BUCH Lectures in Criticism Series: The Episodic Reception of Medieval Persian Women Poets, with Sunil Sharma (Feb. 22, 2024)
The participation of women poets in medieval courtly or Sufi Persian literary cultures was acknowledged but did not result in their inclusion in literary histories. The lives and poems of figures such as Mahsati, Rabia, and Jahan, were memorialized in anecdotes and romantic narratives at certain critical junctures that led to the creation of phantom canons in nineteenth-century anthologies. These poets were also masked by their use of the ghazal poetic form that privileged a lyrical ventriloquism. Connecting the episodes in the reception history of Persian women poets challenges the way the millennium-long tradition is studied.
The BU Lectures in Criticism series invites you to
“The Episodic Reception of Medieval Persian Women Poets”
Sunil Sharma
(Professor of Persianate & Comparative Literature; and Director of the Global Medieval Studies Program, Boston University)
Thursday, February 22, 2024 at 5:00 pm
CDS 1101, 665 Commonwealth Ave. (Comm Ave. at Granby St.), Boston University
About the Speaker:
Sunil Sharma’s areas of expertise are premodern Persian and South Asian literatures. His research interests include poetry and court cultures, history of the book, and travel writing. His last book, Mughal Arcadia: Persian Poetry in an Indian Court (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017) is a study of early modern Persianate literature. He is director of BU’s Global Medieval Studies program.
About the Lectures in Criticism series
For nearly forty years, the Lectures in Criticism series has brought renowned scholars in the humanities to Boston University. It has run since 1983, hosting four external speakers every year in addition to one member of the BU faculty.
In 2022, the Boston University Center for the Humanities assumed oversight of the series introducing two significant changes to its traditional format. First, the series now features a fall lecture by a BU faculty member and a spring lecture by an external scholar. Second, in contrast to the past where BU faculty participants were drawn exclusively from the departments of English and World Languages & Literatures, going forward the series will feature BU faculty from all the humanities departments in the College of Arts & Sciences.
The Center for the Humanities is honored to have the Lectures in Criticism series under its wing and is dedicated to continuing its legacy of excellence.