Our guests will be:
Houchang CHEHABI (Boston University)
Firoozeh KASHANI-SABET (University of Pennsylvania)
Lior STERNFELD (Pennsylvania State University)
Host: Robert STEELE (IFI)
14 April 2026, 6:00 pm
ÖAW Theatersaal, Sonnenfelsgasse 19, 1010 Wien
See you there!
Reza Shah addresses the Iranian majlis (parliament) in 1925. Black and white photo.
In our 14-16 April workshop on Reza Shah's Iran, we have a program update: the keynote slot will now take the form of a roundtable, entitled "The Pahlavi Dynasty: A conversation on the history and legacy of a contested period in modern Iranian history"!
Details at:
www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veransta...
We were happy to co-sponsor this event back in February, run by our medieval Caucasus specialist @jubalbarca.bsky.social: you can now watch various talks and panels on the ways that games and game development represent premodern/medieval worlds via the quoted thread:
While aromatics, cosmetics and adornment are often just seen as frivolities, this book explores their role from the Nile to the Indus between the neolithic and late Antiquity. The author explores their links to faith, power, ritual, and technology - the core underpinnings of ancient societies.
Scent, Colour and Glitter in the Ancient World book cover by Fatema Soudavar Farmanfarmaian. It is subtitled "A Comparative History of Aromatics, Cosmetics and Adornment, from the Mediterranean to the China Seas", and the background is purple, red, and gold pebbles or rock shards on a black background.
Upcoming event! On April 16th at 5pm, we will have a talk by Fatema Soudavar Farmanfarmaian about her book Scent, Colour and Glitter in the Ancient World.
www.oeaw.ac.at/en/ifi/veran...
#History #AncientHistory #IranianStudies #AncientWorld
This event will run 14-16 April, and will open with a keynote by Professor Abbas Milani on Reza Shah and Historical Revisionism. You can find location and other details at the above link: we hope to see as many of you as possible there.
At a critical moment for understanding modern Iranian history, and marking the hundredth anniversary of the Reza Shah taking power, we come together to re-examine the early Pahlavi period. In particular, we seek to understand the period on its own terms, without teleologically pointing towards 1979.
Next forthcoming event! We will be hosting the conference "Iran under Reza Shah: Politics, Culture and State Building in the Early Pahlavi Period (1925-1941)":
www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veransta...
#Iran #IranianStudies #History
Prof. Florian Schwarz. He is looking sideways with his back half turned tot he camera, standing in a paved park with trees behind him and the sunlight bursting through the clouds. There is a ferris wheel visible behind his head. He is a medium height beardless white man with mid length grey-brown hair, wearing glasses and a blue shirt.
Congratulations to our director Prof. Florian Schwarz, who has been elected as a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences!
Full ÖAW membership is one of Austria's highest academic distinctions: we are excited by this recognition of Florian's own work and his wider role in shaping our field
It may be less celebratory, but perhaps more important, then, that today we should mark the new day and the coming of another year: and that we should remember that spring will come, always.
A Haft-sin table to mark the new year, full of things, especially seven central ones, that begin with the letter sin in Arabic.
This Nowruz comes when many of us and our colleagues are living with great fear, uncertainty, and grief. We send best wishes at this time to friends in our shared endeavour of understanding the Iranian world, and all across the wider region, who are in danger, or afraid for friends and loved ones.
Book cover 'Mongoles en el Oeste' Editado por Antonio García Espada y Bruno De Nicola.
Mongols from the West, co-edited by our Dr. Bruno de Nicola, has now been published in Spanish as Mongoles en el Oeste!
Mongoles en el Oeste explora el papel de los reinos ibéricos en la integración euroasiática impulsada por el Imperio mongol en los siglos XIII y XIV:
brill.com/display/titl...
Lārī was a 16th century writer whose writing spanned the Ottoman, Timurid and Safavid worlds. Dr. Saeedi's book traces political comment and cultural mediation in his work, varying approaches to the different dynasties to navigate the world he lived in:
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/1...
Upcoming book talk!
Dr. Nilab Saeedi will present her work on Muṣliḥ al-Dīn Lārī, especially his universal chronicle, Mirʾātu’l-Advār wa Mirḳātu’l-Aḫbār (The Mirror of Epochs and the Staircase of Historical Reports).
Find out more:
www.oeaw.ac.at/en/ifi/veran...
#Persian #Ottoman #Iran #History
How did the Sasanian Empire really fall? Last month, the Sképsislamica podcast sat down with the IFI's @sasanianshah.bsky.social to find out, looking at the period's framing, Sasanian sources, religion, and how modern discourses shape scholarship on the Empire:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTuk...
The "Archival Impulse" conference organised by Ulfat Abdurasulov and Paolo Sartori at the IFI and Jan Hennings at Central European University, thus aims at examining how archives have grown with imperial expansion from the 15th to 19th centuries. Find out more at: www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veransta...
From the 16th century states invested in knowledge production resulting in new archival regimes - but much of this knowledge was not put to governmental service, was never exploited, or was simply ignored. If that knowledge is not a utilised tool of power, then what is it and what is its function?
Programme cover for "The Archival Impulse: Knowledge Production, Record Keeping, and Imperial Governance (15th-19th Centuries)", an event running from 18th-20th March 2026.
