Parisa Zahiremami

Parisa Zahiremami is a Research Fellow and Faculty Member at the University of King's College. She holds a PhD in medieval Persian literature and Islamic mysticism from the University of Toronto (2022). Her research focuses on the interplay between politics and poetics in medieval Persian texts, particularly exploring how mystical concepts shaped political authority in the Persianate world. She teaches courses on Early Modern Studies, including 'Cross-Cultural Encounters with the Islamic World in Early Modern Art and Literature' in the 2023/24 academic year.

Education: BA in Persian literature (Shiraz University, 2009); MA in modern Persian literature and history (University of Toronto, 2012); PhD in medieval Persian literature and Islamic mysticism (University of Toronto, 2022).

Research interests include Persianate material culture, Neoplatonic philosophy, Zoroastrianism, and the reception history of medieval texts. Her current project examines how mystical notions of authority evolved into political power structures in the Persianate world between the 12th and 16th centuries.

Publications span analyses of Sanā’ī’s poetry, Firdawsi’s cultural legacy, and Saʿdī’s Būstān. She actively contributes to interdisciplinary dialogues on medieval Islamic intellectual history and cross-cultural aesthetics.