5-6 November 2021
Prince Baysunghur, Before and After: Timurid Manuscripts in Context
This two-day international symposium, to be held in early November 2021, celebrates the 600-year anniversary of the first manuscript produced in the Timurid prince’s Herati library-atelier. It is also the inaugural symposium of the Persian Manuscript Association, and sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
This symposium brings together scholars and international experts in a number of disciplines to explore the connoisseurship and patronage undertaken by the prince, the aesthetic of his atelier’s output, their antecedents in the Jalayirid period, and the production of literary editions in his library.
The full program for this event can be seen here. If you missed the last conference or you would like to watch it again, you can find the recordings in the following link:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdDZb3TwJPZ4OuMvYKYDglrVK46xB5cJv&si=8XTzGZlZJBbu2CTG
Symposium Program
Friday, 5 November 2021 (EST) | |
| 10:00 – 10:15 | Opening Remarks |
| 10:15 – 11:45 | Panel 1 Chair: Barbara Brend, independent scholar |
| Bernard O’Kane, American University of Cairo ‘Baysunghur and Emulation in the Arts of the Book Revisited’ | |
| Robert Hillenbrand, University of Edinburgh ‘The Nature of the Chinese Connection in Baysunghuri Painting’ | |
| Maria Subtelny, University of Toronto ‘Baysunghur Mirza’s Secretum Secretorum: A Pseudo-Aristotelian Mirror for Princes from a Timurid Atelier’ | |
| 11:45 – 12:00 | Break |
| 12:00 – 13:30 | Panel 2 Chair: Shiva Mihan, Institute for Advanced Study |
| Cailah Jackson, OCIS/University of Oxford ‘Illumination in Late Medieval Baghdad: A Forerunner of The Baysunghuri Arts of the Book’ | |
| Ilse Sturkenboom, Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich ‘Gifted, Ordered or Stolen? Baysunghur’s Shirazi Anthology’ | |
| Ali Shapouran, University of St Andrews ‘The Preparation of New Text Editions in Baysunghur’s Library’ | |
Saturday, 6 November 2021 (EST) | |
| 10:00 – 11:30 | Panel 1 Chair: Bernard O’Kane, American University of Cairo |
| Shiva Mihan, Institute for Advanced Study ‘Baysunghur’s Rasayil: A Digital Reconstruction of a Mutilated Manuscript’ | |
| Simon Rettig, Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art ‘Made at the Request of Baysunghur? Exploring the Timurid Interventions in the Freer Khusraw-u Shirin’ | |
| Moya Carey, Chester Beatty ‘Beatty’s Baysunghur: Cult Status and the Bibliophile Ideal in the Early Twentieth-Century Art Market’ | |
| 11:30 – 11:45 | Break |
| 11:45 – 13:15 | Panel 2 Chair: Beatrice Manz, Tufts University |
| Francis Richard, Bibliothèque nationale de France ‘Books Bearing the Seal of Shahrukh and the Relationship between Shahrukh’s Library and Baysunghur’s Library’ | |
| Sunil Sharma, Boston University ‘The Early Transmission History of Amir Khusraw’s Historical Masnavis’ | |
| Matthew Melvin-Koushki, University of South Carolina ‘An Occult Correspondence: Ibn Turka’s Letters to Baysunghur’ | |
| 13:15 – 13:30 | Closing remarks |
