May 2025 | BIPS Travel Grant Travel to Ashmolean Museum for pXRF analysis of pins for dissertation research Summary of topic: This research studied pins from burial contexts in Iron Age northwestern Iran and examined properties including composition, style, and burial...
September 2024 | BIPS Travel Grant A study of Ahmad Dānish’s legacy within the context of late 19th-century Persian-speaking intellectual trends Summary of topic: My doctoral dissertation explores the place of Ahmad Dānish, a 19th-century Bukharan intellectual, within...
April 2024 | BIPS Travel Grant Rome and Sasanian Iran: Two Conferences and a Workshop Summary of topic: In Leeds, Domiziana Rossi and I hosted four dedicated panels which examined the theme of ‘crises’ within the context of Roman and Sasanian relations. In Cardiff,...
April 2024 | BIPS Travel Grant Decline of Iran in the Writings of Contemporary Iranian Intellectuals Summary of topic: I explore the concept of the decline of Persian civilization through the writings of six Iranian intellectuals: Ahmad Fardid, Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Ali...
February 2024 | BIPS Travel Grant The game of kings at the Ghaznavid court: an examination of the Shatranj-nama MSS held at the Biruni Institute, Tashkent Summary of topic: In June 2024, I visited the Biruni Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent to view three...
May 2024 | BIPS Student Travel Grant Displaying Empire: Imperial Approaches to Power and Identity in Persia and the Near East Summary of topic The thesis aims to answer the question ‘how and in what way did Near Eastern dynasties display imperial authority and power.’...
February 2024 | BIPS Travel Grant Rural life in a changing world: new light on economic development and inequality in Central Asia under the Kushan Empire The most important part of one’s PhD project is to try to get to know the region you are working on, particularly...
October 2023 | BIPS Travel Grant The Hasanlu Ivories viewed through a New Materialist lens My research focusses on the ivories recovered during the excavations of Hasanlu in north western Iran. These were largely recovered from the demolition layers of c.800BC, in the...
October 2022 & February 2023 | BIPS Travel Grant International Medieval Congress (IMC), Leeds, 3rd – 6th July 2023: Panel Strand – ‘Roman and Sasanian Networks and Entanglements’ In 2021, Domiziana and I decided to establish a dedicated panel strand towards...
February 2022 | BIPS Travel Grant Textual History of the Shāhnāma in Fourteenth-Century Shiraz My study deals with Persian manuscripts of fourteenth-century Shiraz, which, with their special taste in literature and book art, heavily influenced Timurids, and via them,...