Program for the "Archival Impulse" conference, 18-20 March. Keynote on day 1 on concepts of archival completeness by Randolph C. Head: day 2 includes panels on appropriation & mobility, archives and fictions of governance, nad a second keynote on interdisciplinary perspectives. Day 3 has panels on documentation and archival legacies, and on documentary regimes and diplomatic impulses. Each panel has an associated open discussion. Case studies include re-circulation of Ottoman documents in Europe, the archives of Ivan the Terrible, Archival knowledge in 19th century Nepal, Mughal chancery records, and archival reconstructions of the 1718 Congress of Passarowitz.
Upcoming conference!
European imperial expansion has long been a focal point for historians, but only more recently that have scholars begun to systematically question colonial knowledge production and rethink bureaucracy as an instrument of governance:
#History #Archives #Knowledge #Imperialism
Coming up this evening!
Today's lecture is by Prof. Marcus Milwright (University of York), entitled: "Encircling Inscriptions in Early Persian Architecture: Thoughts on Moving, Reading, and Looking".
More information about this and future lectures:
persianmanuscripts.org/2026-2/
#IranianStudies #Iran #Persian #History
Lecture poster for the PMA talk series lecture "Encircling Inscriptions in Early Persian Architecture: Thoughts on Moving, Reading, and Looking" by Prof. Marcus Milwright (University of York). 26 February 2026, 6 – 7.30 pm (CET). Zoom registration is available. The lecture poster shows a large round tower or dome with intricate detailing on the yellowish outer stonework.
Lecture coming up TODAY in just under three hours! This is organised by the Persian Manuscripts Association, who from March will be joining with our NoMansLand Webinar Series to co-organise a series of online lectures for the rest of 2026.
Register to join at:
us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Starting very soon with our Friday evening workshop session! Looking forward to an exciting weekend with everyone :)
A recent interview with the IFI's Dr. Robert Steele regarding the protests in #Iran - do have a read (in German):
www.oeaw.ac.at/news/protest...
#IranProtests #IranianStudies
On February 19, at CEU, our Dr. Polina Ivanova will be giving a talk on how we write the histories of the absences of destroyed heritage, looking at the Ottoman history of Amasya. It will be in hybrid format - do join us for it!
events.ceu.edu/2026-02-19/w...
#Armenia #Turkey #History #Ottoman
The IFI's @sasanianshah.bsky.social contributed to this segment on the recent Iran protests - have a listen and stay informed on the situation:
oe1.orf.at/player/20260...
(In German)
#Iran #IranianStudies
Vienna Winter Caucasiology Meetup We’re having another meetup! This is the third meetup of Caucasiologists across Viennese academic and knowledge-sector institutions that we’ve run. It being winter, we’re once again going to have a cosy indoor meetup to discuss work and meet friends and colleagues over a coffee or drink. If you’re someone working on or from the Caucasus and you’re in Vienna on February 27th, we’d love to see you there! When: Friday, February 27th, 2026: 17:30-20:30pm Where: Café Merkur, in the 8th district. Open to: All academics at any level, working on or from the broadly defined Caucasus region (including the North Caucasus, South Caucasus, and Subcaucasus). Interested friends in adjacent non-academic work and academic fields who’d like to come along are also all very welcome! Contact: james.baillie@oeaw.ac.at – there is no obligation to ‘register’ or similar but it’d be good to have an advance idea of numbers, and we’re happy to answer any queries.
Our Caucasus research group is having another meetup - Caucasus and Caucasus-adjacent scholars across all Vienna institutions are very welcome!
Details below:
Event tomorrow on Prepositional Compounds in Avestan and Old Persian - this is an in-person guest lecture, if you're in Vienna tomorrow morning then please do come and join us!
www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veransta...
New post on our blog!
The term ságaris (σάγαρις) is used in classical sources for a specific weapon type attributed to the Scythians. But what was this weapon, and why this word? In the latest Tigris to Talas blogpost Hanna Vertiienko goes in search of answers:
www.oeaw.ac.at/en/ifi/blog/...
Poster for the Chagatai Manuscript Reading Course, organised by Philip Bockholt and Jeanine Dagyeli. It is aimed at building up to an advanced level for reading Chagatai manuscripts. The reading course will be at the University of Munster from 29 June to 3 July 2026. It is on-site only. The lecturers will be Jeanine Dağyeli (Vienna), László Károly (Uppsala), Benedek Péri (Budapest), Eric Schluessel (Oxford) and Marc Toutant (Paris). Being renowned specialists in their respective fields, they will introduce participants to a variety of literary genres and texts, including poetry, historiography, craft treatises, and medicine.
Page two of the poster for the Chagatai Manuscript Reading Course, organised by Philip Bockholt and Jeanine Dagyeli. Eligibility for the course will be to participants of any relevant discipline and career level with a focus on Central Asia, Afghanistan and Northwestern China. Participants are required to have intermediate level Chagatai and the ability to read Arabo-Persian script without relying on latinisation. The programme will be conducted in English with 20 places available. To apply, send your application to translapt@uni-muenster.de in a single PDF file before 13.02.2026. The PDF file, titled with the applicant‘s surname, should consist of a letter of interest (max. one page) and a CV, including a statement on the applicant’s proficiency in Chagatai and on how the Summer Academy would support their academic development. Applicants will be informed by 02.03.2026. Pending funding decisions, a limited number of full or partial travel grants will be available upon justified request. For further questions, please contact us at the email address translapt@uni-muenster.de.
Forthcoming: a Chagatai Manuscript Reading Course! Jeanine Dagyeli is leading this effort along with Philip Bockholt from the University of Munster. It is aimed at building scholars up to an advanced level for reading Chagatai manuscripts.
Details below:
#CentralAsia #Chagatai #Manuscripts
