BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Steppe-ing Across the Centuries: Alexander the Great in Illustrate
 d Abū’l-Khairid (Shaybanid Uzbek) Manuscripts - Dr. Jaimee Comstock-Ski
 pp\, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford
DTSTART:20231013T130000Z
DTEND:20231013T140000Z
UID:TALK206905@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Said Reza Huseini
DESCRIPTION:I specialise in illustrated manuscripts of the Abū’l-Khairi
 ds (Shaibanid-Uzbeks) and their political and artistic exchanges with othe
 r Islamicate empires during the 16th century. My previous research focusse
 d on productions of a Persian epic poem called the Shāhnāma (Book of Kin
 gs) composed by Firdausī\, and how this work was conceptually and stylist
 ically harnessed to create other historical and biographical chronicles of
  other dynasties in Central Asian workshops. Having dwelled on the single 
 Shāhnāma title\, my new project homes in on a single character within it
 —Alexander the Great\, or Iskandar Maqdūnī [Macedonian] in Persian. I 
 will look at Abū’l-Khairid painted works in which Iskandar features. Th
 ey are mostly in Persian with some in Turki. \n\nVisual forms and concepts
  for Alexander’s epic and romantic subject matter circulated in copies o
 f these manuscripts made in 16th-century Bukhara\, Tashkent\, and Samarqan
 d. Combining history\, myth\, and legend\, the figure of Alexander/Iskanda
 r carried particular significance in a Central Asian setting. The discussi
 on will focus on the character’s esteem held by the two most powerful ru
 lers of the dynasty\, Muhammad Shībānī Khan and ʿAbdullāh bin Iskanda
 r Khan. I speculate that each modelled himself as a successor to the Greek
  hero. The illustrated literature of their dynasty recounted Alexander’s
  exploits so as to visualise and concretise these connections.\n\nAbout th
 e Speaker:\nJaimee K. Comstock-Skipp holds a BA from the University of Cal
 ifornia\, Berkeley in Near Eastern Studies with a specialty in Islamic civ
 ilizations\, and the Arabic and Persian languages. She obtained a first MA
  from the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art (Massach
 usetts\, USA)\, and a second MA from The Courtauld Institute of Art (Londo
 n\, UK)\, where she studied Mongol through Safavid book arts predominantly
  from Iran. She completed her PhD at Leiden University’s Institute for A
 rea Studies: Persian & Iranian Studies (2022) writing a dissertation on il
 lustrated epic and biographical manuscripts of the Abu’l-Khairids\, and 
 their diplomatic exchanges between courts within Central Asia and the broa
 der Turco-Persianate sphere encompassing Safavids\, Ottomans\, and Mughals
 . She has held visiting fellowships at the Oxford Nizami Ganjavi Centre (O
 xford\, UK) and the Warburg Institute (London\, UK). She will be a Leverhu
 lme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford between 2024—2027.\n
LOCATION:Keynes Hall\, King’s College (and online)
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR