Mehmandari: Hosting and Minding Foreign Visitors in Safavid and Qajar Iran with Rudi Matthee Mehmandari, the practice of having foreigners visiting in an official capacity welcomed, accompanied, and provided for by the host country, is very old in Iran....
Call for Papers | ‘Shi`i/Sunni Relations in the Persianate World’ 8-10 December 2026. The University of Edinburgh A research project funded by the British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS). In the wake of the Iranian Revolution and, especially, the...
BIPS Grant Holders' Workshop 2026 21-22 May 2026. Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies, University of Exeter Spread over two days, the Grant Holders’ Workshop showcases the latest research and projects funded by BIPS through its grant schemes. Covering a...
Peering Through the Cracks. Polish Musicians in Tehran 1942 to 1945: The Case of Irena Valdi-Gołębiowska with Laudan Nooshin In the spring and summer of 1942, an estimated 300,000 Poles arrived in Iran, having travelled thousands of miles from recently...
An Archaeological Perspective on the Mongol Conquest of Central Asia with Katie Campbell Persian historians describe the Mongol conquest of the Khwarzmian Empire in the early thirteenth century as catastrophic, with cities razed and populations...
Persia’s Greek Campaigns: Kingship, War, & Spectacle with John Hyland The wars between the Achaemenid Persian empire and the Greek city-states are among the most famous conflicts in world history – above all Xerxes’ expedition of 480-479 BCE, which...
Material Networks: The Chehel Sotun Carpet Between Iran and the Deccan with Margaret Squires This talk traces the little-known history of a massive carpet woven in the Deccan for the Chehel Sotun palace in seventeenth-century Isfahan. Dismantled and...
RECOVERING ‘LOST VOICES’: THE ROLE AND DEPICTION OF IRANIAN/PERSIANATE SUBALTERNS FROM THE 13TH CENTURY TO THE MODERN PERIOD A multi-year research project funded by the British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS). The third workshop on subalterns across the...
Jane Dieulafoy’s Persia: Gender, Empire, and Archaeology in fin-de-siècle France with Julia Hartley The archaeologist, photographer, and writer Jane Dieulafoy (1851–1916) worked at the intersection of nineteenth-century power structures. They served...
2025 Ann Lambton Memorial Lecture A British Diplomatic Perspective on Iran’s Position & Policies in the Middle East Since 7 October 2023 With Nicholas Hopton The event will take place in person at Durham University, Mill Hill Lane, Room 452. The...