Ali-Asghar Seyed-Ghorab received his PhD from Leiden University where he has been teaching since 1997. He is Professor of Persian and Iranian Studies at Utrecht University, and Associate Professor of Persian at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and is the track-leader of the Persian and Iranian Studies program at Leiden University. He has taught a wide range of courses: classical and modern Persian literature, Sufism, Introduction to Area Studies, Introduction to Shiism, Iranian cinema, Literature and Politics in Persian Speaking world, and Classical Persian Poetry as a Living Tradition. Seyed-Ghorab has received several prestigious awards for his research and services to the field. He has served on several international committees for Iranian Studies and has been a member of editorial boards of journals. He has authored, edited, and translated books on Persian art and literature, Sufism, and Persian manuscript tradition. He has translated several volumes of modern Persian poetry into Dutch, including the poetry of Sohrâb Sepehri, Forugh Farrokhzâd, Mohammad-Rezâ Shafi’i-Kadkani, and (together with J.T.P. de Bruijn) Ahmad Shâmlu, Nâder Nâderpur, and Hushang Ebtehâj. His research concentrate on the triangle of literature, politics and religion, examining the application of classical Persian poetry in modern politics. He is the founding general editor of the Iranian Studies Series at Leiden University Press and the Modern Persian Poetry Series.
His publications include The True Dream: Indictment of the Shiite Clerics of Isfahan, London: Routledge, 2017. (together with S. McGlinn); Soefism: Een levende traditie, (Amsterdam: Prometheus / Bert Bakker, 2015, third print); Literature of the Early Twentieth Century: From the Constitutional Period to Reza Shah (ed., Volume XI of A History of Persian Literature, London / New York: I.B. Tauris 2015), Layli and Majnun: Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Nizami’s Epic Romance, (Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2003), Mirror of Dew: The Poetry of Ālam-Tāj Zhāle Qā’em-Maqāmi, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Ilex Foundation Series 14, 2015), Metaphor and Imagery in Persian Poetry, (ed., Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012), The Great Omar Khayyam: A Global Reception, (ed., Leiden: Leiden university Press, 2012), Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry, (Leiden: LUP, 2008, 2010); The Treasury of Tabriz: the Great Il-Khanid Compendium, (West Lafayette, Indiana, Purdue University Press, ed. together with S. McGlinn, 2007); Gog and Magog: The Clans of Chaos in World Literature, (West Lafayette, Indiana, Purdue University Press, together with F. Doufikar-Aerts & S. McGlinn, 2007); Conflict and Development in Iranian Film, (ed. together with K. Talattof, Leiden: LUP, 2013).
