Pourdavoud Lecture Series Events

Showing 56 results

Pourdavoud Lecture Series

John Hyland: Persiaʼs Greek Campaigns

4:00 pmRoyce Hall 306

Drawing on the speaker’s recent book, Persia’s Greek Campaigns (Oxford, 2025), this talk will review disciplinary progress and emerging evidence which now permits critical historical approaches to Achaemenid contexts and perspectives on Persian-Greek conflicts.

Pourdavoud Lecture Series featuring John Hyland - Persia’s Greek Campaigns: Approaches to Historical Reconstruction and Political Myth
Jan27
Pourdavoud Lecture Series

Beate Pongratz-Leisten: Ancient Near Eastern Narratives

4:00 pmRoyce Hall 306

Beate Pongratz-Leisten’s book Myth, Text, and Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: A Narrative Reading of the World makes a case for establishing human thinking-in-images as an essential part of ancient Mesopotamian reasoning based in the fact that in the human mind, imagistic thinking exists alongside rational logical thought.

Pourdavoud Lecture Series featuring Beate Pongratz-Leisten - Myth, Text and Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: A Narrative Reading of the World.
Dec2
Pourdavoud Lecture Series

Sören Stark: Excavating the City of Bukhara

4:00 pmRoyce Hall 306 & Livestream Zoom

This presentation will introduce new data from the Uzbek-American Expedition to the city of Bukhara, derived from finds and observations made at a series of fortifications, various kinds of dwellings, workshops, as well as burial contexts.

Pourdavoud Lecture Series titled, 'Next to Turquoise Domes: Excavating the City of Bukhara', featuring headshot of Sören Stark.
May8
Pourdavoud Lecture Series

Jake Nabel: The Arsacid Princes of the Roman Empire

4:00 pmRoyce Hall 306 & Livestream Zoom

In the first century CE, several Arsacid princes from the Iranian empire of Parthia were sent to live at the court of the Roman emperor. This talk will employ Iranian and Armenian sources to argue that the Parthians would have seen them as the emperor’s foster-children.

Pourdavoud Lecture Series titled, 'Misunderstanding in Ancient Interstate Relations: The Arsacid Princes of the Roman Empire', featuring headshot of Jake Nabel.
Apr22
Pourdavoud Lecture Series

Verena Lepper: Elephantine Goes Global

4:00 pmRoyce Hall 306 & Livestream Zoom

This lecture discusses a recent museum exhibition in Berlin entitled, “Elephantine. Island of the Millennia,” the results of a research project working with texts and scripts from Elephantine Island in ancient Egypt.

Pourdavoud Lecture Series titled, 'Elephantine Goes Global: Island of the Millennia', featuring headshot of Verena Lepper.
Feb25
Pourdavoud Lecture Series

Carlo Cereti: The Rise of Persian

4:00 pm–6:00 pm306 Royce Hall

This talk explores the evolution of writing during the Sasanian and early Islamic periods, shedding light on the long-term process that led to Persian becoming the lingua franca in Western and Central Asia.

The Rise of Persian
Jan29