the works of Iranian poets, novelists, playwrights and filmmakers to find how they refashion indigenous forms and characters or adapt Iranian or non-Iranian myths, history and literary narratives, to resist dominant political and cultural discourses. Another aspect of his research involves comparative studies of cultural resistance in Africa and the Middle East. His publications include several articles on Iranian theatre and cinema, a co-edited volume entitled Resistance in Contemporary Middle Eastern Studies: Literature, Cinema and Music (Routledge 2012) and a special issue of Iranian Studies on Bahram Beyzaie. He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinema and Theatre of Bahram Beyzaie.
- Activities
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- Fifteenth-Century Persian Manuscripts on ‘Chinese’ Painted Paper, Leverhulme Trust
- Persian Manuscripts On ‘Chinese’ Painted Paper: Origin, Materiality & Production Processes, Carnegie Trust
- Annemarie Schimmel Preis (for excellent research in the art and culture of the Islamic world)
Sir Geoffrey Adams KCMG
Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of History
Career diplomat – former British Ambassador to Iran and Director, MENA, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Sir Geoffrey Adams KCMG
Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of History
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/people/ga19
- More information
- Sir Geoffrey Adams is a graduate of Oxford University, and joined the British Diplomatic Service in 1979. His early career took him to Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Egypt and Paris, where he spent two years at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration. More recently he was Consul General in Jerusalem (responsible for the UK’s relations with the Palestinian Authority) and Principal Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary (at the time the Rt Hon Jack Straw MP). From 2006-March 2009 Geoffrey was British Ambassador to Iran. In September 2009 he will be taking up a new post as Director, Middle East and North Africa at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London.
Professor Bahram Beyzaie
Honorary Doctor of Letters
Filmmaker, playwright, theatre director, screenwriter, film editor, and ostād of Persian letters
Professor Bahram Beyzaie
Honorary Doctor of Letters
- [email protected]
- More information
- Bahram Beyzaie, the renowned Iranian playwright and filmmaker, received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of St Andrews on 22 June 2017. The awarding ceremony was followed by a two-day workshop on 23 and 24 June to celebrate his unique, scholarly and creative contributions to Iranian culture, cinema and theatre in the last 55 years. The event included the presentation of several academic papers on Bahram Beyzaie’s cinema and theatre, the screening of his first full-length feature film Ragbar (Downpour 1972) and the solo performance of the first part of his play, Shab-e Hezar-o-Yekom (The One Thousand and First Night, 2003) by Mojdeh Shamsaie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwKZDV6YWf4
Professor Carole Hillenbrand FBA FRSE FRHistS FRAS CBE OBE
Professor of Islamic History, School of History
Professor Carole Hillenbrand FBA FRSE FRHistS FRAS CBE OBE
Professor of Islamic History, School of History
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/people/ch213
- More information
- Prof. Carole Hillenbrand, FBA, FRSE, OBE, has joined the School of History at the University of St Andrews as Professor of Islamic History.Prof. Hillenbrand was educated at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh, the latter where she most recently held the appointment of Professor of Islamic History. Amongst her many academic distinctions, Prof. Hillenbrand is a Fellow of the British Academy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and in 2009 was awarded an OBE for services to Higher Education.
With research interests including the Seljuqs of Iran and Turkey, the Crusades, and medieval Muslim political thought, Prof. Hillenbrand’s appointment enhances the existing expertise of the School of History in medieval and Middle Eastern history. In 2005 Prof. Hillenbrand was the first non-Muslim to be awarded the highest accolade in Islamic studies in the Arab world, the King Faisal Prize for Islamic Studies. Since 1983 she has been Islamic Advisory Editor at Edinburgh University Press and from 1999 has been the editor of the series entitled Studies in Persian and Turkish History, published by Routledge.
