About the Center

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The Ehsan Yarshater Center for Iranian Studies was established at Columbia University in 2018 with the support of a generous gift from the Persian Heritage Foundation in honor of Professor Ehsan Yarshater’s remarkable scholarship and his lifelong dedication to the study of Iran’s culture and history.

The Yarshater Center aims to promote and to strengthen the late Professor Yarshater’s vision of Iranian Studies, encompassing a broad range of subjects in all periods and in a global context. As part of this mission, the Yarshater Center hosts special lecture series, seminar series, conferences, and symposia, and it produces scholarly publications, particularly two major long-term publication projects, the Encyclopædia Iranica and A History of Persian Literature.

The Encyclopædia Iranica is a universally acclaimed multi-disciplinary reference work and research tool concerned with Iranian history and civilization in all its aspects and through its contacts with other cultures and peoples.

A History of Persian Literature, a 22-volume, multi-authored series, offers new perspectives on Persian and related literatures. Its wide scope and the variety of the academic disciplines of its contributors enable it to offer thought-provoking chapters on different genres of literature and the relationship of literature with history, religion, and the fine arts in a pioneering manner.

The variety of the activities described above, seminars, publications, and long-term projects, have a unifying thread: The overall mission of the Center is to provide scholars worldwide a venue to present their latest research to a wider audience.