Painting Persian Potentates | SHEPPY DOG FUND LECTURE

SHEPPY DOG FUND LECTURE | Painting Persian Potentates
Wednesday 7.22 | 6p | FIA Theater | FREE Admission
Dr. Babak Elahi, Guest Lecturer
This talk will focus on 16th-century manuscript illustrations of The Shahnameh or Book of Kings. Commissioned by the second Safavid monarch, Shah Tahmasb, in the early 1500s, the paintings illuminate the great Persian epic poem penned by Abolghassem Firdawsi in the 10th century. It will explore both the poetry and the pictures, focusing on the important development of manuscript illumination in the Safavid court. Dr. Elahi will emphasize the importance of a few key painters in Shah Tahmasb’s royal atelier and how the illustrations, like the poem itself, have had a lasting influence on Iranian culture as well as world literature and art.
Dr. Babak Elahi is the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Suny Polytechnic Institute. Prior to joining Suny he was Dean of the College of Sciences and Liberal Arts at Kettering University in Flint. He was also a professor of communication and literature in the College of Liberal Arts at Rochester Institute of Technology, where he also served as Associate Dean from 2011 to 2016. He holds a PhD in American literature from the University of Rochester. His scholarship spans the areas of American literature and popular culture, Iranian diasporic life writing, modern Iranian fiction and documentary film. He is also a blues singer and guitar player who has performed at local bars and cafes in the Flint area.