University of Maryland to hold International Rumi Conference September 28-30, 2007
The universal vision Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Balkhi (1207-1273), known in the West as Rumi, will be explored during a University of Maryland Center for Persian Studies (founded by Embassy friend Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak) International Conference in September.
The Persian poet is widely read both in his birthplace of Afghanistan and throughout the world, and has recently been honored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) declaration of 2007, the 800th anniversary of the poet’s birth, as the International Rumi Year.
The Conference, which will take place on the campus of the University of Maryland in College Park, MD, September 28-30, 2007, will bring together over twenty leading Rumi scholars and notable artists from all over the world. It will be thematically and historically organized, with an emphasis on Rumi as a poet and his two major works, The Spiritual Couplets and The Divan, as its twin focal points. In six sessions over three days it will explore the historical and aesthetic background to Rumi and the poet’s life, works and ideas, as well as his position in the modern world.
A Tentative Program is accessible HERE
For more information, please visit www.languages.umd.edu/Persian or contact:
The Center for Persian Studies
1220 Jimenez Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742 // USA
Tel: 301-405-1891; Fax: 301314-9752
Email address: [email protected]
