Source: Iran Heritage Foundation

Conference at Freer & Sackler Galleries, Independence Avenue, Washington DC

On the 500th anniversary of Afonso de Albuquerque's attempts tot take Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, we invite presentations for a conference that will focus on the contacts of the Portuguese with Safavid Persia and various aspects of their activities in the Persian Gulf basin.

CALL FOR PAPERS

We are now approaching the 500th anniversary of Portuguese contacts and relations with the Persian Gulf region and Safavid Persia, around the first attempts by Albuquerque to take Hormuz in 1507. As part of an exploration of the wider contacts of Portugal with Asia, Africa and South America, the Freer and Sackler Galleries (Smithsonian Institution) in Washington DC will commemorate this important historical moment with a series of exhibitions in the summer of 2007 entitled 'Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries.'

This quincentennial is also the occasion for a conference on Portuguese relations with the Persian Gulf and Safavid Persia between 1500 and 1700, that will be held under the auspices of the Iran Heritage Foundation and the Freer and Sackler Galleries. The meeting is scheduled to take place on 8-9 September 2007 at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, coinciding with the last week of the exhibitions.

The meeting aims to examine various aspects of the activities of the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf basin and their interaction with other forces in the region, Safavid Persia, the Ottoman Empire, Arab principalities around the Gulf's littoral, India, and rival European merchants active in the area. Topics to be discussed include sources and historiography, mutual perceptions, trade, diplomacy and politics, missionary activities, and cross-cultural exchange.

The members of the conference committee, Rudi Matthee, Jorge Flores, Farhad Hakimzadeh and Ann Gunter have the pleasure of inviting you to submit a proposal for a presentation at this scholarly gathering, which is designed to bring some twenty of the most well-know specialists in the field together.

Prospective participants should send an abstract of 300 words by 15 December 2006 to Farhad Hakimzadeh at farhad@iranheritage.org. Please submit abstracts in digital form using Microsoft Word. A CV should accompany each abstract. The conference language is English.

The papers presented in the conference will be published in a volume of proceedings, edited by Rudi Matthee and Jorge Flores. All papers submitted should therefore be of publishable quality, constitute new work, and reserved to be exclusively published as part of the conference proceedings. No previously published work should be submitted.

We are very enthusiastic about this meeting and hope and expect that it will generate a great deal of intellectual excitement.

For enquiries contact Farhad Hakimzadeh, Iran Heritage Foundation, 5 Stanhope Gate, London W1K 1AH, United Kingdom, T 44 20 74934766, F 44 20 74999293, E farhad@iranheritage.org.

... Payvand News - 9/27/06 ... --