Recorded talks and podcasts
Podcast: On Geopolitics Ep 1: Afghanistan and the legacy of Khorasan
Professor Ali M Ansari and Dr Susan Raine (University of Cambridge)
In this inaugural episode of our new series, Suzanne Raine and Ali Ansari discuss Afghanistan and look in detail at the historical and cultural significance of the Khorasan, a historical territory whose name survives in Persian and Islamist narratives about the future of the region and their own roles in global history.
October 2021 | University of Cambridge
The Making of Islamic Art: Studies in Honour of Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom
Professor Robert Hillenbrand
In their own words, Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair espouse ‘things and thinginess rather than theories and isations’. This book’s practical, down-to-earth dimension, expressed in plain, simple English, runs counter to the current fashion for theoretical explanations and their accompanying jargon when exploring the world of Islamic art. This bottom–up approach differs radically and refreshingly from that of much top-down contemporary scholarship. It privileges the maker rather than the patron.
August 2021 | Royal Asiatic Society
Shifting the Borders of Belonging in the Myth of the Nation (Beyzaie Conference)
Dr Saeed Talajooy
Myth of the Nation (A Ritual of Exorcism)” as a part of a conference celebrating Bahram Beyzaie’s 10 year anniversary at Stanford University, part of the Stanford Festival of Iranian Arts.
July 2021 | Stanford Iranian Studies Program
Playlist: Tudeh at 80
Organised by Leonard Michael and Siavush Randjbar-Daemi
The year 2021 marks the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the Tudeh (Masses) Party of Iran, a political formation which has played an important role in shaping the modern and contemporary history of the country. Throughout its existence, the Tudeh has deeply polarised the Iranian political community and has caused a considerable amount of controversy. A considerable number of the country’s leading political figures, intellectuals and statesmen have at least briefly transited through its complex structures. The Tudeh is still considered by many observers as Iran’s most significant and structured political party of the 20th Century.
March 2021 | Institute of Iranian Studies
Podcast: Defiance and Revolution in Iran
Professor Ali M Ansari and Dr Susan Raine (University of Cambridge)
Suzanne Raine talks to Professor Ali Ansari of St Andrew’s University about what led to the 1979 revolution and the creation of the radical, resistance state of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
March 2021 | University of Cambridge
Saladin and the Crusades: medieval and modern perspectives
Professor Carole Hillenbrand
What has been the legacy of the Crusades in Europe and across the Muslim world in modern times? Why is the evolution of the Saladin legend throughout history so remarkable? In this talk, Carole Hillenbrand argues that whilst the word ‘crusade’ is still used today with little heed to the historical context in which it first appeared, it is abundantly clear at both a scholarly and more popular level that there is now a continuing and genuine interest in discovering more about the phenomenon of the Crusades in the Middle Ages and especially Islamic perspectives.
February 2021 | The British Academy
Iran, Islam and Democracy: The Politics of Managing Change
Professor Ali M Ansari
Professor Ali Ansari discusses the ideas that informed his book on political change in the Islamic Republic, the structure of the new state as it took shape under President Rafsanjani and the struggles to define it in the decades that followed, looking in particular at how both Marxian and Weberian concepts of the state and socio-economic structures can help us better understand the nature of the Islamic Republic.
January 2021 | Stanford Iranian Studies Program
Saints Talk: Iran, a short introduction
Professor Ali M Ansari
Professor Ansari discusses the contribution of ancient, Islamic and Western influences on the development of Iranian identity, the relationship between myth and history, and how distinct ideas of ‘Iran’ and ‘Persia’ have merged and impact our appreciation of Iran today.
January 2021 | University of St Andrews
Herodotus in St Andrews: Andrew Lang and ‘history as she ought to be wrote’
Professor Thomas Harrison
Professor Thomas Harrison explores Andrew Lang’s wide-ranging engagement with Herodotus, with special focus paid to his letter to Herodotus, published in his Letters to Dead Authors in 1886.
May 2020 | Herodotus Helpline
Social distancing and history as contagion: Herodotus 4.196
Professor Thomas Harrison
For the inaugural seminar in the Herodotus Helpline online series, Professor Thomas Harrison discusses chapter 4.196 from Herodotus’ Histories, offering some fascinating insights into the history of silent bartering in the ethnographic tradition.
April 2020 | Herodotus Helpline
Melaka and the Middle East
Professor Andrew Peacock
We know what Portuguese and Dutch texts said about Melaka in the 15th century. What did poetry and navigators from the Middle East tell us? In this talk Professor Andrew Peacock presents intriguing insights into the entrepôt of Melaka, using extracts from unfamiliar Arabic, Persian, and Turkish sources.
August 2019 | Malaka in Fact
The 1953 roots of 1979
Professor Ervand Abrahamian (City University of New York)
To mark the fortieth anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Professor Ervand Abrahamian (Emeritus Distinguished Professor, City University of New York) delivered a keynote lecture titled ‘The 1953 roots of 1979’.
May 2019 | Institute of Iranian Studies