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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Our Caucasus studies group is organising another informal discussion meetup. Details below - please do share to any potentially interested colleagues!

Vienna Caucasiology Meetup, November 2026

We’re having another meetup! This is the fifth in our series of meetups for Caucasiologists across Viennese academic and knowledge-sector institutions. We hope to gather as many of you as would like to come for an evening of chatter and conversation about our fields and indeed anything else you’d like to discuss. Hope to see you there, and please do share this widely to potentially interested colleagues.

When: Friday, November 6th, 2026: 17:30-20:00

Where: Meet at Café Merkur, 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 fields who’d like to come along are also all welcome!

Contact: james.baillie@oeaw.ac.at – there is no strict obligation to ‘register’ or similar but it’d be good to have an advance idea of numbers soon to book the table, and we’re happy to answer any queries.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

This is one of the largest private collections in the region: 302 codices and 280 documents from the 18th to mid-20th centuries in Arabic and Turkic. These are key for North Caucasian Islamic knowledge production in the Russian Imperial and Soviet periods. Read more: brill.com/display/titl...

brill.com

The Karabudakhkent Mosque Collection

"The Karabudakhkent Mosque Collection" published on 15 Oct 2026 by Brill.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

New publication by the IFI's Shamil Shikhaliev and Paolo Sartori! This is a new, complete description of the manuscripts of the mosque of Karabudakhkent in Daghestan:

Cover of "The Karabudakhkent Mosque Collection" by Shamil Shikhaliev and Paolo Sartori. It has a brown cover with an Arabic-script manuscript page in red and black text visible on the front.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

He will also demonstrate that these processes began several decades before Tamerlane’s campaigns and cannot be explained by military destruction alone. To find out more, please join us on October 13, in person or at the links above!

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Slavin identifies various biological and ecological crises in textual, archaeological and bioarchaeological records from the Volga to western Xinjiang. He will argue that these played a central role in the demographic decline, de-urbanisation, and nomadisation of fourteenth-century Central Asia.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

A 2022 Nature study established the Central Asian origins of the Black Death, but research on its consequences remains overwhelmingly Eurocentric. This lecture will examine biological and ecological crises in the demographic, and socio-economic transformation of Chinggisid Central Asia.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Forthcoming lecture! The End of the "Silk Road" by Philip Slavin. 13th October 13:13-15:10 Central European Time Central European University, Quellenstrass 51, 1100 Wien Or join online by (Zoom): bit.ly/4zcCJ1X

Poster for the talk. Text summarised in the main posts.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

From our @jubalbarca.bsky.social, a contribution to the blogpost-conference @midagesmodgames.bsky.social that looks at using randomisation-based exploration of medieval western Asian sources as a basis for creative historical explorations:

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Forthcoming book! By Naïra Sahakyan and the IFI's Shamil Shikhaliev, this book shows the turbulence of 1917 Dagestan via the work of Muslim intellectual ʿAlī al-Ghumuqī, containing both scholarship on and translations of his works: www.lockwoodpress.com/product-page... #Dagestan #History #Caucasus

Book cover of "Witness to Upheaval", by Shikhaliev and Sahakyan, a book on the 1917 Dagestan revolution as witnessed by a Muslim Dagestani intellectual. The book cover is red with patterning, and contains a black-and-white photograph of a man with a dark beard with two prominent white patches, and a large fur hat.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Talk next Wednesday! Yoichi Isahaya will talk about how in early 14th century Ilkhanate Anatolia, famine and climate crisis were drawn into discourses of legitimacy and political stability. Details & online registration here: www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veransta... #Mongols #History #Medieval #Anatolia

Poster for "Divine Wrath? Irinjin (d. 1319), a Pro-Christian Mongol, amid Climate Instability in Anatolia", talk by Yoichi Isahaya, Mittwoch 09.09.26, 16:30pm.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

We have a new blogpost on our Tigris to Talas blog! Lola Dodkhudoeva writes about the Manāqib al-Khulafāʾ, a Tajik-Persian manuscript arguing about politics, faith, and religious order through celebrating the Rashidun caliphs: www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/blog/det... #Tajikistan #History #Manuscripts

oeaw.ac.at

When Manuscripts Begin to Speak: Discovering Political and Religious Ideas in Sixteenth-Century Central Asia

by Lola Dodkhudoeva

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Our own Sara Mihramadi recently talked to BBC Persian about the effects of the Mongol invasions - what was the level of Mongol destruction, and how reliably do written texts at the time reflect the realities of the situation? You can watch it here (in Persian) - www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2A8...

