Yarshater Lecture Series: Cameron Cross

Spiderweb Stories: Translations, Adaptations, and Connections in Persian Romance

In this talk, I will explore some avenues for comparative literary study through the framework of early Persian romances. The earliest extant representatives of this genre in Persian show that it is deeply imbricated with prior and adjacent narrative traditions, making it part of an intertextual and transregional literary network. Through these texts, we can find evidence of direct translation and adaptation, as well as broader signs of a shared vocabulary of narrative expectations, typical characters and topoi, and thematic concerns. Approaching them as “connected” texts within this broader network — with the understanding of “network” as a series of linkages with no necessary center or periphery — affords us one way of tracing the lattices of movement and exchange that inform the disciplinary premise of the (or a) “global” Middle Ages. At the same time, this approach also allows us to better see how individual texts utilize the generic repertory of love narrative to speak to purposes and audiences highly specific to their contexts. To illustrate this, I will offer quick sketches of three versified love stories in Persian and show how they speak to a wide range of historical events and intellectual discussions.

About the Speaker

Cameron Cross is an associate professor of Iranian Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, whose research interests center in the literary traditions of the “Nile to Oxus” region from about 800–1200 CE. Cross is the author of Love at a Crux: The New Persian Romance in a Global Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2023), which explores the emergence of ‘romance’ as a literary genre in New Persian and the idea of ‘romantic love’ as an ethical praxis within this generic tradition.