Dr Shafiee lectures at Warwick University. She  completed her PhD in the departments of History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. She was previously a post-doctoral research fellow at the National University of Singapore. As a visiting research fellow at the IAS, she has finalized the publication of her book manuscript, […]

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: her debut as a travel writer (1881–1882); her participation in […]

Niloufar Raeesi Chahartaghi studied zoology at Shahid Beheshti University, with a particular interest in conservation. At the age of 20 she started working as a volunteer in the Golestan National Park. She is currently studying for an MSc in conservation science at Imperial College, London, with a view to returning to Iran to work with […]

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. The village of Esfahk has experienced a unique process of […]

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 and will be performed by him with two recent members […]

Archiving and Preserving the 20th-century Persian Performing Arts Jane Lewisohn – SOAS Department of Music Jane Lewisohn has devoted many years to running the Golha project to preserve and archive recordings of classical Persian music and poetry. “In this presentation I will highlight some of the challenges the researcher is confronted with in archiving the Performing Arts […]

This lecture examines structures built and decorated in brick during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Following an overview of the some of the antecedent structures built by the Buyids in Isfahan and Na’in, the focus turns to what can be seen to be some of the finest examples of brick decorated monuments in the wider […]

In present day north-western Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, water buffalo are a common component of livestock farming, thriving in wetland environments and providing milk, meat, and, until recently, animal traction. Like other established populations in Egypt or southern Italy, however, the story of how and when they arrived there is mysteriously opaque, based on art historical discussions of ancient representations, […]