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    The Hospitable Globe:
    Persia and Early Modern English Drama

    Can we imagine a world that is more hospitable than hostile?

     

    This book project examines how representations of Persia present models of intercultural hospitality for early modern English and Shakespearean drama. English playwrights depict Persia and its legendary monarchs, such as Cyrus the Great, as alternative spaces and figures of cosmopolitanism in the period. By focusing on an archive of Persian themed plays staged between 1561-1696 in conversation with Shakespeare’s works, European peace proposals, and contemporary theories and practices of hospitality, this project reconstructs the capacities called upon to imagine hospitable constellations of global relationships in the early modern period.

     

     

  • About

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    Sheiba Kian Kaufman, Ph.D.

    Assistant Professor of English, Saddleback College

    Summer Shakespeare Lecturer, University of California, Irvine

     

    I study Shakespeare, Persian history, theories and policies of toleration, peace-building, and interreligious hospitality, both on and off the stage. I'm a Persian-American Baha'i raised in Los Angeles, California after my family left Iran in the 1970s, journeying to South Africa, England, and finally, the US.

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    Conversations on the Hospitable Globe:

    Public Lectures

    A series of public humanities talks at the University of California, Irvine, Jordan Center for Persian Studies, Spring 2018

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    Cuisine of the Hospitable Globe:

    The Virtuous Table @ UC Irvine

    Collaborative public humanities project with Professor Julia Lupton to engage with the campus "combating extremism " initiative.

    Persian Table: Zoroastrian, Muslim, Jewish, Bahá'I

    "Ancient Persia (modern Iran) has been home to many wisdom traditions and faith practices. Learn about Persian food and Persian hospitality at this engaging and informative meal with UCI faculty, including Touraj Daryaee (Director of the Jordan Center for Persian Studies), Ketu Katrak (Professor of Drama), and Sheiba Kian Kaufman (English PhD)."

    Reviewed here: https://news.uci.edu/2018/10/22/food-for-thought-4/

     

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    Analyzing the Hospitable Globe

    Student creative project on the hybrid inhabitants of The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish from the Global Renaissance course at UC Irvine (Winter 2018)

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    Writing the Hospitable Globe:

    Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice

    Collaborative curriculum writing with author and educational advisor, Homa Sabet Tavangar, for 7 Mindsets (2021-2022)

  • Education

    Ph.D. in English Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2016

    Committee: Julia Reinhard Lupton (Chair), Jane Newman, and Jayne Lewis

    M.A. in English Literature, University of California, Irvine, 2012

    M.ST. in English Literature 1550-1780, Oxford University, 2005

    Thesis: “Under the influence of ‘our dazzling Sun’: England’s Engagement with Ancient Persian Religion, Monarchy, and Sexuality: 1671-1721.” Supervised by Dr. Rosalind Ballaster

    B.A. in English, summa cum laude, University of California, Los Angeles, 2004

  • Publications

    "Persian Virtues in the Age of Shakespeare," in Shakespeare and Virtue: A Handbook, University of Cambridge Press, edited by Donovan Sherman and Julia Lupton (2023).

     

    “Care” in Entertaining the Idea: Shakespeare, Philosophy, Performance, University of Toronto Press, edited by Lowell Gallagher, James Kearney and Julia Reinhard Lupton, 2021.

     

    “Persian Habits at the Clark,” The Center and Clark Newsletter,UCLA Center for 17th -and 18th -Century Studies. No. 65,Spring 2017, pp. 13-14.
     

    “Her father loved me, oft invited me”: Staging Shakespeare’s Hidden Hospitality in The Travels of the Three English Brothers in Shakespeare and Hospitality: Ethics, Politics, and Exchange, Routledge Studies in Shakespeare Series, editors Julia Lupton and David Goldstein, 2016.

     

  • Images

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    The Sherley Brothers

    Robert Sherley and his "Persian" Wife

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    Cyrus in European Tapestries

  • Reflections and Ruminations

    March 21, 2024
    Big Blue rumbles up the well worn road, Etching its path with wheels as big as those cows on...
  • Connect

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    Email