- External appointments
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- Judge, Wolfson History Prize
- Judge, British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize
- Emerita Professor, University of Edinburgh
Professor Robert Hillenbrand FBA FRSE
Professor of Islamic Art, School of Art History
Professor Robert Hillenbrand FBA FRSE
Professor of Islamic Art, School of Art History
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/art-history/people/rh52
- More information
- Professor Robert Hillenbrand was educated at the universities of Cambridge (English Literature; M.A.) and Oxford (Oriental Studies; D.Phil. 1974). He has been teaching at the Department of Fine Art in the University of Edinburgh since 1971, and was awarded a chair of Islamic art there in 1989. His travels have taken him throughout the Islamic world. He has held visiting professorships at Princeton, UCLA, Bamberg, Dartmouth College, and Groningen. From 1992 to 2004 he held a short-term visiting professorship at Leiden. In 1993 he delivered the Kevorkian Lectures at New York University, and in 2004 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the American University in Cairo. His scholarly interests focus on Islamic architecture, painting and iconography, with particular reference to Iran and early Islamic Syria. He works with the following languages: German (native speaker), French (excellent), Italian (reading knowledge), Spanish (reading knowledge), Persian (colloquial) and Arabic (good knowledge for epigraphic purposes).
He has written the following books: Imperial Images in Persian Painting; Islamic Art and Architecture (translated into German in 2005, Danish in 2008 andPersian in 2009); The Architecture of Ottoman Jerusalem: An Introduction; Studies in Medieval Islamic Architecture (2 vols.);the prize-winning Islamic Architecture: Form, Function and Meaning (translated into Persian in 1998 and 2000); The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque; and Islamic Architecture in North Africa (co-author). In addition, he has edited seven books and co-edited two more. He has also published some 150 articles on aspects of Islamic art and architecture.
- External appointments
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- Honorary Vice President, British Institute of Persian Studies
- Chair, Academic Committee, Iran Heritage Foundation
- Emeritus Professor, University of Edinburgh
Professor Lorenz Korn
Honorary Professor, School of Art History
Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology, University of Bamberg
Professor Lorenz Korn
Honorary Professor of Islamic Art, School of Art History
- [email protected]
- Individual webpage
- https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/art-history/people/lk73
- More information
- Lorenz Korn is professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology at the University of Bamberg, Germany. His focus of research is on architecture and architectural decoration in the central Islamic lands (Egypt, Syria, Iran) from the 10th through 16th centuries, on epigraphy and metalwork. Recently, he has conducted archaeological and architectural field research in Iran and Uzbekistan. Among his book publications are: Ayyubidische Architektur in Ägypten und Syrien (2004); Governing the Holy City (ed., with Johannes Pahlitzsch; 2004); Islamic Art in Oman (with A. al-Salimi and Heinz Gaube; 2008); and the brief survey Geschichte der Islamischen Kunst (2008).
Professor Paul Luft
Honorary Research Fellow in Iranian History, School of History
Emeritus Professor, Islamic Studies, Modern History and Turcology, Durham University
Professor Paul Luft
Honorary Research Fellow in Iranian History, School of History
- [email protected]
- More information
- Born and educated in Germany, Dr Luft read Iranian History, Iranian Studies and Islamic Studies at Berlin and Göttingen Universities before undertaking a three year Visiting Fellowship at St Antony’s College, Oxford. He went on to teach Middle Eastern Studies and Persian History and Literature at Manchester University and also taught at the Oriental School, Durham University. Following his retirement in 1999 he became an Honorary Fellow of the IMEIS at Durham University where he founded the Centre for Iranian Studies with Ali Ansari.
He is a member of various academic societies in Europe, among them European Society for Iranian Studies, BRISMES and BIPS which has elected him as Honorary Vice-President in 2006. Since 1993 he has been a member of the editorial board of the journals of BRISMES, IRAN and several academic journals in Iran. His main academic interests are periods of transformation in 19th and 20th century history of Iran including the political and cultural changes from a tribalised to a court society in the first half of the 19th century and further administrative reorganisation of the state in Iran in the early period of Reza Shah. (1925 – 1941).
