ASPS NEWSLETTER NO. 32 SPRING 2014 THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PERSIANATE SOCIETIES ! SPRING 2014 NEWSLETTER PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS 2 CERF GRANT NEWS 6 NEW LIFETIME MEMBERS 6 NEWS FROM THE JOURNAL EDITOR 8 ANNOUNCEMENTS 8 IN MEMORIAM: RICHARD FRYE 14 EDITORIAL NOTES 17 HTTP://WWW.PERSIANATESOCIETIES.ORG 2 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS Dear friends and colleagues, elections, and look forward to their continued ! collaboration with the Association in years to Season’s greetings and my most sincere come. wishes for a prosperous New Year for you ! and yours! Once again, with somewhat of ASPS and Maulana Azad National Urdu a delay, I am happy to write to you and University (MANUU) Launch the ASPS/ update you with the latest news of our MANUU Visiting Scholar Fellowship Association, which has been reinvigorated ! as a result of your support. There are a Since our memorable ASPS conference at the number of matters, mostly felicitous news, Maulana Azad National Urdu University that have transpired since I last wrote to (MANUU) in Hyderabad in 2012, we have been you, as follows. pursuing the possibility of establishing a ! collaborative project to support research on the New Members of the Board of Indo-Persianate world. These efforts have finally Directors born fruit, and, as many of you are by now well ! aware, we have launched the ASPS/MANUU First and foremost, I would like to thank Visiting Scholar Fellowship, which will go into those of you who participated in our last effect for the 2014-2015 academic year. The round of elections for the Board of Fellowship will be funded through the generous Directors, and for your input into this support of MANUU and it has been through the important process. As you might well extraordinary kindness and support of our imagine, without your input and support colleagues, Professor Mohammad Miyan, the there would be no Association to speak of! Vice Chancellor of MANUU and Prof. Salma So my sincere gratitude to all of you. I Farooqui of MANNU, that I am able to convey would also like to take this opportunity to this news to you. I would also like to acknowledge thank our Nomination Committee, Said the efforts of my colleagues Salma Farooqui, Jo- Amir Arjomand, Houchang Chehabi, Ann Gross, and Said Amir Arjomand, as well as Jo-Ann Gross, Paul Losensky, Rudi the ASPS Board of Directors (especially Pooriya Matthee and Sunil Sharma, for all their Alimoradi, Sussan Babaei, Houchang Chehabi, efforts through the nomination process. Ghazal Dabiri, Jawid Mojaddedi and Sunil ! Sharma), for their valuable input in articulating the It is with great delight that, once again, I terms of ASPS/MANUU Visiting Scholar have the privilege of announcing the Fellowship. A Standing Selection Committee of results of the elections and welcome, four colleagues from among the BOD and heartily, Judith Pfeiffer, and Jawid MANUU, with myself as the Chair, has already Mojaddedi, as the new members of the been formed, and notice of the call for Board. Jawid and Judith have already submissions (see below) has been disseminated begun their term effective January 1st, 2014, through many academic channels, including and have since been actively involved in a MESA: http://www.mesa.arizona.edu/ number of important initiatives of the professional-opportunities/grants- Association (about which, please see competitions.html#ASPS-MANUU further below). I would like to extend my ! profound gratitude to Mana Kia and This is an unprecedented endeavor for both ASPS Brian Spooner for their extreme and MANUU, and I join Vice Chancellor Miyan, collegiality and willingness to run in the Salma Farooqui, the Board of Directors of ASPS and other colleagues at MANUU, in proudly HTTP://WWW.PERSIANATESOCIETIES.ORG 3 working to establish a reciprocal Visiting May 15, 2014. The recipient of the award will be Scholar Fellowship for colleagues from announced by June 15, 2014. MANUU at academic institutions across ! the US or Europe. If you are interested in ! joining this endeavor on behalf of your Further Refurbishing the ASPS Website: institutions, please contact me at Membership Login System [email protected]. ! ! As all of you are well aware by now, we have The Association for the Study of worked very hard through the past three years to Persianate Societies (ASPS) and the establish a functional and aesthetically attractive Maulana Azad National Urdu web-page. Part of this long and cumbersome University (MANUU) 2014-15 ASPS/ process involved the transfer of our previous MANUU Visiting Scholar Fellowship manual and unwieldy membership system into an user-and-administratively-friendly online one. The The Association for the Study of web-page has also been periodically updated in Persianate Societies (ASPS) and the order to reflect the latest endeavors of the Maulana Azad National Urdu University Association, most importantly, the ASPS (MANUU) are pleased to announce the conference