Dominic Parviz Brookshaw
Dominic Parviz Brookshaw
Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Persian Literature
Contact:
dominicb@stanford.edu
650-723-1251
Office Hours:
By AppointmentOVERVIEW:
Dominic Parviz Brookshaw’s research on pre-modern Persian and Arabic literature explores the intersection between performance, patronage, and desire. He is currently examining the emergence and genesis of Persian wine poetry in the early Islamic period, its relationship to earlier and contemporaneous Arabic wine poetry, and the connection of the genre in both literatures to homoeroticism.In terms of nineteenth-century Persian literature, his research focuses on the production, patronage and dissemination of poetry by women in the early Qajar period (circa 1797-1848), and women poets’ involvement in the Literary Return movement (bazgasht-i adabi). His research on modern/ist twentieth-century Persian poetry is currently centred on women poets and their dialogue with -and ultimate reconfiguration of- the classical Persian poetic canon.Dominic Parviz Brookshaw’s other research interests include literature of the Iranian diaspora, non-Muslim religious minorities in Qajar Iran, and Persian language learning.
Before arriving at Stanford, Dominic Parviz Brookshaw taught medieval and modern Persian literature and Persian language at the University of Manchester (2007-2011), McGill University (2005-2007), and the University of Oxford (2002-2005). Since 2004 he has served as Assistant Editor for Iranian Studies. He is a member of the Board of the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS), and a member of the Governing Council of the British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS).
EDUCATION:
2007: DPhil, University of Oxford, Oriental Studies (medieval Persian poetry)
1998: BA Hons, University of Oxford, Oriental Studies (Arabic with Persian)
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Courses
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COMPLIT118Aut2011-12
Starting at the dawn of the 19th century, this course will first examine the existing, indigenous tradition of women's poetry in Qajar Iran. The focus will then shift to the emergence of liberalist, modernist and proto-feminist poets in the early 20th century, culminating in the iconoclastic and distruptive figures of Simin Behbahani and Forugh Farrokhzad. The course will trace the emergence of a female voice in Persian poetry in the 19th and 20th centuries and, although focused on women, it will discuss the place within and contribution to the wider poetic scene in Iran by women in some of the most turbulent years in modern Iranian history.
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COMPLIT121Win2011-12
This course will explore the origins, evolution, and migration of one of the world's great poetic genres, the ghazal (short lyric poem, usually on love). Starting with a discussion of the origins of the genre in the late pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods in Arabic and Persian, the course will then move to an examination of the evolution of the genre in the early medieval Islamic period in those languages, and the subsequent emergence of the ghazal in the related literatures of Ottoman Turkish and Urdu. We will then consider European translations of selected Persian ghazals in the 18th and 19th centuries, the effect of these translations on contemporary European poetry, and the migration of the genre into English in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. The course will end with close reading of ghazals written in English by diasporic poets of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent writing in the US and the UK.
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COMPLIT130ASpr2011-12
This course examines elements of medieval Islamic culture that, although technically at odds with a strict understanding of Islamic law, were integral to the majority of medieval Muslim societies. Through a mixture of close textual reading, lectures, and class discussion, this course will shed light on the social reality and cultural function/s of the supposedly transgressive behaviors of wine-drinking, and the eroticization of females and young males. These are elements of medieval Islamic culture which have stereotypically (and largely erroneously) been considered “taboo”, both by Orientalist scholars of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and by many modern-day observers of the Middle East and North Africa. The texts read in this course will introduce students to excerpts from some of the most celebrated texts within medieval Arabic, Persian, and Turkish poetry and prose. The texts will be studied in English translation, and no prior knowledge of Arabic, Persian, or Turkish is required.
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COMPLIT340Spr2011-12
This course examines poetry and prose produced by authors of Iranian descent living outside of Iran. The focus will be on works composed in English that have appeared since the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79. The course will examine recurrent themes in Iranian diasporic writing such as memory, childhood, nostalgia, identity, rebellion, belonging, and return. The texts selected for detailed discussion are almost all by women writers, reflecting the fact that the Iranian expatriate literary scene is dominated by female poets and novelists. Special attention will be paid to those novels that have become best-sellers in North America and Europe, and which have provoked the most intense reactions from scholarly and writerly communities in the West. As well as texts originally written in English, translations of pieces composed in Persian and French will also be discussed. Although focused on the Iranian immigrant experience, this course seeks to locate Iranian diasporic writing within the context of the broader non-western diasporic literary scene in the US, UK, and France.
