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Mazdak and the Transition from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages in the Iranian World
Date: Friday, March 13
Time: 9:00 am- 5:30 pm
Location: HG 1030
Zoom: https://uci.zoom.us/j/99843724605
This event is cosponsored by the Encyclopaedia Iranica and UCI Department of Classics
Session I
Chair: Matthew Canepa (UCI)
9:00 am – Touraj Daryaee (UCI), Matthew Canepa (UCI), and Carlo G. Cereti (UCI)
Introductory Words
9:15 am – Nikolaus Schindel (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Sasanian Numismatics as a Source for the History of the 5th and 6th Century AD
9:45 am – Lara Fabian (UCLA)
Gilan in the Sixth Century: Economic Marginality and the Limits of Sasanian Integration
10:15 am – Coffee Break
Session II
Chair: Layah Ziaii-Bigdeli (UCI)
10:30 am – Arvin Maghsoudlou (LACMA)
Grand Is Our Banquet: The Expanded Material Culture of Drinking in Post-Mazdakite Iran
11:00 am – David Branscome (UCI)
John of Tella as an Analogue to Mazdak: Religious Heresy and Imperial Suppression in the Early Sixth Century CE
11:30 am – Mark Gradoni (UCI)
Shadow of the Heresiarch: Parallels and Rhymes in Elite Responses to Social Movements from Sasanian Iran to the 21st Century
12:00 – Lunch Break
Session III
Chair: Melissa DePierro (UCI)
14:00 pm – Online – Amin Shayeste Doust (University of Arts, Esfahan)
Reclaiming the Name from Infamy: Mazdakism as a Salvational Response to an Avestan Anxiety in the Sasanian Crisis
14:15 pm – Massimiliano Vassalli (Sapienza University of Rome / University of Toronto)
Mazdak in Dēnkard Book 7: Reflections on Language and Narrative
14:45 pm – Online – Lorenzo Salvio (Sapienza University of Rome)
Husraw I and the Institutional Response to Mazdakism
15:00 pm – Coffee Break
Session IV
Chair: Simin Amini (UCI)
15:15 pm – Ani Honarchian (Saint Louis University)
Mazdak and the Armenian Sources: Reading Joshua and Ełišē in the Shadow of Kawād’s Tax Reforms
15:45 pm – Online – Domenico Agostini (University of Naples “L’Orientale”)
Mazdak in Zoroastrian Apocalyptic Literature
16:00 pm – Touraj Daryaee (UCI)
The Curious Case of Neo-Mazdakites in California
16:30 pm – Carlo G. Cereti (UCI)
Where We Stand Now: Reassessing Mazdak in Light of the Symposium
