Aeron O’Connor: “Tajikistan: Persian Poetry to Soviet Realism”

Aeron O’Connor is an anthropologist based at UCL, where she is completing her PhD. Her research focuses on the intellectual history of modern-day Tajikistan. She has lived and carried out ethnographic research in Dushanbe, Tajikistan for two years, working in Tajik Persian. There, she worked...

Anahita Alavi: Manuscript Illumination – Process and Examples

Anahita Alavi is an Iranian artist who has learned Persian Miniature, Islamic Illumination and Geometric design under the supervision of the great masters in Iran.  She has taught Persian painting and Islamic illumination at the Payam-e Noor University of Tehran and a number of schools...

Julia Hartley: Jane Dieulafoy – Archaeologist, sharpshooter, illustrator.

Iran as a Woman’s Career: The Exceptional Case of Jane Dieulafoy (1851–1916) The life and work of Jane Dieulafoy, a writer, archaeologist and women’s activist who is largely forgotten today. I shall be focusing on three chapters of Dieulafoy’s career that were devoted to Iran:...

Edoardo Ferrari: Transforming vernacular architecture in the Iranian desert

Edoardo Ferrari has been working in the desert region around Tabas, destroyed by earthquake in September 1978, to engage local master builders to rebuild or restore traditional mud brick houses, using the old methods while enough ostads remained alive to pass on the knowledge of their craft....

Murder in the Legation: A dramatic reading

St Columba’s Church Hall, Pont Street

Our Christmas dinner will be preceded by a reading of a scripted play about the murder in 1918 in the British Legation of the British Military Attaché, the subsequent trial and its political consequences. The script was compiled by the great-grandson of the Military Attaché...