Beholding Beauty: Sa‘di’s Quest for Lyric Experience and Mystical Eroticism in the “Golestān” and the “Ghazals”
UBC's Asian Studies Department presents the Alireza Ahmadian Lectures in Iranian and Persianate Studies (Fall 2021 series).
This presentation: "Beholding Beauty: Sa‘di’s Quest for Lyric Experience and Mystical Eroticism in the “Golestān” and the “Ghazals”" was delivered via Zoom on November 20, 2021, featuring guest speaker, Domenico Ingenito (Associate Professor of Persian Literature, University of California, Los Angeles) and discussant, Justine Landau (Associate Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University).
Event details: [ Ссылка ]
Domenico Ingenito’s new book, Beholding Beauty: Sa‘di of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry, focuses on the connections between the erotic, mystical, and philosophical aspects of Sa‘di of Shiraz’s love poems (ghazals). The book invites its readers to rediscover Saʿdi’s ghazals through the lens of the relationship between experience and the celebration of beauty in the intellectual, political, and spiritual frameworks of medieval Iran.
This talk will approach the role of performance and performativity in Sa‘di’s ghazals through the analysis of the historical contexts in which medieval lyric poetry created incommensurable connections between life experiences and literary creativity. By drawing upon both Sa‘di’s pseudo-biographical accounts from the Golestān and the mystical ritual of listening to poetry and music for spiritual ends (known as samā‘), our conversation will introduce a new research project on lyric performance in the context of the Sufi practices and aesthetic ideals of 13th-century Shiraz.
About the Alireza Ahmadian Lectures in Iranian and Persianate Studies: Alireza Ahmadian (1981 – 2019) was an enthusiastic researcher, a consummate socio-political analyst, and an opinion leader on foreign policy who nurtured the virtues of diplomatic dialogue and liberal democracy. Alireza was a proud and devoted UBC alumnus, supporter of UBC’s Asian Studies department, and beloved member of Canadian-Iranian Community. UBC’s Asian Studies department renamed this lecture series in his honour in 2019. Alireza’s friends in the community have provided funding to support this series, and this generous gift will see these important academic and community engagement events supported through to the end of the 2025/2026 academic year. To access the full list of events, visit [ Ссылка ]
