Previous Winners

Honorable Mentions awarded to Ph.D. dissertations for high scholarship, originality, clarity, and significant contribution to Iranian Studies: 1999-2021

1999
Sunil Sharma, “Poetics of Court and Prison in the Divan of Mas`ud-e Sa`d-e Salman,” The University of Chicago
Maziar Lotfalian, “Technoscientific Identities: Muslims and the Culture of Curiosity,” Rice University

2000
Oya Pancaroglu, “‘A World Unto Himself’: The Rise of a New Human Image in the Late Seljuk Period (1150-1250,” Harvard University)
MichaelAllan Rubin, “The Formation of Modern Iran, 1858-1909: Communications, Telegraph and Society,” Yale University

2001
Annabel Keeler, “Persian Sufism and Exegesis: Maybudi’s Commentary on the Qur’ân, The Kashf Al-Asrâr,” Cambridge University

2002
Colin P. Mitchell, “The Sword and the Pen: Diplomacy in Early Safavid Iran, 1501-1555,” University of Toronto

2003
Roxanne Varzi, “Visionary Terrains of Post-Revolutionary War Iran: Youth Culture, Media and Public Space,” Columbia University
Afshin Marashi, “Nationalizing Iran: Culture, Power, and the State, 1870-1941,” University of California, Los Angeles

2004
Matthew Canepa, “The Two Eyes of the Earth: Competition and Exchange in the Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran,” University of Chicago
Andrew Peacock, “Abu `Ali Bal`ami’s Translation of Al-Tabari’s History,” University of Cambridge

2005
Talinn Grigor, “Cultivat(ing) Modernities: The Society for National Heritage, Political Propaganda, and Public Architecture in Twentieth Century Iran,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Naghmeh Sohrabi, “Signs Taken for Wonder: Nineteenth Century Persian Travel Literature to Europe,” Harvard University

2006
No Honorable Mention Awarded

2007
Ghazzal Dabiri, “The Origins and Development of Persian Epics,” University of California, Los Angeles
Victoria Gardner, “The Written Representations of a Central Asian Sufi Shaykh: Ahmad Ibn Mawlana Jalal al-Din Khwajagi Kasani ‘Makhdum A`zam,’” University of Michigan

2008
Nasim Vahabi-Fatemi, “Les écrits des enfants de la guerre: des pays-bas à l’Iran, en passant par la Bosnie et l’Irlande,” University of Paris X-Nanterre
Thomas Welsford, “Loyalty, Welfare and Selfhood in Early Modern Central Asia: The Tûqây-Tîmûrid Takeover of Greater Mâ Warâ al-Nahr, 1598-1605,” University of Oxford

2009
Roxane Farmanfarmaian, “Passionate Constructions: Democracy and Islam in Anglo-American Relations with Iran, 1979-1989,” University of Cambridge
Reza Pourjavady, “A Shi`i Theologian and Philosopher of Early Safavid Iran,” Free University Berlin

2010
Mohammed Rustom, “Qur’anic Exegesis in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mulla Sadra’s Tafsir Surat al-Fatihah,” University of Toronto
Zahra Pamela Karimi, “Transitions in Domestic Architecture and Home Culture in Twentieth Century Iran,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2011
Clement Therme, “Les relations entre Téhéran et Moscou depuis 1979: perspectives iraniennes,” University of Geneva and l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales
Orkideh Behrouzan, “Prozàk Diaries: Post-Rupture Subjectivities and Psychiatric Futures,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2012
Alireza Mohammadi Doostdar, “Fantasies of Reason: Science, Superstition, and the Supernatural in Iran,” Harvard University
Matthew Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest for a Universal Science: The Occult Philosophy of Sa’in al-Din Turka Isfahani (1369-1432) and Intellectual Millenarianism in Early Timurid Iran,” Yale University

2013
Justine Landau, “De rythme et de raison: lecture croisée de deux traités de poétique persane du XIIIe siècle,” Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 3
Manata Hashemi, “Social Mobility among Poor Youth in Iran,” University of California, Berkeley

2014
Michael Shenkar “Anthropomorphic Iconography of Iranian Deities in the Pre-Islamic Iranian World,” Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Shawhin Roudbari “Transnational Transformation of Architecture Practice: Iranian Architects in the New Geography of Professional Authority, 1945-2012,” University of California, Berkeley

2015
Seyyed Ahmad Hashemi “The Question of Freedom within the Horizon of the Iranian Constitutional Movement, 1906-1921,” University of Oxford
Keenan Baca-Winters “From Rome to Iran: Identity and Xusro II,” University of California, Irvine

2016

Fatemeh Shams-Esmaeili “Official Voices of a Revolution: A Social History of Islamic Republic’s Poetry,” Univertsity of Oxford

Jonathan Brack “Mediating Sacred Kingship: Conversion and Sovereignty in Mongol Iran,” University of Michigan

Cameron Lindley Cross “The Poetics of Romantic Love in Vis O Râmin,” University of Chicago

2017

Austin O’Malley “Poetry and Pedagogy: The Homiletic Verse of Farid al-Din `Attar,” University of Chicago

Waleed Ziad “Traversing the Indus and the Oxus: Trans-Regional Islamic Revival in the Age of Political Fragmentation and the ‘Great Game’, 1747-1880” Yale University

2018

Ahoo Najafian “Poetic Nation: Iranian Soul and Historical Continuity” Stanford University

Robert Landau Ames “Looking for the Human: Sufism, Subjectivity, and Modernity in Iran” Harvard University

Shaftolu Gulamadov “The Hagiography of Nāṣir-i Khusraw and the Ismāʿīlīs of Badakhshān” University of Toronto

2019

Narges Nematollahi “The Iranian Epistolary Tradition: Origins and Development (6th Century BCE to 7th Century CE)” Indiana University

Felisa Marie Hervey “Sharp-Edged Verse in 21st Century Afghanistan: an Analysis of Socio-Political Dimensions in Women’s Poetry” University of Arizona

Sheida Dayani “Juggling Revolutionaries: A Theatrical History of Indigenous Theatre and Early Playwriting in Iran” New York University

2020

Zahra Nasiri Moghaddam “Les pionniers de l’enseignement du français à l’École Polytechnique (Dâr ol-Fonun) de Téhéran au XIXe siècl: Jules Richard, Mozayyen od-Dowle et Yusof Richard” Université de Strasbourg

2021
Thomas Blair Benfey “The Scholars of Sasanian Iran and Their Islamic Heirs” Princeton University

Tanvir Akhtar Ahmed “Radical Shadows of God; Islam and Sociopolitical Dissent, 1240-1600” Brown University