Persia

Lectures by Melanie Urban

Sample Lecture Topics

  • Biblical times and the rise of the Achaeminids
  • History of the Achaeminid dynasty: Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes
  • Alexander the Great and new rulers in Persia: the Parthians and the Sassanians
  • Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, indigenous religions of Persia
  • The rise of Islam and its Persian heritage
  • Artistic and cultural legacies
  • Persian literature and art, defined and illustrated, religious and secular, including poetry, painting, calligraphy, and architecture
  • Technologies, including metalwork, ceramics
  • Under Mongol rule
  • Persian empire of the Safavids, rulers in the 16th and 17th centuries
  • Role of trade within and beyond the Persian world, including along the Silk Roads across Asia
  • Iran today, its legacy and its position in world affairs

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