From ancient times, 'Iranianate' cultures and the Persian language had a significant role beyond the borders of Iran: in the lands of the Near & Middle East, Central Asia as far as China and India. The book collects novel contributions within five chapters focussed on the Islamic periods. Creating a unique multi-disciplinary panorama, 39 scholars from twelve countries deal with individual themes from history and historiography, the history of literature and language, cultural and religious history, art history and the history of culinary culture.
‘Iranianate’ cultures and Iranian languages have been of eminent significance beyond Iran ever since, in Western and Central Asia, India and China. The modern Persian language, which has been developed in the early Islamic period, became a lingua franca throughout large regions of Asia, thus contributing to the wide geographical significance of aspects of Iranian cultural history. These facts form the basis of an inter-disciplinary and super-regional direction of research in Iranian Studies of the Islamic periods. It has been given particular emphasis by the scholar celebrated in this festschrift.
The book with contributions by colleagues and former students of Bert G. Fragner thus offers a unique and international cross-section of themes of research from the entire area of Iranian Studies and related disciplines. Five chapters arrange scholarly contributions in a multi-disciplinary panorama focussed on the Islamic periods. Altogether 39 scholars from twelve different countries contribute on the themes: history and historiography, the history of literature and language, cultural and religious history, art history, culinary history.
A large part is occupied by Chapter 1 on history and historiography, subdivided in: concepts and contexts; memoirs and biographies; the Safavid (16th to 18th century), the early modern (18th to 19th century) and the modern period (19th to 20th century). Subsequently, Chapter 2 offers contributions on the literature and the significance of the New Persian language and on the history of Iranian languages. Chapter 3 covers themes of cultural and religious history from the medieval to the modern periods, reaching from Iran to China and Saudi Arabia. Chapter 4 provides essays and research on the history of architecture in Iran and on figural art in Central Asia and Iran. Chapter 5 ends the fest of the schrift with caviar, Ossetic beer and a trans-cultural meat dish.
The range of contributions reaching far beyond Iran offers to both a broader audience and specialists of Iranian Studies plus related disciplines a scholarly founded and stimulating, often entertaining reading. The book starts with a biographical essay on Bert Fragner and a list of his publications. It is illustrated by numerous figures and photos on plates in colour and black-and-white including material published for the first time. Lists provide an overview on the tables, figures and plates, and the authors.
„Wie man unschwer erkennt: Ein wahrlich buntes Spektrum von Aufsätzen zu iranistischen Themen im weitesten Sinne, aber allesamt - wie der Rest auch - sehr lesenswert!“
In: Sehepunkte. 9 (2009) Nr. 6
http://www.sehepunkte.de/2009/06/15193.html (19.06.2009)
Markus Ritter is a scholar of Islamic Art History and Archaeology and of Iranian Studies. A researcher and the current deputy director of the Institute of Iranian Studies (IfI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, he has worked on 17th to 19th-century architecture in Iran (monograph on Qajar architecture, 2005) and on 7th to 9th-century early Islamic art in Arabia (forthcoming monograph on Umayyad architectural decoration). Current research themes include the image of the ruler in painting and interactions in late medieval textiles. He teaches at different universities.
Ralph Kauz is a scholar of both Sinology and Iranian Studies. A researcher at the IfI in Vienna, he holds a habilitation based on a thesis on the relations of Ming China and the Timurid empire (published as a monograph, 2005) at the University of Munich, where he also teaches. He has worked earlier on the political system of modern Iran (monograph on political parties, 1995) and is currently pursuing research on interactions between China, Central Asia and Iran in the late medieval and early modern periods.
Birgitt Hoffmann holds the chair of Iranian Studies at the University of Bamberg in Germany since 2005. Earlier, she taught as a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Bonn. She has worked on historical sources of 17th to 19th-century Iran (edition and commentary of the chronicle of Rustam al-Hukama, 1986) and on the institution of religious foundations (vaqf) in 13th to 14th-century Mongol Iran (monograph on the foundation of the Ilkhanid vizier Rashid ad-Din in Tabriz, 2000).
The series Beiträge zur Iranistik was founded in the 1960s by Georges Redard and subsequently edited by Nicholas Sims-Williams from 1997 to 2020; the present series editor is Agnes Korn.
The series publishes works on the languages of the Iranian branch of Indo-European. The focus is on linguistics, including grammars, dictionaries, text editions, philology as well as diachronic and synchronic studies of linguistic topics. Neighbouring fields such as literature, archaeology and anthropology are likewise represented. The languages of the series are English, German and French. The Beiträge zur Iranistik are represented in libraries internationally and are widely used standard works of Iranian studies.
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