Nowruzgan

Nowruzgan Laboratory for the Study of Persianate World Nowruzgan is a laboratory devoted to the study of the culture(s) of the Persianate world. It engages comprehensively with the cultural expressions of this vast region—ranging from art and architecture to literature, language, and customs—encompassing both material and non-material cultures. Nowruzgan has a special concern about exploring and elucidating connections: linking texts and documents to land and geography, bridging different cultural manifestations, connecting disparate historical evidence, tracing the relationships between concepts, terms, and words, and examining the ties among the various subcultures of the Persianate world, both in historical and contemporary contexts. The geographical scope of Nowruzgan extends to the entire Persianate sphere, broadly defined as regions where Persian/Dari/Tajik, or its closely related languages are or have been spoken. This is also the area where the celebration of Nowruz is still widely practiced, from which the name “Nowruzgan” is derived. Chronologically, Nowruzgan’s inquiry is unrestricted, encompassing periods from prehistory to the present.