Professor Jabbari will discuss the modernization of Persian literary traditions in the age of nationalism with a focus on what happens to Persian after it ceases to be the lingua franca of a far-reaching cosmopolitan milieu that included India as well as Iran.

He will discuss the emergence of literary history as a new genre of writing in Persian by exploring changes in national identity, sexuality, and print culture in Iran and India. Professor Jabbari will demonstrate how these changes were the results of collaboration between Iranians and Indians even when they were supposedly divided by nation-states, and how Persian survives in India long after its supposed death at the hands of the British.