Dr. Yui KANDA is Assistant Professor in Middle Eastern History at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Her research focuses on Islamic works of art (ceramics, metalwork, and manuscripts) of the late medieval and the early modern period in the Middle East and South Asia. She received her M.A. in History of Art at the University of Tokyo in 2012 and M.Phil. in Islamic Art and Archaeology at the University of Oxford in 2015. She submitted her dissertation, entitled Persian Verses and Crafts in the Late Timurid and Safavid Periods (in English) to the University of Tokyo in November 2020 and received Ph.D. from the same university in February 2021. She is the author of “‘If I Circumambulate around Him, I Will Be Burnt’: A Brass Candlestick Endowed to the Mausoleum of Imām Mūsā al-Kāẓim, Kazimayn,” Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies (ahead-of-print): 1–19; “Kashan Revisited: A Luster-Painted Ceramic Tombstone Inscribed with a Chronogram Poem by Muhtasham Kashani,” Muqarnas 34 (2017): 273–86.

Her current projects explore: (1) the reception history of manuscripts and works of art gifted by Shāh ʿAbbās I to shrines in Ardabil, Mashhad, Qum, and Rayy; (2) the manuscript tradition of various versions of Kalilah wa Dimnah in the early modern Persianate world; (3) the architectural history of the mausoleum of Muḥammad b. Ḥanafiyya in Kharg Island; and (4) the comprehensive research on the medieval and early modern Islamic ceramics in the Japanese collection (eg., Fouquet collection). She is also a coordinator of the ILCAA Joint Research Project (AY2024–2026), “Adaptation and Reorientation of Texts and its Actors in the Medieval and Early Modern Middle East (jrp000301).”

She teaches Islamic Art at Rikkyo University (Saint Paul's University) and Kyoto University of the Arts.

• PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
• Kanda, Yui. 2023. “If I Circumambulate Around Him, I Will Be Burnt: A Brass Candlestick Endowed to the Mausoleum of Imam Musa al-Kazim, Kazimayn.”  Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies (ahead-of-print): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/05786967.2023.2170817 
• Kanda, Yui. 2017. “Kashan Revisited: A Luster-Painted Ceramic Tombstone Inscribed with a Chronogram Poem by Muhtasham Kashani.” Muqarnas 34 (1): 273–286. https://doi.org/10.1163/22118993_03401P011
• Kanda, Yui. 2017. “Revisiting the So-Called Ghaybī Workshop: Toward a History of Burjī Mamluk Ceramics.” Orient 52: 39–57. https://doi.org/10.5356/orient.52.39 

• PEER-REVIEWED CONTRIBUTION TO ACADEMIC BOOKS
• Kanda, Yui. 2023 (accepted and forthcoming). “Iranian Blue-and-White Ceramic Vessels and Tombstones Inscribed with Persian Verses, c. 1450–1725.” In Routledge Companion to the Global Renaissance, edited by Stephen John Campbell and Stephanie Porras. London: Routledge. 

Islamic Art, Oriental Studies, Persian Literature, History of Iran during the Early Modern Period (Safavid)

Assistant Professor in Middle Eastern History, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies