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Indiana University Bloomington
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Adjunct and Affiliated Faculty : People

NAMEPaul Losensky

  • Associate Professor, Department of Central Eurasian Studies
  • Associate Professor, Department of Comparative Literature

Education

  • Ph.D. at University of Chicago, 1993, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Research Interests

  • Iranian Studies
  • Persian literature and literary history (in particular the literature of the 16th and 17th centuries in Iran)
  • India, and Central Asia
  • Literature, architecture, and topography
  • Sufism and literature
  • Comparative studies in the Baroque
  • Translation and translation studies

Contact Information

plosensk@indiana.edu
Goodbody Hall 207
(812) 855-9665

Courses Recently Taught

  • Elementary, intermediate, and advanced Persian
  • Research in Classical Persian Texts (various topics)
  • Persian Mystical Literature (in English)
  • Literature and Cinema of Modern Iran (in English)
  • Poetics of Mysticism
  • History and Theory of Translation

Publication Highlights

  • Welcoming Fighānī: Imitation and Poetic Individuality in the Safavid-Mughal Ghazal (Costa Mesa, CA, 1998).
  • Memorial of God’s Friends: Selected Biographies from Farid al-Din ‘Attār’s Tazkerat al-owliyā′, translated with an introduction and annotations (publication expected in 2008).
  • “The Palace of Praise and the Melons of Time: Descriptive Patterns in ′Abdī Shīrāzī’s Garden of Eden,” in Eurasian Studies 2 (2003): 1-29.
  • “‘The Equal of Heaven’s Vault’: The Design, Ceremony, and Poetry of the ‘asanābād Bridge,” in Writers and Rulers: Perspectives on their Relationship from Abbasid to Safavid Times, ed. B. Grundler and L. Marlow (Wiesbaden, 2004): 195-216.
  • “Words and Deeds: Message and Structure in ‘Attār’s Tadhkirat al-awliyā′,” in ‘Attār and the Persian Sufi Tradition, ed. L. Lewisohn and C. Shackle(London, 2006): 75-92; “Linguistic and Rhetorical Aspects of the Signature Verse (takhallus) in the Persian Ghazal,” in Edebiyat 8 (1997): 239-71.