Position:
Professor of Persian Literature and Iranian Culture; Senior Research Fellow in Persian at Wadham College
Faculty / College Address:
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies / Wadham College
Email:
dominic.brookshaw@ames.ox.ac.uk
Research Interests:
- Genesis and development of the Persian ghazal
- Erotic dimensions of the poet-patron relationship in pre-modern Iran
- Arabic and Persian wine poetry
- Performance contexts of pre-modern Persian poetry
- Palace description in the pre-modern Persian qasida
- Poetry and its patrons in Qajar Iran
- The Bazgasht-i adabi
- Women poets of the Persophone world
- Literature of the Iranian diaspora
- Non-Muslim minorities of Iran
- Persian language pedagogy
Courses Taught:
Persian Literature 1000-1400 CE
(typically, Firdawsi, Manuchihri, Farrukhi, Gurgani, Sana'i, Mahsati, Nizami Ganjavi, Nizami 'Aruzi, Rumi, Sa'di, 'Ubayd, Hafiz, Jahan)
Persian Literature 1400-1900 CE
(typically, Bushaq At'ima, Dawlatshah Samarqandi, Jami, Muhtasham, Sa'ib, Bidil, Hatif, Qa'ani, Mastura, Valiya, Tahira, Rashha)
Persian Literature 1900-present day
(typically, Parvin E'tesami, Nima Yushij, Forugh Farrokhzad, Mehdi Akhavan Sales, Simin Behbahani, Sadeq Hedayat, Goli Taraghi, Zoya Pirzad)
Monograph in progress:
Center, Periphery, and Gender: Poetic Resurgence in Early Qajar Iran (under contract with University of Michigan Press)
Monograph:
Hafiz and His Contemporaries: Poetry, Performance and Patronage in Fourteenth-century Iran, I B Tauris/Bloomsbury (2019)
winner of the 2020 Saidi-Sirjani Book Award https://associationforiranianstudies.org/awards/saidiSirjani
Edited Volumes:
Ruse and Wit: The Humorous in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish Narrative, Ilex Foudation/Harvard University Press (2012)
Forugh Farrokhzad, Poet of Modern Iran: Iconic Woman and Feminine Pioneer of New Persian Poetry (co-edited with Nasrin Rahimieh), I B Tauris (2010; expanded second edition, 2023)
Journal Articles:
“To dance like Solomon: imitation and martyrdom in a Qajar ghazal,” Middle Eastern Literatures (published online 15 August 2024)
"Mytho-Political Remakings of Ferdowsi's Jamshid in the Lyric Poetry of Injuid and Mozaffarid Shiraz," Iranian Studies, 48:3 (2015), 463-487
"Qajar Confection: The Production and Dissemination of Women's Poetry in Early Nineteenth-century Iran," Middle Eastern Literatures, 17:2 (2014), 113-146
"Lascivious Vines, Corrupted Virgins, and Crimes of Honor: Variations on the Wine Production Myth as Narrated in Early Persian Poetry," Iranian Studies, 47:1 (2014), 87-129
"Women in Praise of Women: Female Poets and Female Patrons in Qajar Iran," Iranian Studies, 46:1 (2013), 17-48
"To be Feared and Desired: Turks in the Collected Works of ‘Ubayd-i Zakani," Iranian Studies, 42:5 (2009), 725-744
"Revivification of an Ossified Genre? Simin Behbahani and the Persian Ghazal," Iranian Studies, 41:1 (2008), 75-90
"Odes of a Poet-princess: the Ghazals of Jahan-Malik Khatun," Iran XLIII (2005), 173-195
"Palaces, Pavilions and Pleasure-gardens: the Context and Setting of the Medieval Majlis," Middle Eastern Literatures, 6:2 (2003), 199-223
Book Chapters:
"Women Poets," in Asghar Seyed-Gohrab (ed), Literature of the Early Twentieth Century: From the Constitutional Period to Reza Shah, A History of Persian Literature, vol. XI, I.B. Tauris (2015), 240-310
"Have You Heard the One about the Man from Qazvin? Regionalist Humor in the Works of ‘Ubayd-i Zakani," in Dominic Parviz Brookshaw (ed), Ruse and Wit: The Humorous in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish Narrative, Harvard University Press (2012), 44-69
"Places of Confinement, Liberation, and Decay: The Home and the Garden in the Poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad," in Dominic Parviz Brookshaw and Nasrin Rahimieh (eds), Forugh Farrokhzad, Poet of Modern Iran: Iconic Woman and Feminine Pioneer of New Persian Poetry, I.B. Tauris (2010), 35-52
Encyclopaedia Entries:
"Persian Literature," in Natana J. Delong-Bas (ed), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women, Oxford University Press (2013)
"Persian Literature: Major Developments Since 1990," in John L. Esposito (ed), The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, Oxford University Press (2009), 4:362-363
"Jahan-Malek Khatun," in E. Yarshater (ed), Encyclopaedia Iranica, XIV: iv (2008), 383-385
Persian Language Vocabulary and Textbooks:
Media Persian: An Essential Vocabulary, Edinburgh University Press (2011)
The Routledge Introductory Persian Course: Farsi Shirin Ast (co-authored with Pouneh Shabani Jadidi) Routledge (2010; second edition, 2019)
The Routledge Intermediate Persian Course: Farsi Shirin Ast Book 2 (co-authored with Pouneh Shabani Jadidi) Routledge (2012; second edition, 2023)
