The Eisenberg Institute concludes its Winter 2014 programming on April 10, 4 p.m., 1014 Tisch Hall, with Kathryn Babayan's lecture, "'Libraries of the Mind': Cultures of Literacy in 17th-Century Isfahan." The talk follows the Institute's 2013-15 theme, "Materials of History." Link for a lecture abstract. Free and open to the public.

Kathryn Babayan is Associate Professor of Iranian History and Culture at the Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan. She specializes in the cultural and social histories of early modern Iran. She is the author of Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran (2003); co-author of Slaves of the Shah: New Elites of Safavi Iran, with Sussan Babaie, Ina Baghdiantz-McCabe, and Massumeh Farhad (2004). More recently, together with her colleague Afsaneh Najmabadi, they have co-edited a volume entitled Islamicate Sexualities Studies: Translations Across Temporal Geographies of Desire, (2008). She is currently working on a monograph that explores cultures of literacy in early modern Isfahan.

This event has been made possible by a generous contribution from Kenneth and Frances Aftel Eisenberg.

Image: Muhammad Qasim, "The Bastinade," tinted drawing on paper, 1650, Isfahan (Metropolitan Museum of Art).