Center of Excellence in Ferdowsi and Shahname

The Center of Excellence in Ferdowsi and Shahnameh initiated its activities since 2000 under the general title: "Center of Excellence in Persian Language and Literature" and implemented a number of plans and projects. In the second course, its research activities focused on “Ferdowsi and Khorasan Literature", therefore the title: "Center of Excellence in Research on Ferdowsi Studies and Khorasan Literature" was selected. This title addressed the limited area of research. In the subsequent course, the title "The Center of Excellence in Ferdowsi Studies" was approved. This research center accomplished these course activities in 2016.

Activities

• Holding more than 10 national and international conferences specially the annual commemoration of Ferdowsi
• Publishing more than 27 newsletters and 5 special issues on Epic in the Journal of Literary Studies
• Teaching Persian in other countries (in the past 10 years 6 faculty members have carried out teaching Persian in England, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Australia)
• Holding classes for several groups of students from Tajikistan, Middle East countries, the Caucasus, Kashmir and India Aligarh
• Sending 6 professors to India to hold fifteen-day retraining classes for both university professors and students in Hyderabad in 2005
• Having 45 days of re-teaching Persian Language and Literature to 26 students of the Commonwealth countries in Summer 2003
• Establishing and running the Persian Language Department in Tashkent (2001-2005)
• Holding Persian learning classes for 38 Tajiki students (2006-2007)
• Trying to establish and run an international Center for teaching Ferdowsi Language
• Sending some of our Ph.D. candidates to international conferences in Turkey, Poland, Russia, and Kazakhstan.
• Hosting researchers from America, Italy, Poland and Armenia
• Developing 3 educational concentrations including Epic Literature (Ph.D.), Comparative Literature (M.A.), and Narrative Literature (M. A.) which were approved by the Planning Council of the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology
• Sending professors to Afghanistan Nangarhar University for 4 times.
• Cooperation in and contribution to holding 5 conferences
• Cooperation in and contribution to science Foundations
• The Center of Excellence for Ferdowsi and Shahnameh has mutual and effective cooperation with the Academy of Persian Language and Literature, Saadi Foundation, Planning Committee of the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology, National Elites Foundation, the Association of Provincial figures, Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handcrafts, and Tourism Organization, Art and Culture Organization of Khorasan Razavi Province.
• Holding annual commemoration of key figures in Literature like Attar, Saadi, Hafez as well as international ones.

Commemoration

Annual commemoration of key figures in Literature like Attar, Saadi, Hafez as well as international ones

Participation in national and international conferences by presenting articles

• 29 papers presented at International conferences in Canada, England, Italy, Tajikistan, India, Thailand, China, Turkey, Kazakhstan, United emirates, Qatar, Russia, Poland, France
• 52 papers presented at conferences in Iran.

National and international sabbaticals and trips

• Sabbaticals for Ph.D. candidates to Poland, England, and Denmark
• Trips to India, Turkey, Canada, France
• Provincial trips as well as inter-provincial ones.

Facilities

Center of Excellence in Ferdowsi and Shah-Name provides the following facilities for its students

• A specialized library of the Center of Excellence in Ferdowsi and Shah-Name titled Library of Dr. Yousefi with more than 7000 books
• Eqbal Lahoori Hall with rooms for research
• Developing a digital library of literary manuscripts with emphasis on Shahnameh manuscripts and epic texts
• Collecting 12,000 digital and lithographic versions of manuscripts in which there are 1700 oldest manuscripts of Shahnameh by Ferdowsi as well as ancient Epic texts and narrations which comprise the most complete archive of the Persian Epics in the world. It should be mentioned that the process of archiving and cataloging is still continuing. More

Director of the Center of Excellence in Ferdowsi and Shah-Name

	Mohammad Jafar Yahaghi
	Professor
	Department of Persian Language and Literature
	ferdows@um.ac.ir
	+985138805212

Contact Information

Iran, Mashhad, Azadi Square, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

Dr. Ali Shariati Faculty of Letters and Humanities, Center of Excellence in Ferdowsi and Shah-Name

Phone: + 985138806733

Postal code: 9177948883

E-mail: epic.stady92@um.ac.ir