youtube.com

پرگار: حمله مغول به ایران

YouTube video by BBC Persian

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

The initiative forms part of a long-term strategy to develop innovative transdisciplinary research on material culture and history in Iran, Central Asia and the Caucasus. By encouraging integrated and collaborative approaches, it will consolidate and expand our work with diverse research partners.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

This collaborative platform will help exchange ideas and compare data across research projects. It will include internal and informal meetings, lab sessions, and occasional events with external collaborators and specialists invited to discuss different methods and explore potential synergies.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Our new Material Histories@IFI group connects scholars of material culture and textual history. We aim to bring archaeology, materiality, and rural and urban landscapes into conversation with epigraphy, numismatics and texts for new longue durée perspectives, focused on the long first millennium.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

And in medieval studies, Stefan Kamola discussed views of Chinggis Khan as seen through the lens of Ilkhanate astrological texts, and Sara Mirahmadi talked about how Vaṣṣāf’s 14th century work Bahārnāma uses a poetic voice to produce political and moral critiques through the genre of spring poetry.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Ariane Sadjed talked about Judeo-Persian texts written by women, looking at memoirs and letters from early 20th century Iran and the legacy of women's writing, and Eirik Kvindesland discussed the choice of using Hebrew in the memoirs of Rafael Haim Hacohen, an Iranian Jew in 1890s Ottoman Jerusalem.

Eirik Kvindesland talking at the Utrecht fifteenth biennial Iranian Studies conference.

Ariane Sadjed talking at the Utrecht fifteenth biennial Iranian Studies conference.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Among our contributions, @robsteele.bsky.social talked about Revisionism in the historiography of Pahlavi Iran and the revolution, arguing for the importance of pluralism of ideas in interpreting these past events: he also participated in a roundtable in honour of historian Houchang Chehabi.

Robert Steele talking at the Utrecht fifteenth biennial Iranian Studies conference.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Last week we had a whole range of contributions at the Fifteenth Biennial Iranian Studies Conference in Utrecht! Thanks to everyone who came along to our sessions and talks. #IranianStudies #Iranology #Iran #History #Anthropology

Roundtable discussion in honour of Houchang Chehabi, including the IFI's Robert Steele (right)

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Reposted by Institute for Iranian Studies

Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Our Caucasus research group are organising a picnic for interested researchers and research-adjacent colleagues! Do join us if you're in Vienna on 8th August: we'll meet at Donaustadtbrucke at 15:30. Enquiries welcome, do forward to anyone you know who might be interested! #Caucasus #Wien

Poster for the Vienna Caucasiology Picnic 2026. It invites anyone interested in the study of the Caucasus region to come to a picnic on August 8th, 15:30-19:00, initially meeting at Donaustadbrucke U6 station. Contact to james.baillie@oeaw.ac.at with any enquiries.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Just over a week ago we were at the International Armenological Congress in Yerevan! Dr. James Baillie and Dr. Polina Ivanova presented on the ways that our work includes Armenology and Caucasus Studies, showcasing a range of forthcoming projects. #IranianStudies #Armenia #Armenology #Yerevan

Dr. James Baillie standing on stage at a lectern, in front of a banner for the International Armenological Congress. The words "Armenology at the IFI - Projects in the frame of Caucasus and Iranian Studies" can be seen on an Austrian Academy of Sciences branded slide on his right.

The door to the International Armenological Congress, a modern round pillared building with a glass-fronted central area behind pillars, with IAC banners visible at the front.

Seven people seated on stage with a standing moderator at the International Armenological Congress, which has its logos and screen behind them. Dr. Polina Ivanova, third from the left, is speaking into a microphone.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

...Sara Mirahmadi on a Munāẓara (disputation or debate) text by Vaṣṣāf, and @jubalbarca.bsky.social on periodisation's effect on modern understandings of medieval Georgia. It was great to see so many friends and colleagues and we look forward to next year! #Georgia #History #Temporality

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Last week many of us had a great time sharing research at the @imc-leeds.bsky.social - including Bruno de Nicola of @nomaland.bsky.social on a Medieval Persian Mineralology treatise, Stefan Kamola on Mongol Astrology and Divination... #medieval #academia #IranianStudies #Persian

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Talk this Monday at 5 for those in Vienna: Carol Fan will be talking about perceptions of China in Khata’i’s 'Account of China' and discussing what this means for understanding Ottoman use and idealisations of China in political life. See you there! #Ottoman #China #History #IranianStudies

Poster for a talk on Ali Akbar Khata'i's Book of China and the use of Chinese Qanun as a model for Ottoman political reform, by Carol Fan. 22 June, 5pm, Austrian Academy of Sciences Room 6, 4th Floor, Georg Coch Platz 2.

