Professor Saloumeh Gholami
- British Academy Global Professor
Contact
Location
- Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
- Sidgwick Ave, CB3 9DA
About
Professor Saloumeh Gholami is the British Academy Global Professor in the field of Zoroastrian Studies at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge. In this capacity, she leads the project Persisting Through Change: A Study of Oral Literature and Cultural Interaction in the Zoroastrian Community.
She earned her PhD in Iranian Studies from the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany, with a dissertation entitled Selected Features of Bactrian Grammar.Her academic trajectory continued with a Habilitation in Comparative Linguistics from Goethe University Frankfurt in 2022; her habilitation thesis focused on the colophons and marginal notes of Zoroastrian manuscripts.
From 2020 to 2024, she served as Professor of Minority Languages in the Middle East at Goethe University Frankfurt. During this period, she also served as Co–Principal Investigator and a member of the directorate of the research cluster Minority Studies: Language and Identity, funded by the Hessian Ministry for Science and the Arts.
In 2023, she was awarded the Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages Visiting Fellowship at the University of Oxford, where she conducted a project on the colophons of Judeo-Iranian manuscripts.
Professor Gholami’s expertise lies in the documentation, safeguarding, and revitalisation of endangered languages, as well as in the promotion of linguistic diversity, particularly among religious minority communities (e.g., Zoroastrians, Jews, and Ahl-e Haqq).
Her research combines philological analysis with fieldwork, illuminating not only linguistic structures but also the broader social and historical dynamics that shape interactions between minority communities and the dominant religious and cultural frameworks in Iran.
Research
Research interests
- Zoroastriansim
- Religious Minorities
- Persian Language and Linguistics
- Language and Identity
- Oral Literature
- Preservation and Documentation of Endangered Heritage
- Judeo-Iranian Languages
- Documentary Linguistics
- Codicology
- Iranian philology
Professor Gholami is a scholar in the field of minority languages in the Middle East, with a special focus on Iran. She is a leading authority on language documentation and preservation and revitalization of endangered languages and cultures. Her research has focused on both written and oral heritage of minority communities such as Jews, Ahl-e Haqq, and particularly the Zoroastrians.
Her research delves deeply into how the linguistic structures intersect with issues of identity and social interaction. Her work extends to perceptual dialectology, exploring how language is perceived and classified by speakers, and the crucial role language plays in shaping cultural and social identity.
Recent Publications:
- Books:
- Articles:
- Selected Grants
2024 British Academy Global Professorship at the University of Cambridge, Project: Persisting Through Change: A Study of Oral Literature and Cultural Interaction in the Zoroastrian Community (£875,667.20)
2023 Judeo-Gurani: Exploration of linguistic and cultural interactions between Jews and non-Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries in Iran, funded by German Research Foundation, (GH 144/7), (Amount:406,541 EUR)
2020 – 2024 Minority Studies: Language and Identity, funded by Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts, (Amount €3.75 million)
2018 – 2020 Documenting endangered Jewish dialects of Iran: The case of Judeo-Yazdi and Judeo-Kermani” (Grant ID: MDP0398), Funded by Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, University of London, (Amount: 173,311 GBP)
2017 – 2018 Preservation and digitization of Zoroastrian historical documents and Avestan manuscripts (Grant ID: EAP 1014), Funded by Endangered Archives Programme, British Library, London, United Kingdom, (Amount: 35,886 GBP)
2015 – 2018 The colophons of the Iranian Avestan manuscripts (Grant ID: GH 144/1-1); Funded by German Research Foundation, (Amount: 210,000 EUR)
Teaching and supervision
Professor Gholami welcomes enquiries from students interested in any of the following areas: Zoroastrianism; religious minorities; Persian language and linguistics; language and identity; oral literature; Judeo-Iranian languages; documentary linguistics; the preservation and documentation of endangered heritage; and codicology.
Teaching
MES.15 - Intermediate Literary Persian
MES.35 - Advanced Persian Literature
Supervision
MES.15 - Intermediate Literary Persian
MES.35 - Advanced Persian Literature
MES.38 - Advanced Persian Language