This Friday we will be having a talk by Fabian Sarga of the Fre University of Berlin, who will be talking about how qanat irrigation systems shaped the landscape - and how the landscape shaped them - in Iran!

Our @sasanianshah.bsky.social will be doing some invited lectures at the University of Lille in the coming weeks! The topic is "The Orient’s East: Iran and Eurasia in the First Millennium CE" and three of the lectures will be available online with registration here: framaforms.org/the-orients-...

Our next @nomaland.bsky.social lecture will be tomorrow on the topic of Preaching, Books, and Community in Ottoman Hungary, by Prof. Tijana Krstić! Details available here: www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veransta...

Our Caucasus research group is organising an October meetup! If you're based around Vienna and working on Caucasus studies of some kind, we'd love to see you there :)

Lecture by Dr. Sacha Alsancakli on "The Ottoman reception of the Nuzhat al-Qulūb (c.1340)" at the @nomaland.bsky.social Webinar. Watch it here: youtube.com/watch?v=MOqk... @oeaw.bsky.social @fwf-at.bsky.social @iranianstudies.bsky.social @translapt.bsky.social @sachaalsancakli.bsky.social

New faces at the IFI for the new academic year! Ilona Chmilevskia joins us as a pre-doctoral researcher working with Shamil Shikhaliev to study the transformation of Islamic juridical systems in the eastern Caucasus under the Russian Empire. Welcome to Ilona!

We have an open position for a pre-doctoral researcher in Dr. Ariane Sadjed's "Persian Jews – History, Community, Memory" team, looking at the Jewish communities of central Asia. See here for job profile and other details: applications must be in by October 1st. www.oeaw.ac.at/jobs?jh=pp87...

Event coming up in October! Our next JESHO workshop, convened by Dr. Paolo Sartori and with a keynote by Prof. Cemal Kafadar, is "Was There an Ottoman Decline?" Details here: www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veransta... #Turkey #Ottoman #History #Asia #Economics

In August we were at the biannual Conference of the Association of Persianate Studies in Tashkent, Uzbekistan! Thanks to the hosts and organisers: these vital spaces show the importance of having many and diverse disciplines and scholars building better research on the Persianate world together!

Nuevas investigaciones sobre #Mongoles en el #Oeste enteramente en #espanol editado por Antonio García Espada (@uneduniv.bsky.social) y Bruno De Nicola (@oeaw.bsky.social‬). Disponible en noviembre 2025! Más información: brill.com/display/titl... @iranianstudies.bsky.social @fwf-at.bsky.social

Iran is facing severe drought. With high temperatures due to climate change, and tensions around water use and river flow, there are a range of potential risks ahead. An OEAW interview on the subject with our director, Prof. Florian Schwarz (in German): www.oeaw.ac.at/news/hitzewe...

In the recent Iran-Israel conflict, being informed on wider and long-term contexts can help with understanding the region. The IFI's Robert Steele has been informing the public on the history of these tensions: read (in German) his interview in Der Standard here: www.derstandard.at/story/300000...

Lots of great work on the wider Iranian world at last week's International Medieval Congress (@imc-leeds.bsky.social). From the IFI, we had Stefan Kamola on astrology & legitimacy in Mongol contexts, and @jubalbarca.bsky.social on masculinities in the medieval Caucasus. An exciting week all round!

New publication - a special issue of Medieval Worlds on knowledge transfer in Mongol Baghdad, with contributions from three of our researchers (Bruno De Nicola, Stefan Kamola, and Ghasem Gharib) is now out! Find out more here: doi.org/10.1553/medi...

Friends in Vienna, our Caucasus researchers are holding an interdisciplinary, cross-institution picnic for Caucasus and Caucasus-adjacent studies this coming weekend. If you'd like to join, please do, and do forward this to anyone else based in the city doing research of any kind on the region!

As part of this year's Middle Ages in Modern Games conference, a short analysis of some modern reception of the history of the Caucasus region and its roots from our own @jubalbarca.bsky.social:

A short interview with ÖAW-Präsident Heinz Faßmann (@oeaw.bsky.social) and Dr. Bruno De Nicola (@nomaland.bsky.social) on the recently signed agreement between @iranianstudies.bsky.social and the Chinggis Khaan Museum in #Mongolia. www.oeaw.ac.at/news/besuch-...

We have two post-doctoral roles open in the PersCom team under Dr. Ariane Sadjed, looking at Jewish history in central Asia! Job outlines and application links below: www.oeaw.ac.at/jobs?jh=4xhd... www.oeaw.ac.at/jobs?jh=bcr4...

We're excited to announce a Memorandum of Understanding signed for us by ÖAW president Fassmann with the Director of the Chinggis Khaan National Museum of Mongolia! Joint historical document expertise will build new research insights on Mongolia's critical role in central Asian history & culture.