information, prior to and after, our launch of the ASPS/MANUU Visiting Biennial Conventions. This process has involved Scholar Fellowship, beginning in the many many hours of wo/man power by members 2014-2015 academic year. Intended as a and friends of the Association who have worked visiting scholar matching grant for post- with no remuneration and an international team doctoral researchers and faculty, the grant that has worked in Iran/US/and Canada. Due to carries a stipend of $5,000.00 for travel the generosity of Mr. Mohamad Dolatiani, who expenses, the purchase of books, and has undertaken all the expenses involved in research expenses connected to archival effecting this transition from Iran, moreover, this research in the libraries of India, for the major overhaul of our system has also cost the duration of six months. The visiting ASPS naught! The student member of our Board scholar will be connected to the H. K. of Directors, Mr. Pooriya Alimoradi, has worked Sherwani Center for Deccan Studies at the tirelessly to help implement these changes and Maulana Azad National Urdu University maintain our system. The updated conference page and will be provided with free lodging at that you can now access, which includes thousand the Guest House of the main campus of of photographs, excellent designs, notices, etc. MANUU. The ASPS/MANUU visiting have also consumed many hours of time for our scholar must be a specialist in the Indo- team, led by myself, Pooriya Alimoradi and Persian cultural tradition, preferably Golfam Ghafourifar. The conference video trailer specializing in the Persianate history of the that you have seen has likewise been made possible Deccan, including the development of through the generous time and effort that was Persianate artistic traditions, political freely provided to us, throughout the conference practices, administrative structures and and afterwards, by Sepehr Mikaeilian and social and religious institutions. Candidates Shapoor Pourshariati. You saw Sepehr and are required to electronically submit their Shapoor and Golfam working very hard letter of application, proposal for research throughout the conference in order to memorialize (no more than 1500 words, including the events for us. Included in the video trailer of bibliography), curriculum vitae and two the conference is one of the last testimonials to the letters of reference to Parvaneh continued vigor and stamina of one of the giants Pourshariati, Chair, ASPS/MANUU of Persianate Studies, an interview with the late Visiting Scholar Selection Committee, and very much lamented, Professor Richard Frye [email protected] The deadline for (see below), who shall always remain with us. Also the submission of application is: included in the conference page and the trailer is a HTTP://WWW.PERSIANATESOCIETIES.ORG 4 to Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, who, on the Please Renew Your Membership! wake of being honored by the Association for ! the Study of Persianate Societies, also won the My dear colleagues and friends, our first appeal to Fourth Jan Michalski Literary Prize for members for renewing their membership went out his novel The Colonel, published in the U.S. in the “heat” of the Holiday Season in December by Melville House and in the U.K. by Haus 2013. If you have not renewed your membership Publishing. yet, please do so at your earliest convenience! As ! you are well aware, running an Association of our During the past six months we have also size, with the limited resources at our disposal, been at work to establish a full-fledged while maintaining membership fees at a minimum, membership login system through which is no easy task. our members can access their personal ! accounts, the latest Newsletter of ASPS In order to maintain financial solvency, we need, at and other news, and finally and most a minimum, for our members to renew their importantly, update their personal memberships on time. Please heed our call, information on their individual accounts therefore, and renew your membership and aid us and renew their memberships. Please bear in running your Association! with us as we continue to work on this last ! phase of completing our login system. Mahmoud Dowlatabadi Receives the Fourth ! Jan Michalski Literary Prize ASPS 2015 Convention in Konya ! ! It was with great pleasure and We have begun the preparations for our delight that we received the next Biennial Convention in Konya. Judith news that Mahmoud Pfeiffer, Jo-Ann Gross, and Said Amir Dowlatabadi, one of the Arjomand have already begun laying the leading fiction-writers of foundations for our 2014 Convention in contemporary Iran, and the Honoree of the 2013 Konya, including visits with potential hosts ASPS/Sarajevo Conference, has received the and co-sponsors in Istanbul, Ankara and Fourth Jan Michalski Literary Prize http:// Konya this month and in June. As soon as www.fondation-janmichalski.com/en/prix-jan- we have finalized the logistics of our 2015 michalski/.