Roberta Marin is well known to the Iran Society and to the Oriental Rug & Textile Society, having given us both lectures before. An expert in the art of the Islamic world from the Mediterranean to Iran, she is now based at Ca'Foscari University, Venice. The talk will be live at the Army & Navy […]

Sahba Shayani is instructor in Persian at the Oriental Institute, Oxford. He received his M.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles in Iranian Studies in 2011 and is currently writing his doctoral dissertation at the same institution on the representation of women in Persian literature. Sahba's research focuses on the creation, use and re-use […]

      Nader Shah ruled Iran from 1736-1747. A military genius, he campaigned almost non-stop in  the Caucasus, Ottoman Turkey, Central Asia, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, through to Mughal India, where he famously captured the Peacock Throne. His career ended with assassination at the hands of his own men. This talk will give […]

Abstract: The recent discovery of a group of six late 19th century Iranian oil on canvas landscape paintings and a large corpus of 19th century Iranian photographs held in a private collection outside of Iran, has provided the impetus for this lecture. The corpus of landscapes was painted by the leading court painter of the […]

Prince Abbas Mirza, son of Fath Ali Shah, was Crown Prince and, as was the tradition, was Governor of Tabriz. He  modernised the army and many institutions and was the first interface with visiting European envoys, who had to pass through Tabriz on their way to Tehran. He died young and many regretted that he […]

Professor Nacim Pak-Shiraz is Personal Chair of Cinema and Iran, and Head of Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh. After a B.A. in Tehran, she completed a graduate programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, followed by an M.A. in the Anthropology of […]