Learn Persian with Chaiing Conversation, a few words on love, an excerpt from the romance of Hosro and Shireen by Nizami of Ganjee.

Introduction with Dr.

Dr. Sakhua Shoyani, thank you so much for joining me today.

Of course, my pleasure.

Thank you so much for having me on Chaiang Conversation, Leila John.

Yes, this is a long time coming.

And Dr. Shoyani, I want you to introduce yourself and what you do before we get into what we're going to discuss specifically today.

Sure. Thank you. My name is Safa Shahjani and I'm a lecturer at UCLA in Persian language and culture. My own field is classical Persian poetry with a specific focus on the role of

women in the romances of Khosra and Shirin, Visoramin, and parts of the Shahname. And prior to moving

back to L.A. to teach at UCLA, I taught at Oxford for seven years as senior lecturer in Persian.

Wonderful. And where did you grow up and how did you become interested in this subject?

So I grew up predominantly in the Bay Area in Northern California with a six-year stint in

Tehran. I lived in Tehran from the age of four to ten, which was really the time that set the foundation for my love

of the Persian language of Persian culture and Persian literature and poetry and my relationship

really with Iran.

But yeah, predominantly in Northern California, in the Bay Area, in the East Bay.

And then I moved to Los Angeles in 2006 for undergraduate to start the study at UCLA.

I transferred from community college.

So I had two years there for my undergraduate until 2008.

And then I continued at UCLA as a graduate student for a master's and then continued on to a PhD in Iranian studies and the

program of Iranian studies focusing on classical Persian literature.

And then before having even in a way, well, having started part of my dissertation for the

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