Mixed Methods in the Study of Religions
Biases and Misuse in an Age of Prejudice:
The Case of the Zoroastrians of Iran in the Modern Period
Lecture by Massimiliano Vassalli
Introduced by Carlo G. Cereti
The hour will be split equally between speaker's reflection on methods audience conversation and engagement on their own particular methods and challenges.
This lecture proposes a methodology for reconstructing the history of Iran’s Zoroastrians between 1773 and 1854, a period marked by a severe
lack of local sources. It critically reassesses external testimonies, including Parsi visitors' accounts and European travel narratives, by contextualizing them against their cultural, ideological, and historiographical biases. Through a comparative reading of these sources and a systematic critique of Eurocentric perspectives and the misuse of ancient evidence, the approach aims to extract historically reliable date despite fragmentary and prejudiced documentation.
Presenter Biography:
Massimiliano Vassalli is a postdoctoral researcher at Sapienza University of Rome and a visiting fellow at the University of Toronto. He is currently leading the European MSCA-PF project TRAVELS, which examines the Zoroastrian community in Iran between 1773 and 1854. He has recently published a book on Dēnkard VII (2024), offering an Italian translation and commentary of the Pahlavi text, along with a study of
Zarathustra’s reception in European intellectual history.