Universiteit Leiden

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Elena Paskaleva

Assistant Professor Critical Heritage Studies of Asia and Europe

Name
Dr. E.G. Paskaleva
Telephone
+31 71 527 1692
E-mail
e.g.paskaleva@hum.leidenuniv.nl
ORCID iD
0000-0002-4498-9530

Elena Paskaleva is assistant professor in Critical Heritage Studies of Asia and Europe at Leiden University. Her current research focuses on the material culture of Central Asia, and in particular on the history and socio-political importance of Timurid architecture. She is the author of Silk Road Cities documented through vintage photographs, prints and postcards (Leiden: LUP, 2019), co-author and editor of the volume Memory and Commemoration across Central Asia: Texts, Traditions and Practices, 10th-21st Centuries (Leiden Studies in Islam and Society, vol. 17: Brill, 2023). Currently, Dr. Paskaleva is editor-in-chief of the UNESCO two-volume collection Exchanges along the Silk Roads. Urbanism. Landscape. Architecture (UNESCO, 2023) and a member of the scientific panel of the UNESCO Silk Road Youth Research Grant. She has published widely on the restorations of Timurid architecture in present-day Uzbekistan. In 2014 Dr. Paskaleva was an Associate at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University. At present, she is a researcher in the project “Turks, Texts and Territory: Imperial Ideology and Cultural Production in Central Eurasia” (2017-2023) funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), and finalizing her monograph on the conservation of the Timurid dynastic mausoleum of Gur-i Amir in Samarqand. Dr. Paskaleva has been a strong proponent of strengthening the study and teaching of Central Asia in Leiden within the framework of the Central Asia Initiative and LUCIS. Since September 2015 she is the coordinator of the Asian Heritage Cluster at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS).

More information about Elena Paskaleva

Research

Elena Paskaleva is assistant professor in Critical Heritage Studies of Asia and Europe at Leiden University. Her current research focuses on the material culture of Central Asia, and in particular on the history and socio-political importance of Timurid architecture. She is the author of Silk Road Cities documented through vintage photographs, prints and postcards (Leiden: LUP, 2019), co-author and editor of the volume Memory and Commemoration across Central Asia: Texts, Traditions and Practices, 10th-21st Centuries (Leiden Studies in Islam and Society, vol. 17: Brill, 2023). Currently, Dr. Paskaleva is editor-in-chief of the UNESCO two-volume collection Exchanges along the Silk Roads. Urbanism. Landscape. Architecture (UNESCO, 2023) and a member of the scientific panel of the UNESCO Silk Road Youth Research Grant. She has published widely on the restorations of Timurid architecture in present-day Uzbekistan. In 2014 Dr. Paskaleva was an Associate at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University. At present, she is a researcher in the project “Turks, Texts and Territory: Imperial Ideology and Cultural Production in Central Eurasia” (2017-2023) funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), and finalizing her monograph on the conservation of the Timurid dynastic mausoleum of Gur-i Amir in Samarqand. Dr. Paskaleva has been a strong proponent of strengthening the study and teaching of Central Asia in Leiden within the framework of the Central Asia Initiative and LUCIS. Since September 2015 she is the coordinator of the Asian Heritage Cluster at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS).

Education

PhD, Islamic Architecture, Leiden University (2010)
MA in Architecture (cum laude), Comparative World Architecture Studies, Leiden University (2004)

 

Teaching

  • MA thesis supervision in the fields of Critical Heritage Studies, Material Culture of Central Asia, The Silk Roads, Islamic Art and Architecture
  • Material Culture, Memory and Commemoration along the Silk Roads in Central Asia (MA and ResMA seminar, 5854IMC16)
  • History of Central Asia and Afghanistan (BA seminar, 5852VCAA)
  • Sufism: History, Religion and Material Culture (BA seminar, 5852VSGGM)
  • Critical Approaches to Heritage Studies (MA Asian Studies seminar, 5174KHER)
  • The Politics of Destruction: Targeting World Heritage (MA Asian studies/ResMA seminar, 5174KASWH)
  • The Politics of Heritage in the Middle East (MA Middle Eastern studies/ResMA seminar, 5854KHEME)
  • Arts and Culture in Area Studies: Culture and Conquest: The Impact of the Mongols and Their Descendants (ResMA, guest lectures since 2016)

 

Grants and fellowships

  • September 2014 – December 2014, Associate, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, Harvard University
  • 2014 Research grant,  Juynboll Foundation for the Study of Islamic Culture
  • September 2012 - September 2014, Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) Research project: Reading the Architecture of Paradise: The Timurid Kosh
  • 2013 Post-doctoral research grant Cambridge University, Dr. Catherine van Tussenbroek Fonds
  • 2013 Research grant, Oosters Instituut, Leiden
  • 2013 Research grant, Juynboll Foundation for the Study of Islamic Culture
  • 2012 Post-doctoral grant, Dr. Catherine van Tussenbroek Fonds

Service to the profession

Board member Societas Iranologica Europaea
Member programme committee Middle Eastern Studies, Leiden University, chair since 2022
Member programme committee MA Research Asian Studies, Leiden University
Convener ECIS 10, Leiden, 21-25 august 2023
Convener LUCIS Annual Conference 2016, Leiden
Member academic committee Heritage as Aid and Diplomacy in Asia Conference 2016, IIAS, Leiden
Convener Cultural Production and Exchange in the Timurid Period Conference 2015, Leiden

Membership

The Historians of Islamic Art Association (HIAA) 
Societas Iranologica Europaea (SIA)
The Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS)
European Society for Central Asian Studies (ESCAS)
Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS)
The Eurasia Studies Society (TESS)
Association for Iranian Studies (AIS)

Assistant Professor Critical Heritage Studies of Asia and Europe

  • Faculty of Humanities
  • Leiden Institute for Area Studies
  • SMES APT

No relevant ancillary activities

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