The Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University is hosting Professor Talinn Grigor for a conversation on her new book, The Persian Revival: The Imperialism of the Copy in Iranian and Parsi Architecture. Joining Grigor in this virtual conversation will be Madhuri Desai, associate professor of art history and Asian studies at The Pennsylvania State University.

In her book, Professor Grigor examines Europe’s discovery of ancient Iran, first in literature and then in art history. Tracing Western visual discourse about ancient Iran from 1699 on, she parses the invention and use of a revivalist architectural style from the Afsharid and Zand successors to the Safavid throne and the rise of the Parsi industrialists as cosmopolitan subjects of British India. Drawing on a wide range of Persian revival narratives bound to architectural history, Grigor foregrounds the complexities and magnitude of artistic appropriations of Western art history in order to grapple with colonial ambivalence and imperial aspirations. She argues that while Western imperialism was instrumental in shaping high art as mercantile-bourgeois ethos, it was also a project that destabilized the hegemony of a Eurocentric historiography of taste.

This conversation will take place Wednesday, March 16, 2022 at 12 pm EST.

This event is free and open to the public. RSVP required.