DR. PEGAH SHAHBAZ, PHD

Specialist of Persian Language, Literature and Culture

FIELDS OF RESEARCH: Persian Literature and Indo-Persian Literary Studies, Translation and Systems of Knowledge Transmission in Asia and Eurasia, Comparative Literature, Comparative Religious Studies, Orientalism and the Reception of Persian Literature in the West in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.

CURRENT AFFILIATION: Sessional Lecturer, Institute of Iranian Studies (Seminar für Iranistik),
Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany

Scientific Editor, “Fables and Tales” Section,
Perso-Indica, An Analytical Survey of Persian Works on Indian Learned Traditions
http://www.perso-indica.net/

Pegah Shahbaz is a specialist of classical Persian literature and works on questions of narratology, translation and systems of knowledge transmission in the Persianate world, in particular on the reception and domestication of Indian literary, religious and cultural heritage in Persian literature and culture from the tenth to the nineteenth centuries. She received her PhD from the University of Strasbourg, France, in 2014.

She is currently a sessional lecturer at the Institute of Iranian Studies, Georg-August University of Göttingen, Germany, and teaches literature and history courses at undergraduate and Master’s level.

Pegah Shahbaz conducts scientific collaboration through a wide network of scholars of Persian and Islamic studies and collaborates as member and scientific partner with a number of groundbreaking research projects, such as the “Kalīla wa Dimna AnonymClassic” project funded by the European Research Council at Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany, and the aforementioned Perso-Indica project in Paris, France.

Pegah Shahbaz’s ongoing research project is focused on the fourteenth-century historiographies and hagiographies of the Buddha in the Persian language. Her other research project deals with Persian narrative literature in Punjab, the story of Heer-u Ranjha and its multiple retellings/ translations in the Persian language.
Selected Publications:

The Persian Bilawhar wa Buyūdhas(a)f(a) As a Mirror for Princes,” in Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Lancaster University, forthcoming.

“Tarjuma-yi Kalila wa Dimna” in Perso-Indica. An Analytical Survey of Persian Works on Indian Learned Traditions, F. Speziale - C. W. Ernst, eds., available at http://www.perso-indica.net/work/fables_and_tales/tarjuma-yi_kalila_wa_dimna, 2023.

“Mirroring the ‘Orient’ in Words: Persian Prose Fiction in Translation in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries”, in Routledge Handbook of Persian Literary Translation, eds. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi, Michelle Quay, and Patricia Higgins, Routledge, 2022, pp. 229-246.

“Kalīla wa Dimna–yi Manẓūm”, in Perso-Indica. An Analytical Survey of Persian Works on Indian Learned Traditions, F. Speziale - C. W. Ernst, eds., available at http://www.perso-indica.net/work/fables_and_tales/kalila_wa_dimna–yi_manzum, 2022.

“Women in the Realm of ‘True Men’: A Study of Gender in Persian Devotional Literature of South Asia”, in Literature, Social Movements and Gender Issues in South Asia. FINDAS (The Centre for South Asian Studies) – Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, pp. 2 – 21, March 2021.

“Indo-Persian Narrative Literature: Cultural Translation and Rewriting of Indian Tales in Persianate South Asia”, Asiatische Studien-Etudes Asiatiques, Revue de la Société Suisse-Asie, January 2021, 74:2, pp. 387-412. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/asia-2020-0030.

“Persian Monshi, Persian Jones: English Translations of Sa‘dī’s Golestān from the Late Eighteenth to the Mid Nineteenth Centuries”, Iranian Studies, Special Issue: Sa‘dī at Large, November 2019, 52:5-6, pp. 739-760. DOI: 10.1080/00210862.2019.1656056.

“Laughing at Adultery in Persian Literature and Culture”, in: Studies in the Iranian World II. Medieval and Modern, Anna Krasnowolska and Renata Rusek-Kowalska, eds., Krakow, Jagiellonian University Press, 2015, Online Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 99-106.

“Hātem-Nāma”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, E. Yarshater, ed., available at: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/hatem-nama, 2011.

“Les Eléments Merveilleux Dans le Récit Hātam-Nāma”, in : Cultures et Héritages Culturels. Actes de la journée doctorale de GEO, Julien Dufour, ed., Strasbourg University Press, 2012, pp. 105-120.

“L’illustration Des Manuscrits Persans : Subtile Occupation de l’Espace Central et Périphérique”, in : Normes et Marginalités à l’Épreuve. Na’oum Abi-Rached, ed., Strasbourg University Press, 2010, pp. 219-224.