Elena Paskaleva
Assistant Professor Critical Heritage Studies of Asia and Europe
- Name
- Dr. E.G. Paskaleva
- Telephone
- +31 71 527 1692
- 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
News
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Exhibition unveils Central Asian part of Silk Road -
Exhibition puts ‘forgotten’ part of the Silk Road in the spotlight -
Sanjar Gulomov will be Central Asia Erasmus Fellow in December 2018 -
Mavlyuda Yusupova will be the Central Asia Visiting Professor in November 2018 -
European subsidy for exchanges doubled at Leiden University -
Paolo Sartori will be the Central Asia Visiting Scholar in April 2018 -
Svetlana Gorshenina will be the Central Asia Visiting Scholar in February 2018
Leiden Islam Blog
PhD candidates
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
- Paskaleva E.G. & Berg G.R. van den (Eds.) (2023), Memory and commemoration across Central Asia: texts, traditions and practices, 10th-21st centuries. Leiden Studies in Islam and Society no. 17. Leiden: Brill.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2023), Remembering the Alisher Navoi Jubilee and the archaeological excavations in Samarqand in the summer of 1941. In: Paskaleva E.G. & Berg G. van den (Eds.), Memory and Commemoration across Central Asia : texts, traditions and practices, 10th-21st centuries. Leiden Studies in Islam and Society no. 17. Leiden: Brill. 287-329.
- Paskaleva E. (2023), Samarqand’s congregational mosque of Bibi Khanum as a representation of Timurid legitimacy and rulership, Manazir Journal 5: 59-87.
- Paskaleva E.G. & Berg G.R. van den (30 September 2019), Silk Road Cities. Leiden: Leiden Islam Blog LUCIS. [blog entry].
- Paskaleva E.G. & Berg G.R. van den (2019), Silk Road Cities. Documented through vintage photographs, prints and postcards. Leiden: Silk Road Publications.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2017), Legacy and Geometrical Influences of Al-Khwarazmi on Timurid Architecture. In: , The Historical Heritage of Scientists and Thinkers of the Medieval East, Its Role and Significance for Modern Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge Scientific Publishers. 123-142.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2016), Commemorating Tamerlane: ideological and iconographical approaches at the Timurid Museum, IIAS Newsletter 74 Special Focus on Memory and Commemoration in Central Asia (ed. E. Paskaleva) 74(Summer 2016): 40-41, Focus pp. 29-45.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2016), Memory and commemoration in Central Asia, IIAS Newsletter 74 Special Focus on Memory and Commemoration in Central Asia (ed. E. Paskaleva) 74(Summer 2016): 29-45.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2016), Architectural Palimpsest in the Four-iwan Kosh across Central Asia. In: Morrison A. & Saxena S.S. (Eds.), Proceedings of the XIIth Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies. Central Asia: A Maturing Field. Cambridge: Cambridge Scientific Publishers. 123-140.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2015), Ideology in brick and tile: Timurid architecture of the 21st century, Central Asian Survey 34(4): 418-439.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2013), Samarqand Refashioned: A Traveller’s Impressions (with a preface by Daniel C. Waugh), Silk Road Journal 11(2013): 139-153.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2013), The cityscape of modern Central Asia. The politics of urban renewal in Tashkent, IIAS Newsletter (Special Issue, The Asia-Pacific War 60 Years On: History and Memory) 66(Winter 2013): 48-49.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2013), Hierophanic Influences on Timurid Architecture along the Silk Road. In: , Archi-Cultural Translations through the Silk Road. Osaka: Mukogawa Women's University Press. 61-68.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2013), Epigraphic restorations of Timurid architectural heritage, IIAS Newsletter (Special Issue, The Asia-Pacific War 60 Years On: History and Memory) 64(Summer 2013): 10-11.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2012), Soviet Modernism 1955-1991: Unknown Stories, IIAS Newsletter (Special Issue, The Asia-Pacific War 60 Years On: History and Memory) 62(Winter 2012): 47.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2012), The Archetype of the Four in the Architecture of the Four-īwān Building Tradition. In: Bakhysh S., Geybullayeva R. & Horvath I. (Eds.), Archetypes in Literature and Culture. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang. 285-296.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2012), Hierophanic influences on Timurid Architecture along the Silk Road (extended abstract), Proceedings of 2nd International Conference iaSU2012. Archi-Cultural Translations through the Silk Road. Osaka: Mukogawa Women's University Press. 36-41.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2012), The Bibi Khanum Mosque in Samarqand: Its Mongol and Timurid Architecture, Silk Road Journal 10: 81-98.
- Paskaleva E.G. (22 September 2010), The architecture of the four-īwān building tradition as a representation of paradise and dynastic power aspirations (Dissertatie. Leiden University Institute for Cultural Disciplines (LUICD), Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University). Supervisor(s): Mekking A.J.J.
- Paskaleva E.G. (2009), The Architectural Representation of Paradise: Sufi Cosmology and the Four-īwān Plan. In: Mekking A.J.J. & Roose E.R. (Eds.), The Global Built Environment as a Representation of Realities. Why and How Architecture Should Be the Subject of Worldwide Comparison. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 95-139.