Kamila Akhmedjanova
College: St Antony’s College
Department: Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Thesis title: ‘A study of Ahmad Dānish’s legacy within the context of late 19th-century Persian-speaking intellectual trends’
Supervisors: Professor Edmund Herzig and Professor Dominic Parviz Brookshaw
Biography: Before coming to the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, I completed my BA and MPhil degrees at the University of Oxford, having previously specialized in Italian literature and general linguistics. I also hold an MSt in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford.
I took part in various academic conferences, including, most recently, conferences of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS), the Association for Iranian Studies (AIS), the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) and of the Italian Association for the Study of Central Asia and the Caucasus (ASIAC). I published several academic articles, covering topics related to the 19th-century Persian-speaking intellectual trends, as well as to the methodology of teaching Tajik dialect of Persian. My first article was dedicated to the study of double past participle forms in the Sicilian dialects, while my most recent published article is dedicated to the interplay of literature and politics in the works of Sadriddin Ayni, a famous Soviet Tajik writer. In addition, one of my forthcoming articles explores the image of Persia in Russian literature, while my forthcoming book chapter is dedicated to the question of the influence of Ayni and Lahuti on the creation of modern Tajik national and cultural identity in the 20th century.
I have experience of teaching Tajik dialect of Persian to undergraduate students, as well as of co-supervising undergraduate dissertations. I also taught classes dedicated to Ahmad Dānish’s texts and lectures on both pre-modern and modern Persian literature. I act as a Teaching Assistant for the MSt in Comparative Literature and Critical Translation at the University of Oxford.
Research interests: My current academic interests mainly include late 19th-century Persian-speaking intellectual trends, and I am particularly interested in connections between different parts of the Persian-speaking world (especially between Iran and Central Asia). My other research interests lie more broadly in the history of the Persian-speaking world and Persian literature (including works produced in both Tajik, i.e. Cyrillic, and Persian scripts).
Selected publications:
Akhmedjanova, Kamila. 2026. ‘The Image of Persia in the Works of Ivan Bunin, Nikolaǐ Gumilëv and Sergeǐ Esenin’. Forum for Modern Language Studies (forthcoming).
Akhmedjanova, Kamila. 2026. ‘Sadriddīn ‘Aynī’s and Abū al-Qāsim Lāhūtī’s Influence on the Creation of Modern Tajik National and Cultural Identity in the 20th Century’. In The Tajiks: History, Culture and Identity, edited by Dagikhudo Dagiev (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) (forthcoming).
Akhmedjanova, Kamila. 2026. ‘Central Asian Progressive Thinker of the End of the 19th Century: Analysis of Ahmad Dānish’s Intellectual Legacy’. Studies on Central Asia and the Caucasus (forthcoming).
Akhmedjanova, Kamila. 2025. ‘Literature and Politics in Early Soviet Central Asia: Case Study of Sadriddin Aini’s Odina and Margi sudkhūr’. The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, 52.1, pp. 98-124, DOI: 10.30965/18763324-bja10112.
Akhmedjanova, Kamila. 2024. ‘Trends in Intellectual Life in Central Asia in the 19th Century (Based on the Works of Nādira, Dilshād Barnā and Ahmad Dānish)’. Oriens, 1, pp. 210-221.
Akhmedjanova, Kamila. 2023. ‘Reanalysis of the Role that Western Ideas Played in the Development of the Ideology of Progressive Persian-speaking Philosophers of the 19th Century’. History of Oriental Studies: Traditions and Modernity, 2, pp. 60-69.
Akhmedjanova, Kamila. 2021. ‘Teaching Tajiki language to Undergraduate Students with a Prior Knowledge of Farsi’. The Magic of Innovation: Language and Language Teaching in a Changing Environment, pp. 271-276. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo ‘MGIMO-Universitet’.
Akhmedjanova, Kamila. 2020. ‘Double Past Participle Forms in the Sicilian Dialects’. Typology of Morphosyntactic Parameters, 3.1, pp. 11-33.
Translations and projects:
Arnaldi, Marta. 2024. ‘Новый переводческий подход к нарративной медицине: исследование книги Маргериты Гвидаччи Neurosuite’ [‘The Translational Turn in Narrative Medicine: A Study of Margherita Guidacci’s Neurosuite’]. Translated by Kamila Akhmedjanova. Encounters in Translation, 2, DOI: 10.35562/encounters-in-translation.609.