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Shervin Farridnejad is a German-Iranian Iranologist, scholar of religious studies and philologist. He is a Professor of Iranian Studies / History, Language and Cultures of the Middle East at the University of Hamburg since 2022.
Biography
editFarridnejad initially studied Fine Arts and Art History at the University of Tehran, earning a Master's degree in Iranian Studies, Fine Arts, and Art History from Tarbiat Modares University in 2006. He then continued his studies in Ancient Iranian Studies at the Georg-August University of Göttingen, where he held a teaching position at the Institute of Iranian Studies from 2008 to 2014. From 2010 to 2013, he was a fellow of the graduate program “Images of Gods – Images of God – Images of the World: Polytheism and Monotheism in the Ancient World.” In 2014, he earned his Ph.D. in Ancient and Middle Iranian Philology and Zoroastrian Studies with a dissertation on the iconographic exegesis of anthropomorphic depictions of deities in Zoroastrianism, titled “The Language of Images.
He subsequently held teaching positions at the Institutes for Iranian Studies and Religious Studies at the Free University of Berlin, where he was also an associate member (Post-Doc) of the Excellence Cluster TOPOI from 2015 to 2019. In the summer semester of 2016, he served as the acting professor for Ancient Religion and Culture and its Reception History at the Institute for Religious Studies at FU Berlin. Following this, he was a research associate at the Institute for Iranian Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) in Vienna until 2020, and then at the Institute for Iranian Studies at FU Berlin until 2022. Since 2022, Farridnejad has been a Professor of Iranian Studies, specializing in the history, language, and cultures of the Middle East, at the Asia-Africa Institute of the University of Hamburg.
His research and work focus on the cultural and religious history of ancient Iran and its legacy, Zoroastrianism, Zoroastrian religion and rituals, and the dynamics and interactions in the religious history between Zoroastrians and non-Zoroastrians during the (early) Islamic period. Additionally, he specializes in Zoroastrian art and iconography, ancient and middle Iranian philology and literature, Jewish-Persian literature, Zoroastrian literature (in Avestan, Middle Persian, New Persian, and Gujarati), and Zoroastrian and Judeo-Persian manuscript cultures and codicology.
Publications (selected)
edit- Zoroastrianism. A Quick Reference on Selected Theological and Historical Key-Concepts. New York 2016.
- Die Sprache der Bilder. Eine Studie zur ikonographischen Exegese der anthropomorphen Götterbilder im Zoroastrismus. Wiesbaden 2018. (Dissertation)
- mit Hamid Reza Ghelichkhani: A Handbook of Persian Calligraphy and Related Arts. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Leiden 2022.
Books
- Zusammen mit Touraj Daryaee, eds. Food for Gods, Food for Mortals. Culinary and Dining Practices in the Greater Iranian World. ČISTĀ. Studies in the History, Cultures and Religions of the Iranian World 1. Irvine, CA: University of Californoa, Irvine, 2022.
- Zaraθuštrōtǝma: Zoroastrian and Iranian Studies in Honour of Philip G. Kreyenbroek. Ancient Iranian Series 10. Irvine, CA: Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture, University of California, Irvine, 2020. [2. Auflage: Leiden: Brill]
- Zusammen mit A. Joisten-Pruschke, and R. Gyselen, eds. Faszination Iran. Beiträge zur Religion, Geschichte und Kunst des Alten Iran. Gedenkschrift für Klaus Schippmann. Göttinger Orientforschungen. III. Reihe: Iranica, Neue Folge 13. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015.
- The Avestan Manuscript 4060 (RSPA230), Videvdad Iranian Sade of the British Library. Avestan Digital Archive Series 75. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 2014.
Editorships (peer-reviewed journals and series)
- Peer-Review-Zeitschrift Digital Archive of Brief notes & Iran Review (DABIR) erscheint regelmäßig seit 2015 (drei Ausgaben pro Jahr) bei Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture at the University of California, Irvine.
- Peer-Review-Jahrbuch Sasanian Studies: Late Antique Iranian World | Sasanidische Studien: Spätantike iranische Welt, erscheint beim Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden.
- Die Reihe Ancient Iran Series (AIS), erschient seit 2016, zuerst bei Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture at the University of California, Irvine und seit 2020 bei E. J. Brill, Koninklijke Brill/Brill Academic Publishers (Leiden).