07/05/2025
Call for Papers
E.G. Browne and the Making of Iranian Studies
Pembroke College and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge are organising a conference to mark the centenary of the passing of Edward Granville Browne (1862–1926). As a fellow of Pembroke and eventually as Sir Thomas Adams’s Professor of Arabic at Cambridge, Browne dedicated his entire academic career to the study of Persian literature, history, and culture.
We invite proposals for papers that situate Browne in the emergence and development of Iranian Studies. Preference will be given especially to papers that engage critically with some aspect of Browne’s vast body of scholarship. Paper proposals can take the form of offering critiques of one or a group of Browne’s works, of using Browne’s scholarship as a starting point for their own studies, of interrogating Browne’s scholarly approach and methods, or of historicising Browne in his context and among his intellectual interlocutors. These are a few, though not exclusive, examples of the types of papers we seek.
A conference that has as its central, organising thread Browne’s scholarship is by definition interdisciplinary. Browne’s interests were not confined to Persian history or past culture, but ranged widely and also encompassed topics such as contemporary society and politics. While he may be most famous today for his four-volume A Literary History of Persia, his history of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, or indeed for his studies of the Babi and Baha’i religions, his bibliography – as compiled by his colleague and successor R.A. Nicholson – comprises some fifty-five major works. These can be divided roughly into three categories: 1) religion, 2) history and literature, and 3) politics and journalism. We thus welcome proposals from scholars working in any discipline that touches on these areas of research.
Browne’s role in the making of Iranian Studies is difficult to overstate. Subsequent scholars pronounced him to be among the ‘finest specialists’ of Persian ever, and his body of work has been described as ‘epoch-making’. The aim of this conference is not just to honour the person of Browne, but his legacy and impact upon an entire academic field.
Paper proposals of no more than 300 words should be submitted to Assef Ashraf ([email protected]) by 31 August 2025.
The conference is scheduled for 10-12 April 2026 in Cambridge. It is expected that the papers presented during the conference will be submitted later for publication in an edited volume.
