Program of Iranian Studies

The UCLA Program of Iranian Studies – one of the oldest in the field – is home to several endowed chairs and endowments, and attracts a thousand students to its courses each year. It has the largest and most comprehensive doctoral program of its kind in the Americas, and is the only one to cover the entire spectrum of Iranian Studies across disciplines, linguistic boundaries and periods. Its distinctive strengths are Old and Middle Iranian philology, ancient Iranian history and religions, archaeology, and the study of classical Persian literature.

The Pourdavoud Institute leverages these extensive resources in order both to preserve the core of ancient Iranian Studies and to transform its orientation, by integrating the entire field into the larger tapestry of the ancient world.