Please join us for a talk entitled "The Ritual of Cutting Hair in Mourning Practices in Persian Literature" by Saeideh Ghasemi at the Jordan Center for Persian Studies
Date: Tuesday, October 1, 2024
Time: 6:00 pm
Location: Humanities Gateway #HG 1010
* This talk is in Persian | این سخنرانی به زبان فارسی است
Abstract: The act of cutting or tearing one's hair in relation to death and mourning rituals carries a deep historical context, intertwined with mythological narratives tracing back to the epic of Gilgamesh, the earliest known literary work. This lecture will present numerous examples of cutting or pulling hair as an act of mourning. In the ceremonies of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, we have evidence of this act. Although self-laceration was practiced in pre-Islamic Iran, it cannot be associated with Zoroastrian customs and regulations promoted by the Achaemenids and the Sasanians. Zoroastrian texts display a strict abhorrence of any form of self-injury. This lecture will demonstrate that Persian literature offers numerous examples of the ritual
Saeideh Ghasemi holds a Ph.D. in Persian Language and Literature from Allameh Tabataba’i University in Tehran. In 2018, she served as the director and professor at the Jayyam Iranology Center at Nebrija University in Madrid. From 2019 to 2021, she was a visiting researcher at Complutense University of Madrid where she focused on comparative research between Persian and Spanish literature. Currently, she is dedicated to researching Persian manuscripts in Spain and teaches classical Persian literature at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Additionally, she curated the Persian manuscripts collection at the National Library of Spain and authored a catalog of the library's antique Persian manuscripts.