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Episode details

Radio 3,12 Mar 2024,44 mins

Images of Persia

Free Thinking

Available for over a year

The medieval poet Hafez and how his work speaks to today, the impact of digs undertaken by 19th-century feminist archaeologist Jane Dieulafoy and the novels she wrote looking back to a Persian past, the role of classical singing and the impact of the Mongol invasion are discussed by the academics Julia Hartley, Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Glasgow; Michelle Assay, Principal investigator of the Marie Curie/UKRI project “Women and Western Art Music in Iran” at King’s College London; Sussan Babaie, Professor in the Arts of Iran and Islam at the Courtauld Institute; and Ide Haghi, Lecturer in Modern Foreign Languages at the University of Glasgow. Chris Harding presents. Producer: Jayne Egerton Julia Hartley's book Iran and French Orientalism: Persia in the Literary Culture of Nineteenth-Century France is out now. You can hear more from Julia in a Free Thinking discussion about Alexander the Great and in a Radio 3 Essay called Alexander and the Persians. Michelle Assay contributed to a discussion about Lady Macbeth. All are available as Arts & Ideas podcasts and on BBC Sounds. Producers Jayne Egerton and Robyn Read

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