SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Kamran Djam 2012 Annual Lecture at SOAS: The Exilic Mode in Persian Literature

In his first talk Professor Karimi-Hakkak will survey the exilic mode in classical Persian literature from its beginning in tenth century Central Asia to the waning of the classical tradition and the dawning of the modern period around the turn of the twentieth century. Poems by early poets such as Sa`d Salman of Lahore and Nasser Khosrow of Qobadian, as well as later poets like Rumi, Hafez, Kamal and others will be explored. Please see the attached programme for more information. Lecture to be followed by a reception at 7.30pm.

 

Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak is Professor of Persian Language, Literature, and Cultures at the University of Maryland and Founding Director of the University’s Roshan Center for Persian Studies. He has studied in Iran and the United States, receiving his PhD in Comparative Literature from Rutgers University in 1979. 

Karimi-Hakkak is the author, editor or translator of over twenty books and around one hundred and fifty research articles. The study of languages, literatures and cultures in their various sociopolitical contexts and along the historical line has been at the center of his scholarship. He counts Recasting Persian Poetry: Scenarios of Poetic Modernity in Iran (University of Utah Press, 1995), Essays on Nima Yushij: Animating Modernity in Persian Poetry (Brill, 2004), and Strange Times, My Dear: The PEN Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature (Arcade, 2005) as most representative of his contributions to the study of Persian literature in Iran.