Meet the Faculty

Jamsheed Choksy

• Professor, Department of Central Eurasian Studies
• Adjunct Professor, Department of Religious Studies

Education

• Ph.D. at Harvard University, 1991

Contact Information

Background

• Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford
• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
• American Academy of Religion Individual Research Grant
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study

My fields of research cover the history of religions and the religions, history, archaeology, and languages of the Near East and Central Asia, Iranian studies, Islamic studies, South Asian studies, and numismatics. Basically, I am interested in why and how individuals and communities change over time. My past research has involved, among other subjects, studying the purification rites of Zoroastrians using data gathered during fieldwork in India, culminating in my book Purity and Pollution in Zoroastrianism: Triumph over Evil (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989). The power of cross-cultural contact as a catalyst for change resulted in another book, one about how Zoroastrians and Muslims reacted to each other's faiths, and why those responses transfigured Iranian society (from modern-day Iraq to Pakistan) between the seventh and thirteenth centuries A.D.: Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). My current research interests in societal transformation involve determining the manner in which the Bronze Age cultures of the Near East, Central Asia, and South Asia interacted and influenced each other; understanding the manner in which Islam and nascent Muslim cultures reoriented communities in those regions during the Middle Ages and continue to do so in the present; unraveling how Indo-Iranian cultural mores and religious beliefs were modified through exposure to Muslim ones from the Middle Ages through modern times in the very same areas; and determining adaptations by communities from those regions who have resettled in Europe and North America.

Research Interests

• Zoroastrianism—ancient and modern
• Islamic studies
• History of religions
• Archaeology
• Languages of the Near East and Central Asia

Courses Recently Taught

• Book of Kings: Shahnama
• Gender, Religion, and History: Images of Women in Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Zoroastrian Cultures
• Introduction to the Ancient Near East
• Prophets, Poets, and Kings: Iranian Civilization
• Social History of Iranian Languages; Advanced Persian; Middle Iranian Languages; Old Iranian Languages

Publication Highlights

Books

Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender, 4 vols., Associate Editor (New York: Macmillan, forthcoming 2007).

Evil, Good, and Gender: Facets of the Feminine in Zoroastrian Religious History, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2002.

Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society, New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

New Persian (Farsi) translation as Setiz va Sazesh: Zartoshtiyan-e maqlub va mosalmanan-e qaleb dar jame-ye Iran-e nakhostin-i sadeha-ye Islami, Tehran: Qoqnus Publications, 2002.

Purity and Pollution in Zoroastrianism: Triumph over Evil, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989.