British Academy Award for innovative Zoroastrian language research
Pia Barth Public Relations und Kommunikation
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
The British Academy’s Global Professorships are designed to strengthen the UK’s research capacity by further enhancing
collaborations with internationally renowned scholars. Linguist Prof. Dr. Saloumeh Gholami was recently awarded a Global Professorship at the renowned University of Cambridge.
The Global Professorships give internationally recognized academics the opportunity to undertake high-risk, curiosity-driven research in the humanities and social sciences at a UK research institution. Recipients are chosen by the highly respected British Academy and UK universities have the right to nominate one researcher per year. Having been nominated by the University of Cambridge, Prof. Dr. habil. Saloumeh Gholami and her research project Persisting Through Change: A Study of Oral Literature and Cultural Interaction in the Zoroastrian Community were ultimately selected by the British Academy for one of a total of eight Global Professorships awarded in 2023. The linguist is a professor of minority languages in the Middle East at Goethe University Frankfurt’s Institute for Empirical Linguistics. Endowed with around €1 million (~ £900,000), her Global Professorship in Cambridge will begin on September 1, 2024.
Saloumeh Gholami will be researching the oral traditions of the Zoroastrians, which have survived in the now endangered Zoroastrian Dari (Behdini) language. Zoroastrianism is considered to be one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions, with an estimated 150,000 members, the largest communities of which, in addition to Iran, can be found in India, Pakistan, Australia, Canada, the USA and the UK. Gholami analyzes how oral literature developed in the Zoroastrian community and how – under the influence of the Islamic majority culture – it was handed down. Her multidisciplinary approach sets out to uncover the cultural dynamics between a minority’s language, literature and society in the context of the majority culture. Gholami has served as board member of the Goethe University-led LOEWE research cluster “Minority Studies: Language and Identity” since 2020. Known by its German acronym, LOEWE is the German federal state of Hesse’s program for the development and promotion of scientific and economic excellence.
In 2022, the president of Goethe University Frankfurt nominated the linguist as a Goethe Fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften – Institute for Advanced Studies. The same year, she was awarded the prestigious fellowship of Oxford University and its Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages (OSRJL), where she researches Gorani manuscripts in Hebrew script. In 2023, the German Research Foundation (DFG) recognized Saloumeh Gholami’s project, which is funded with around half a million euros, and her commitment to researching Judeo-Iranian languages.
Contact for scientific information:
Prof. Dr. habil. Saloumeh Gholami
Professor of Minority Languages in the Middle East
LOEWE-Research Cluster: Minority Studies, Language and Identity
Institute for Empirical Linguistics
Faculty of Linguistics, Cultures and Arts
Goethe University Frankfurt
Phone: +49 (0)69- 798 24690
gholami@em.uni-frankfurt.de
Goethe spent 60 years writing and perfecting his Faust legend. He hoped Mozart would set it to music, but Mozart did not live long enough. During the Nineteenth Century, composers dreamed of what was thought impossible, the musical consummation of Faust. Robert Schuman wrote an oratorio on the theme of Faust. Hector Berlioz wrote La Damnation de Faust, a mere morality play. Charles Gounod wrote the opera Faust, but even though this is a powerful and dramatic work, its ending misses the essence of Goethe’s vision. Upon going to her execution Marguerite tells Faust to go away because he horrifies her. Faust is taken to Hell while Marguerite is saved by accepting Jesus according to standard Christian doctrine. Arrigo Boito wrote Mefistofele, but this was nothing more than a morality play where Faust is saved because he repents. Franz Liszt wrote his Faust Symphony, mere program music of an outline of the story and its characters, and even Richard Wagner attempted a Faust opera, the overture of which survives.
In the early 20th Century, Gustav Mahler captured what was thought impossible, capturing the ending of Goethe’s work in Part 2 of his Symphony nr. 8, which premiered in September 1910. It took over 1000 musicians to perform it. Here, the one Creator of time and space take on many different symbols as Faust’s soul is welcome into paradise. I think Zarathustra would more than approve of this work.
Attending the rare occasion of a live performance is something for everyone’s bucket list, much like the religious experience of joining people from all walks of life witnessing a total solar eclipse.