The Unfolding of the Self/Friend in Early Modern Isfahan
The 2013 edition of the John Boswell Lecture Series presents:
The Unfolding of the Self/Friend in Early Modern Isfahan
A lecture by Kathryn Babayan, Associate Professor of Iranian History and Culture, University of Michigan
Friday, October 25th 2013, 3pm
Tyler Hall, Room 102
Reception to follow in the Blair Courtyard
"One of the most challenging questions framing histories of friendship is how properly to historicize the different valences of intimacy that bound together friends living in previous centuries. In the spirit of John Boswell I will talk about mostly male friendships in seventeenth-century Iran.
Like same-sex unions in premodern Europe, sworn friendship in Iran was a form of voluntary kinship a bond with religious overtones that served the social needs of advancement in politics and commerce through the broadening of the family network. As such, they rivaled and competed with matrimony and blood kinship."
Like same-sex unions in premodern Europe, sworn friendship in Iran was a form of voluntary kinship a bond with religious overtones that served the social needs of advancement in politics and commerce through the broadening of the family network. As such, they rivaled and competed with matrimony and blood kinship."
