Visiting Research Scholar Spotlight: Parvaneh Pourshariati

By pp2111@nyu.edu
01/13/2016

My appointment as a Visiting Research Scholar at ISAW gave me the opportunity for a month-long, extremely fruitful and memorable trip to Iran, where I gave a total of seven lectures at: Bukhara Magazine, University of Ferdowsi at Mashhad (two talks); Tehran University; Hafez University of Shiraz; the Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia (CGIE); and the Society for Shahnameh Scholars. Besides witnessing first-hand the engaging academic atmosphere of major universities in Iran, which colleagues have tried to maintain in spite of many odds, and in addition to meeting distinguished colleagues in Iranian studies, two of the highlights of my trip back home were my visits to the archeological sites of Bandiyan in northeastern Iran, and the Sarvestan Palace in the south-west, both belonging to the Sasanian period. We also set up grounds for several collaborative projects with colleagues at the University of Ferdowsi of Mashhad and at the CGIE.  While at Shiraz, I continued our discussions with the rector of the Hafez University in Shiraz, for holding the Eighth Biennial Convention of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS), in Shiraz in 2017. As the former President of the ASPS (2012-2015), I look forward to this next Convention of the Association which, if successfully launched, will be the first international conference of its kind in Iran’s recent history.

With colleagues Dr. Jam (Department of History, Ferdowsi University) and the Director of the Bandiyan site, at Bandiyan (circa 6th c.  Darehgaz, Khurasan)


At ISAW, I am continuing my research on a number of inter-related projects, all involving an investigation into the networks of trade that ran through the Fertile Crescent, Iran, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, from the eastern Mediterranean to China, and the interconnections of these trade networks to the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Russian Steppes and the Black Sea trade routes.  Chronologically, I am confining my study to the period 500-900 CE, during which time a number of socio-political watersheds in the history of the region – the fall of the Sasanian Empire, the Arab conquests of the Sasanian and Byzantine territories, the Abbasid revolution, etc. – and a reconfiguration of networks of trade, were affected. For this, the results of recent archeological, art-historical, and numismatic research on the Fertile Crescent, the Caucasus and Central Asia, need to be juxtaposed with the contemporary literary and historical sources of the regions and cultures of western Asia at our disposal.  A one-day workshop that I will organize at ISAW,
Iran Across the East/West Trade: Routes of Communication and Exchange, Products of Exchange, and Networks of Trade circa 500-900 CE, (ISAW, April 22nd, 2016), will hopefully further articulate the fruits of this investigation.

Listen to Parvaneh give an impromptu interview, in Persian, at the site in Khurasan here

Read more about Parvaneh Pourshariati on her bio page here.