Biography
Prof. Dr. Shervin Farridnejad holds the professorship of Iranian Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute of the University of Hamburg since September 2022. He also heads the MA programme "Manuscript Cultures" (website) at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at the University of Hamburg.
He studied ancient and middle Iranian philology, Iranian religions (with a special focus on Zoroastrianism), and art history at the University of Tehran, TMU and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, where he received his PhD in 2014 with an interdisciplinary philological, art historical and religious studies thesis on the iconographic exegesis of the anthropomorphic divine images in Zoroastrianism (Harrssowitz 2018). He then worked as a research assistant, post-doc and deputy professor at the Free University of Berlin (2016-2023), the University of Vienna (2018) and the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
Prof. Farridnejad served as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Institute of Iranian Studies (IFI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) in Vienna between 2016-2020 with a project on "Zoroastrian Religious Literature in Classical New Persian and Gujarati: A Critical Study of Their Origins, Continuity, and Content together with an Annotated Edition of Ṣad Dar "Hundred Chapters/Gates (a New-Persian Catechetical Treatise Available in Several Versions of Prose and Verse)."
Main Research Focal Points
Main Research Focal Points
- Antique and Late Antique Iranian Cultural and Religious History
- Zoroastrian Religion, Rituals and Literature
- Dynamics and interdependencies between Zoroastrians and non-Zoroastrians in the (early) Islamic Period
- Zoroastrian Art and Iconography
- Old and Middle Iranian Philology and Literature
- Persianate Manuscript Cultures and Codicology
- Zoroastrian Literatures
- Judeo-Persian Literature
- Digital Humanities
Current Projects
Current Projects
- Since Sep 2016: Habilitation project: Zoroastrian religious literature in Classical New Persian and Gujarati: A critical study of their emergence, continuity and content along with an annotated edition of Ṣad Dar "Hundred Chapter / Gates (a Classical New Persian catechism in several pros and verse versions)".
- Since Sep 2016: The preparatory work for the construction of a digital archive for all extant Zoroastrian manuscripts in Classical New Persian and Gujarati.
- Since Juli 2015: Research project “Religious Authority in Zoroastrianism and the Question of Succession: textual authority versus priestly authority within the framework of the research group B-5-1: The personal authorization of knowledge in ancient succession narratives in the excellence cluster 264 – Topoi (The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations).
Selected Publications
Selected Publications
- Die Sprache der Bilder: Eine Studie zur ikonographischen Exegese der anthropomorphen Götterbilder im Zoroastrismus. Iranica 27. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2018.
- Zoroastrianism. A Quick Reference on Selected Theological and Historical Key-Concepts. New York: Facts on File, 2016.
- together with Ghelichkhani, Hamid Reza. Dictionary of Persian Calligraphy and Related Arts. Handbook of Oriental Studies (HdO) 109. Leiden: Brill, (forthcoming).
- together with A. Joisten-Pruschke, and R. Gyselen, eds. Faszination Iran. Beiträge zur Religion, Geschichte und Kunst des Alten Iran. Gedenkschrift für Klaus Schippmann. Göttinger Orientforschungen. III. Reihe: Iranica, Neue Folge 13. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015.
- The Avestan Manuscript 4060 (RSPA230), Videvdad Iranian Sade of the British Library. Avestan Digital Archive Series 75. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 2014.
- ‘The Iconography of Zoroastrian Angelology in Sassanian Art and Architecture’. In Spirits in Transcultural Skies, Auspicious and Protective Spirits in Artefacts and Architecture Between East and West, ed. by Katharina Weiler and Niels Gutschow, 19–41. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Zürich: Springer Verlag, 2015.
- ‘Das Zoroastrische Schlangenbuch “Mār-Nāme”. Zur zoroastrischen Volksreligion und Ophiomantik’. In Faszination Iran Beiträge zur Religion, Geschichte und Kunst des Alten Iran Gedenkschrift für Klaus Schippmann, ed. by Shervin Farridnejad, Rika Gyselen, and Anke Joisten-Pruschke, 51–86. Iranica, GOF III/NF 12. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015.
- ‘Take Care of the Xrafstars! A Note on Nēr. 7.5’. The Digital Archive of Brief Notes & Iran Review (DABIR) 1 (2015): 11–13.
- “Die Diadochen Zaraθuštras: Sukzession und religiöse Wissensvermittlung im Zoroastrismus”. In Sukzession in Religionen. Autorisierung, Legitimierung, Wissenstransfer. Ein Handbuch, ed. by Almut-Barbara Renger and Markus Witte, 133–58. Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter, 2017.
For an updated list of publications please see: https://uhh.de/aai-en-farridnejad