Mr Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Honorary Doctor of Letters
- [email protected]
- More information
- Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Honorary Degree of Doctor of LettersLaureation by Professor Ali Ansari
School of History
Wednesday 23 June 2010Vice-Chancellor, it is my privilege to present Mohsen Makhmalbaf for the Degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa.Mohsen Makhmalbaf has been at the forefront of the new wave in Iranian cinema which has captured the world’s imagination in the past two decades.His contribution to the arts has and continues to be impressive. In a career spanning nearly three decades he has written and directed eighteen films, another seven short films and has written screenplays for an additional twelve works. In 1994 two of his films, ‘Time of Love’ and his groundbreaking ‘Salaam Cinema’ were included in the official section of the Cannes Films Festival and in the following year – 1995 – he returned to Cannes with ‘Gabbeh’. His films quickly achieved international recognition and he was soon in receipt of a number of prestigious awards and honours. Indeed ‘a number’ may be an under-statement! He has in fact been awarded over thirty prominent honours and prizes including the Special Prize from Boston University (2000), the Legion d’honneur from France (2002) and the winner of the ‘Best Asian Film maker’ award from the Pusan International Film festival. He became the Dean of the Asian Film Academy in 2007.His cinematic achievements have become so iconic in Iran that Mohsen himself became the subject a film by fellow film-maker Abbas Kiarostami. ‘Close-up’ which was made in 1990 (and was one of the first Iranian films I saw) was wonderfully representative of that blend of fact and fiction which has come to characterise contemporary Iranian cinema. It is about a man who was so captivated by the process of film-making that he decided to impersonate his hero, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, in a bid to persuade Iranians to star in a new film he is making. The film captures perfectly the fascination of Iranians with films and their willingness to believe. The most poignant moment comes at the end of the film when Mohsen himself makes a cameo appearance and confronts – gently – his impersonator, who immediately breaks down in tears when faced with reality of the fiction he has perpetrated.However, perhaps Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s his greatest achievement has been to successfully combine his artistic brilliance with a social awareness and conscience. His work has always sought to bring to light the realities and contradictions of the world around us, and not only in his native Iran. His highly influential film, ‘Kandahar’ – which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the summer of 2001, drew attention to the problems of Afghanistan under Taleban rule well before the terrible events on 9/11. It earned him the Frederic Fellini Prize from UNESCO. His work in Afghanistan led him to pursue his humanitarian interests and he gave up film making for two years in order to fight for the rights of Afghan refugees in Iran to have the legal right to have their children educated within the Iranian educational system. Moreover in the aftermath of 9/11 and the fall of the Taleban, Mohsen took responsibility for eighty two projects in both Iran and Afghanistan including the building of schools, cinematic training and a variety of health projects.Indeed latterly, Mohsen has focussed more on a supportive role, with his film making taking a backseat to his social and welfare projects. But he has also found time to encourage his family to pursue their own highly successful careers in film making, including two of his daughters, Samira and Hana, and his wife Marziyeh.Vice-Chancellor, in recognition of his major contribution to Iranian film-making, I invite you to confer on Mohsen Makhmalbaf the Degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa.
Dr Michael Pye
Co-founder, Symposia Iranica
- [email protected]
- More information
- Michael works as an analyst at Baillie Gifford, an investment management firm. He held the Mahmoud Khayami Scholarship at the University of St Andrews, where he completed his PhD in Iranian Studies in 2015 under the supervision of Professor Ali M Ansari; and also holds a BA in Classics from the University of Cambridge. He co-founded Symposia Iranica with Armin Yavari in 2012.
Prof Ilse Sturkenboom
Professur für Islamische Kunstgeschichte/Professor of Islamic Art History at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München/University of Munich
Dr Ilse Sturkenboom
Professur für Islamische Kunstgeschichte/Professor of Islamic Art History at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München/University of Munich
- [email protected]
- More information
- MAIN DESCRIPTION
- Activities
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- Fifteenth-Century Persian Manuscripts on ‘Chinese’ Painted Paper, Leverhulme Trust
- Persian Manuscripts On ‘Chinese’ Painted Paper: Origin, Materiality & Production Processes, Carnegie Trust
- Annemarie Schimmel Preis (for excellent research in the art and culture of the Islamic world)
Mr Armin Yavari FRSA
Founding Chair, Symposia Iranica
- [email protected]
- More information
- Armin works as an analyst at Weatherden, an early clinical development consultancy. He completed an MLitt focused on vernacular Iranian architecture in 2014 under the supervision of Professor Robert Hillenbrand and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2013. He co-founded Symposia Iranica with Michael Pye in 2012.
Professor Richard Bulliet
Emeritus Professor of History, Columbia University
Professor Touraj Daryaee
Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies and Culture, University of California Irvine
Director, Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture
Professor Dick Davis
Emeritus Professor of Persian, Ohio State University
Professor Bert Fragner
Director, Institute of Iranian Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Professor Rika Gyselen
Emeritus Research Director, Ancient Iran, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Professor Josef Wiesehöfer
professor of Ancient history, University of Kiel