Dear visitors,
please note that the Doctoral College (Initiativkolleg): “Cultural Transfers and Cross-Contacts in the Himalayan Borderlands” has ended and our website will no longer be updated.
For information on our ongoing research, events and activities please refer to the website of our Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Documentation of Inner and South Asian Cultural History (CIRDIS).
Iranian Studies
Dr. Florian Schwarz, ÖAW
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Within this program, “Iranian Studies” focus on the role of representations of Iranian culture in processes of cultural transmission, transfer and communication in the (Western) Himalaya region. The region - more specifically the “Pamir knot”: the Pamir, Karakoram, Hindukush, Zarafshan, Tien Shan and Kunlun area – is understood as a dynamic system of multiple cultural contact zones and borderlands. This part of the program offers a wide range of possibilities for dissertation research. Research topics from one of the following thematic, methodological and chronological areas are particularly welcome:
Theme 1: Material culture in the transition from Late Antiquity to the early Islamic period (6th-13th cc.), in particular the study of coins as carriers of multiple cultural expressions.
Theme 2: Muslim ritual communities, 13th-18th centuries: interconnections and interactions between Muslim and non-Muslim ritual communities, networks and sacred landscapes between Tien Shan, Hindukush and Kashmir.
Theme 3: Historical cultural anthropology of the modern period (19th-20th cc.): archival and anthropological research on regional and trans-communal communications, focusing on pilgrimage, local/regional tourism, migration, trade and gift exchange from the 19th century to the present.
