Thomas Welsford
Volkswagenstiftung Fellow, Martin-Luther Universität, Halle, Germany
MA
Quondam Fellow since 2015
I am interested in the post-medieval history of Central Asia, Iran, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. In my first book, I examined the dynamics of political change in 16th- and 17th-century Transoxiana, and in my current project I am exploring patterns of social life in the Zarafshan valley in the decades immediately before and after the Russian conquest.
- Fifty Pound Fellow, All Souls College (from 2008 to 2015)
- Prize Fellow, All Souls College (from 1998 to 2005)
- Undergraduate, St John’s College, Oxford (from 1995 to 1998)
- History of Islamic Central Asia, c. 1200-1800
- History of Iran and the Caucasus, c. 1500-1750
- Islamicate narrative and genre
- Post-Soviet cinema
- (ed. with A. Papas and T. Zarcone), The Routes of Pilgrimage between Central Asia and the Hijaz (London: I.B. Tauris, forthcoming).
- ‘Piety, Refuge and Dynastic Change: The Re-Opening of Iran to Central Asian Pilgrim Traffic, 1600-1650’, in A. Papas, T. Zarcone and T. Welsford (eds.), The Routes of Pilgrimage between Central Asia and the Hijaz (London: I.B. Tauris, forthcoming).
- Review of Michael Axworthy, The Sword of Persia – Nader Shah, From Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006), in Journal of Islamic Studies 20.1 (2009), pages 109-113.
- Review of Allen J. Frank and Mirqasym Usmanov (eds.), An Islamic Biographical Dictionary of the Eastern Kazakh Steppe 1770-1912 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), in Journal of Islamic Studies 17.1 (2006), pages 95-8.
- Approaches to Cultural History