This talk takes as its point of departure a new English translation of Khata’i’s Account of China (trans., ed. Kaveh Hemmat et al., forthcoming), a text that has long attracted scholarly attention but remains insufficiently understood in terms of its textual history and intellectual context. After briefly introducing the work, its author, and the trajectory of previous research, I interpret the text based on the new translation project, which allows for a more nuanced reading of its content and structure. It covers the following interpretive issues: 1) the text’s tendency to portray China in highly idealized terms with a striking emphasis on law, order, and governance. These features invite reconsideration of the purposes such a portrayal may have served. 2) evidence to support the author’s intentional idealization of “China’s way” upon establishing that an Ottoman Turkish translation of the text was Khatay’s own and analyzing its content that does not exist in other versions 3) By bringing together textual analysis, translation studies, and institutional and intellectual history, this paper argues for a more integrated approach to the study of Sino-Islamic connections.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

This project focuses on one settlement to better understand the Late Antique Bactrian economy. Combining multiple methods, the team found land use in the valley was primarily seasonal throughout history - but with a spike in intensive agriculture in late Antiquity. Join us on Monday to learn more!

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Event next Monday - join us for this talk by Jakub Havlik! You can join us in person at the PSK Wien or online, register here: oeaw-ac-at.zoom.us/webinar/regi... #CentralAsia #LateAntiquity #Farming #Archaeology #Uzbekistan

Poster for the talk "Kulal Tepa Archaeological Survey: A Story of One Valley in the Kugitang Foothills, Uzbekistan", but Jakub Havlik, Charles University Prague/Termez State University Uzbekistan. The poster includes a blurb, a picture of a desert with a single person standing on the left, the registration link, logos of sponsorting organisations, and the green-and-yellow colour band of the Austrian Academy of Sciences' Institute for Iranistik.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Call for Participants for our Summer Academy, 17-30 August 2026, to be held in Khorog, Tajikistan! This year's focus will be cultural heritage in Central Asia. Please do share widely! Plaintext version at: oeawiranistik.at/plaintexts/S... #IranianStudies #CentralAsia #Tajikistan #CulturalHeritage

Page 1 of the CfP, including picture of Khorog and description and dates of the workshop (please see linked plaintext in main post for screen reader version).

Page 2 of the CfP, giving details of the programme, participant numbers (up to 15, of whom 7 must be from Central Asian institutions), and requirements (English language, travel organising to Dushanbe). Please see link in post for plaintext version.

Page 3 of the CfP, giving details that applications should give a CV and letter of motivation to iran.office@oeaw.ac.at by May 15 2026. It also gives a timeline of organisation, and contact emails for the organisers: jeanine.dagyeli@univie.ac.at, ariane.sadjed@oeaw.ac.at, and Florian.Schwarz@oeaw.ac.at. For full details see linked plaintext in main post.

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Reposted by Institute for Iranian Studies

NoMansLand @nomaland.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Call for Papers: International conference: “Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Transformation of Eurasia” 14–17 July 2027, Vienna (Austria) @iranianstudies.bsky.social @nomaland.bsky.social @fwf-at.bsky.social @coe-eurasia.bsky.social

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

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!

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

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...

Reza Shah addresses the Iranian majlis (parliament) in 1925. Black and white photo.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

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:

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

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.

bloomsbury.com

Scent, Colour and Glitter in the Ancient World

Aromatics, cosmetics and personal adornment have had a major role in the evolution of human society, particularly in the cradles of civilization between the Nil…

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

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

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.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

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.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

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.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

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

oeaw.ac.at

Iran under Reza Shah: Politics, Culture and State Building in the Early Pahlavi Period (1925-1941)

International Workshop

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

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

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.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

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.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

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.

A Haft-sin table to mark the new year, full of things, especially seven central ones, that begin with the letter sin in Arabic.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

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...

Book cover 'Mongoles en el Oeste' Editado por Antonio García Espada
y Bruno De Nicola.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

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...

taylorfrancis.com

Three Empires and Persian Historiography | The Thought of Muṣliḥ al-dī

Three Empires and Persian Historiography: The Thought of Muṣliḥ al-dīn Lārī uncovers the underexplored historical vision of a sixteenth-century scholar whose

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

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

oeaw.ac.at

Nilab Saeedi - Three Empires and Persian Historiography: The Thought of Muṣliḥ al-Dīn Lārī

Book talk

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

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...

youtube.com

How the Sasanian Empire REALLY Fell | A Conversation with Dr. Khodadad Rezakhani

YouTube video by Sképsislamica

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

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...

oeaw.ac.at

The Archival Impulse: Knowledge Production, Record Keeping, and Imperial Governance (15th-19th Centuries)

An International Conference

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

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?

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

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

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.

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