PERSIPHONY Newsletter of The Center for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park No. 2: Spring 2007
A Spring Song by Sa`di of Shiraz Trees are blossoming, nightingales drunk with joy the world is young again, friends gathered in merry-making. There as grass is trampled under the feet of joy and so many folks nobles and the rabble alike rise up to join in the dance behold my beloved of the assembly, always pulling at my heart, this day adorned in the loveliest of garbs! Then here, in the private recesses of my mind, grows a rosebush before whose stature the world’s tallest cypress falls prostrate and when you question that cypress, “but you bear no fruit!” he responds, “oh yes, free spirits often come empty-handed.” Part of Abbas Kiarostami’s Nowruz gift to CPS. For more visit: http://www.languages.umd.edu/persian -- click on play
A Message from the Dean It is a pleasure to write a few lines about the progress made by the Center for Persian Studies (CPS) at the University of Maryland. Under the dedicated leadership of Professor Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, the Center has engaged in a rich variety of activities ranging from the hard work of developing new courses and curricula to a large number of lectures and exhibits and other events. I am particularly heartened to hear that a number of students have made progress in what will become a minor and ultimately a major. Indeed, enrollments in PERS courses are very robust. As we develop program in Persian Studies at Maryland, it is, of course, crucial to secure financial support to supplement that provided by the University and the State. In this regard I have been pleased to acknowledge gifts such as the $100,000 endowment received from Dr. Jamshid Amouzegar in support of an undergraduate scholarship in Persian studies and $30,000 from Dr. Akbar Ghahary of the Persian Cultural Foundation to support a major international conference on the poet Rumi, as has Mr. Jamshid Ansari of Ahoora Foundation. Mr. Fred Farshay has made several contributions in support of the Center. We are working hard to make possible gifts to
the University Library in all areas of Persian Studies and support the Library’s efforts to find funding for necessary expenses such as cataloguing. Such contributions make exciting new cultural and academic events possible on our campus. In April I was delighted to attend the exhibit “Persian Visions: Contemporary Photography from Iran” that was hung in our Art Gallery from April 2 to the 29th. Likewise, the splendid series of lectures on the theme of “The Political Culture of Martyrdom in Iran and the Middle East”, delivered by Professor Ali Banuazizi, which attracted very significant audiences from all parts of the campus and the surrounding community, had been made possible by an endowment established in 2005 by the Persian Heritage Foundation (PHF) in the name of Professor Ehsan Yarshater, acknowledged dean of the Iranian Studies the world over and Editor-in-Chief of the monumental reference work, The Encyclopaedia Iranica. Finally, it is especially auspicious that the new Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost at the University of Maryland will be Professor Nariman Farvardin, currently Dean of the A. James Cark School of Engineering. Nariman is one of many members of the faculty, who, like many of our students in a variety of fields, come from a Persian background. James F. Harris, Dean College of Arts and Humanities