Parvaneh Pourshariati

Parvaneh Pourshariati "is Associate Professor of Islamic and Iranian Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the Ohio State University. She also has courtesy appointments in the department of History at OSU and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS) at the university, where she teaches regularly. Born in Tehran, where she completed her primary and secondary education, Pourshariati received her BA in sociology from New York University and her M. Phil. and PhD. degrees in history from Columbia University. Her research interests include the late antique and early medieval social history of Iran and the Middle East; Mihr worship and Mithraism in their Iranian and Roman articulations; local historiographical production of Iran; popular romances and cultures of the Irano-Turkic worlds and the phenomenon of ‘ayyari in Iran; and Islamic and Iranian "Xwaday- Namag" (or the Book of Kings) historiography traditions. Pourshariati was instrumental in establishing the annual Houshang Pourshariati Iranian Studies Book Award through the Middle East Studies Association of North America in memory of her father, the late Houshang Pourshariati (http://mesa.wns.ccit.arizona.edu/excellence/pourshariati.htm). She is currently a member of "Mondes iraniens et indiens" of the CNRS in Paris. Her book, Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire, has just been published by I. B. Tauris, 2008."