A History of Persian Literature
A History of Persian Literature has been designed as a comprehensive and richly documented work, based on original sources with illustrative examples and a fresh critical approach.
About the Yarshater Center
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Our Mission
The Yarshater Center at UCLA is a leading research hub for the publication and dissemination of Iranian literary traditions worldwide, carrying on the legacy of an iconic scholar, the late Ehsan Yarshater.
Thanks to the vision and generosity of the Persian Heritage Foundation, the Yarshater Center will have a momentous impact on the study of the Iranian world. The establishment of the Yarshater Center under the aegis of the Pourdavoud Institute for the Study of the Iranian World shall allow the new center to benefit from the institutional infrastructure of a well-established and successful institute and dedicate itself wholly to the advancement of its research mandate.
Investment in these proposed initiatives will ensure that, in face of the vulnerabilities to which the cultural heritage of Iran has been subject within the politically unstable confines of West Asia, an institutional home dedicated to the preservation of the literary and cultural patrimony of Iran is created.
Featured Article
The Legacy of Ehsan Yarshater
The creation of the Yarshater Center will make it possible to carry forth the legacy of an iconic scholar, the late Professor Eshan Yarshater, the inaugural Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University, by initiating a robust publication program at UCLA.
Our Initiatives
Iranian Library
One of the main aims of the Yarshater Center shall be the establishment of a bilingual repository of Iranian literary traditions, which in a standardized form will introduce canonical Old and Middle Iranian as well as new Persian texts to a learned and informed audience.
Encyclopaedia of the Ancient Iranian World
As a multidisciplinary reference work, the Encyclopaedia will be an extensive compendium on the past cultures of the Iranian-speaking peoples and their extensive contributions to the broader history of human civilization.
Who We Are
The Yarshater Center is led by the Director M. Rahim Shayegan, Jahangir and Eleanor Amuzegar Professor of Iranian.
As generally mandated at UCLA, the work of the Yarshater Center under the aegis of the Pourdavoud Institute will be overseen by a faculty advisory board consisting of senior faculty from across campus who are appointed by the Dean of Humanities and whose work pertains to the study of the Iranian world and related fields.
The board provides not only programmatic and financial oversight, but also advises the director in the fulfillment of the Center’s mission and research agenda. We will be announcing the inaugural faculty advisory board for the Yarshater Center soon.