Dr. Roxana Zenhari

Dr. Roxana Zenhari is a historian of Islamic art and visual culture with a focus on Persian art. Trained as a painter, she continued her study in History of Art and completed her Ph.D in Iranian Studies in Georg-August-University in 2012. Her main focus of study is on the fourteenth century Persian art of the book, particularly those which produced under Inju (1307–1353) dynasty. Through an intertextuality approach her investigation concentrates on the way of conveying meanings and the relationship of visual productions with power structures. Her recent project was a collaborative work on the early illustrated lithographed books as a continuation of manuscript tradition, printed in the Qajar period (1796–1925) in Iran.

Education


  • PhD, Philosophy, Iranian Studies, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Germany. Dissertation: “The Persian Medieval Romance Samak-e ʿayyār; Analysis of an Illustrated Inju Manuscript.” 2008–12

  • MA, History of Islamic Art, University of Art, Tehran, Iran. Master’s thesis: “An Analysis of the St. Petersburg Illustrated Manuscript of the Shāhnāma.” 2005

Focus

  • Interrelation of texts and images within the dominant cultural and political discourse in Islamic arts; visual art and arts of the book of the Ilkhanid, Inju and Timurid periods; popular art vs. royal art; classical literature and popular stories in lithographed illustrated books of the Qajar period


Employment


Since 2015

Lecturer in Department of Iranian Studies, Georg-August-University, Göttingen

Since 2023

Research associate and coordinator of the DAAD project European Perspectives in Dialogue: Central Asia and Western Research

2019–2020

Research fellow in Stadt Museum, Oldenburg

2017–2019

Research associate and faculty member in Department of Iranian Studies, Georg-August-University, Göttingen

2014–2017

Research associate in Academy of Sciences (Akademie der Wissenschaften), Göttingen

2005–2008

Lecturer in Islamic Art History in Tehran University of Art, Iran, Faculty of applied art, Tehran


Languages


Farsi; Deutsch; English; Arabic