Paul Edward Losensky (Indiana University)

Submitted: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 14:45:39 -0500 (EST)

Paul Edward Losensky
Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
102 Goodbody Hall
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
USA

Phones:   (812) 855-9665
FAX
Email:    plosensk@ucs.indiana.edu


I am a recent graduate of the University of Chicago and I am now teaching
Persian language and literature at Indiana University in the Department of
Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. 

	My primary field of research is Persian literary culture of the
15th-18th centuries CE.  Although I have concentrated on the poetry of
Iran (Timurid & Safavid) and India (Deccan & Moghul), I am slowly
stretching into the Persian literature of Ottoman Turkey and the courts of
Central Asia.  Among the questions that interest me: To what extent do
these areas form a unified literary culture?  What sort of communication
was there between them?  What is the relationship between local and
"international" literary values?  How did the poets of this period
generally respond to their great literary past?  To what extent are
stylistic-period labels like the Indian style valid or useful?  How does
the work of any individual poet relate to broader stylistic trends?  I'll
let you know when I think I have some answers.  I have looked at some of
these questions in my dissertation on Baba Fighani and his influence in
the 16th-17th centuries.  I am presently preparing this work for
publication. 

	In the hopes of introducing some of this poetry to a wider 
audience, I aim to get some of my "literary" translations of Fighani into 
print fairly soon.  At the least, it will supply a few more modern 
renditions of classical ghazal poetry for the classroom.

	Classroom teaching has also gotten me into another translation 
project.  Finding myself unwilling to use Arberry's version of Attar's 
Tazkirat al-Awliya, I translated some of the major biographies in 
full and am looking into the possibilities for publishing an unabridged 
translation of the work, based on the Isti'lami edition.