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Gulru Necipoglu Freer Medal

Professor Gülru Necipoğlu Awarded Prestigious 2023 Freer Medal

November 14, 2023

Named for the National Museum of Asian Art’s founder, Charles Lang Freer, the medal has been awarded since its inauguration in 1956. The Freer Medal honors people who, over the course of a career, have contributed in a substantial way to the understanding of the arts of Asia. In 2023, as part of the Museum’s centennial celebrations, the Charles Lang Freer Medal was awarded to Gülru Necipoğlu, the Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University’s History of Art and Architecture Department, for her lifetime of work in the arts of the...

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Shahrad Shahvand

Welcome Dr. Shahrad Shahvand, Alwaleed Bin Talal Postdoctoral Fellow!

September 11, 2023
Dr. Shahrad Shahvand, who recently earned his PhD from Harvard in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, is the Alwaleed Bin Talal Postdoctoral Fellow for 2023-24. He will present his research at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Seminar on November 14th on the topic, "Revisiting History: Nurullah Shushtari on Shīʿī Historiography, Taqiyya & the Pre-Safavid Era."

Ep. 15 | Reconstructing Alamut: New Approaches to the Study of the Nizari Ismaili Polity in Iran | Dr. Shiraz Hajiani

July 31, 2023
Dr. Shiraz Hajiani's research contributes to the scant scholarship on the early Nizari Ismaili community. After a succession crisis in the Fatimid Empire in 1095 divided the Ismailis, the community in Iran accepted the crown-prince, Nizar, as the legitimate Imam and successor to the Imam-Caliph al-Mustanṣir and established a polity in Iran at the fortress of Alamut. While the Nizaris, in Shiraz's view, did not write history qua history, he utilizes of a handful of Nizari doctrinal treatises such as the Ḥikāyat-i Sayyid Nāṣir-i Khusraw and... Read more about Ep. 15 | Reconstructing Alamut: New Approaches to the Study of the Nizari Ismaili Polity in Iran | Dr. Shiraz Hajiani

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