THE SHAHNAMEH AND PERSIANATE IDENTITY CONFERENCE
University of St Andrews,
St Andrews
9-12 April 2010

Shahnameh, dated 1601, University of St Andrews Library

Organised by
Institute of Iranian Studies, University of St Andrews and the Iran Heritage Foundation.
                           
Covened by
Prof. Ali Ansari (St Andrews)

Introduction
A millennium after his death, the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi remains the single most important literary source of the construction and definition of Persianate identity. Ferdowsi’s magisterial achievement in collating and versifying the history and myths of the Iranian peoples ensured not only the preservation of a canon of shared historical memory and experience, but crucially secured the renaissance of the Persian language for future generations.

Conference Report
The conference focused on the political, social and historical legacies of the Shahnameh both as a literary text and as the repository of a national mythology of descent. Key questions that were addressed included the influence of the epic on historical writing and on the various identities of the Persian speaking world. The conference was opened with a keynote opening address by Professor Dick Davis from the University of Ohio, who discussed the ‘porous limits of Persian-ness’, and was followed by panels on the ancient sources for the Shahnameh, the modern legacy of the epic, with particular reference to the growth of nationalisms, and the epic in comparative perspective. The conference participants were especially pleased to be able to view a new Iranian made television drama based on the stories of the Shahnameh which showed quite clearly how the Islamic Republic had sought to marry, often unconvincingly (and ahistorically), the myths and narratives of the Shahnameh with those of Islam. Professor Robert Hillenbrand, the Vice President of BIPS, delivered the second keynote lecture on the ‘Bahram Gur Cycle in the Great Mongol Shahnameh’, while the conference closed with a roundtable discussion on the consequence for Persianate Identity led by Professor Bert Fragner (Vienna), Professor Houchang Chehabi (Boston) and Dr Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis (President of BIPS).

Conference program

Publication
A book, edited by Ali Ansari, of selected papers from the conference will be published by I. B. Tauris Publishers, in the series “Iran and the Persianate World”.

Organising Committee
Professor Ali Ansari
Professor Robert Hoyland
Professor Nick Rengger
Dr Tim Greenwood
Dr Angus Stewart
Dr Paul Luft
Dr Pedram Khosronejad

For general enquiries please contact Professor Ansari on iran@st-andrews.ac.uk