» Back to Listings    

Amara Elahi

BA MA Cantab English Literature

Academic Profile

I am a post-graduate student at the University of Oxford reading an MPhil in Islamic Studies and History. My main areas of research are on classical Persian literature, and cultural and literary contacts between the Orient and the Occident in the pre-Islamic and medieval periods. For my thesis I am writing on the ambiguities in the presentation of love and ethics in Vis u Ramin, including comparisons with the Tristan story and other Persian and European romances. I am also exploring the transmission and evolution of Persian romances through oral traditions and processes of cultural interchange. Another subject I am working on is the artistic representation of Persian romances within the manuscript illustration tradition.

I am currently translating the poetry of Farrokhi, Rudaki, Daqiqi and Rabe’e and working towards a publishing schedule for my work.

I am also working on an original composition in the form of an extended poem about the emergence and expansion of Islam.