Upcoming @nomaland.bsky.social lecture TODAY at 5pm CET! "The Ottoman reception of the Nuzhat al-Qulūb (c. 1340), a Persian encyclopaedic work by Ḥamdallāh Mustawfī Qazvīnī." More info: www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veransta... To participate online, register at oeaw-ac-at.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

New project at the IFI! Dr. @jacopobrn.bsky.social's "A Tale of Pots and People" will use a data-driven approach to the ceramic finds of the Bukhara Oasis in Uzbekistan in order to look at everyday life and interactions with major events from the C3rd to C8th CE: www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/forschun...

Now available on our website is a write-up and summaries of "A Transdisciplinary Approach to Mughal Studies", a symposium and exhibition held in honour of Prof. Ebba Koch for her 80th birthday. You can find all the talks and a summary of the event here: www.oeaw.ac.at/en/ifi/ifidi...

We have a new publication in our Iranian Studies Monographs (Veröffentlichungen zur Iranistik) series! "Hybrid Judeo-Persian and Arabic Correspondence: Eight Documents from the Cairo Genizah" provides new editions of documents from around 1000AD. Find out more at: verlag.oeaw.ac.at/en/product/h...

Another researcher currently visiting the IFI for a six-month research stay is Ghasem Gharib, a lecturer in history at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. He is part of our NoMansLand project, and his current work is focusing on a Sufi Saint, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani. Welcome to Ghasem!

Another new member! Dr. Tinatin Khomeriki joins the Circulating Knowledge in the Caucasus project. She will study knowledge production, dissemination, and exchange amid Georgia's political tensions: her interests include urban anthropology, (in)security, (mis)trust and suspicion. Welcome, Tina!

We have new researchers at the IFI and we're excited to introduce them! First, social anthropologist Ila Sikharulidze is joining us within the project “Circulating Knowledge in the Caucasus” - he will analyze how knowledge disseminates among Georgian Azerbaijanis in Kvemo Kartli. Welcome, Ila!

نوروز پیروز Наврӯз пирӯз The Institute of Iranian Studies wishes you a very happy Nowruz!

Come and work with us! We have two new positions open at the IFI, both fixed-term for 36 months. These are:

A reminder that our international guest lecture by Goli Akbar Kashani on Sepahadar Rashti, Prime Minister at the time of the 1921 coup in Iran, will be this Wednesday at 6pm - Sonnenfelsgasse 19, Theatersaal. Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

📣 Join us for a talk by Dr Viola Allegranzi of @iranianstudies.bsky.social: 'Architectural Inscriptions from 10th-13th Century Afghanistan as Recorded in Photographic Archives'. 🗓️ Thu 13 Mar 12pm Toronto/4pm UK time. 🔗 Register: bit.ly/RethinkMarch #skystorian #medievalsky #Afghanistan #archives

A new FWF project: "Inscribing Authority", led by Dr. Viola Allegranzi, is starting at the IFI! The project will systematically catalogue C10th-C13th Central Asian Islamic epigraphy, and study the textual and visual rulership strategies it reflects. More details here: www.oeaw.ac.at/en/ifi/resea...

New call for papers! "The Archival Impulse: Knowledge Production, Record Keeping, and Imperial Governance" aims to look at the C15-19 growth of archives across central Eurasia, exploring the cultural milieus in which archival information was produced. Details here: www.oeaw.ac.at/sice/events/...

The third lecture of our Webinar Series by Dr. Zeynep Oktay (Boğaziçi University) on "Alevi and Bektashi Manuscript Traditions" is now @googleyoutube.bsky.social , you can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUC4... @iranianstudies.bsky.social

Upcoming event! International guest lecture by Goli Akbar Kashani, about Fathollah Khan Akbar, Prime Minister of Iran before the 1921 coup. Opening address by Nobel laureate Anton Zeilinger. 26 February 2025, 6pm, Sonnenfelsgasse 19 Theatersaal. Programme & details: www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veransta...

Our library, plus that of the ÖAI, can be used at a newly-opened reading lounge in the Postsparkasse Small Cashier's Hall (Dominikanerbastei 16, 1010 Vienna). You can book with us to use the lounge: www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/kontakt. Opening hours: Mon, Weds, Thurs 10am-4pm Tues 10am-7pm Fri 10am-1pm

Another new ERC project is Dr. Laura Grestenberger's EVOCAT - the evolution of morphosyntactic categorization. This team will look at how categorisers that characterise a grammatical function (like the -y in 'salty') develop, giving new insight into how grammar changes and language groups emerge!

New year, new projects! Dr. Ariane Sadjed's new ERC project PersCom will look at the Jewish communities of the Persianate world from the 19th century to the present. The project aims to look at everyday interactions, connections and coexistence between communities. Project website: persianjews.org

Hello and welcome to our new profile on Bluesky! We're the Institute for Iranian Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences - a key centre internationally for understanding the languages, cultures and history of the wider Iranian-influenced world, from the Caucasus through to central Asia.