Fathollah Mojtabaii Award goes to dissertation on Masnavi

TEHRAN,Jan.5(MNA) -- A dissertation on Masnavi stories won the first Fathollah Mojtabaii Award during a ceremony on Tuesday at Tehran’s Book City cultural center. Samira Bameshki from the University of Ferdowsi was the first winner of this award for her dissertation “The Functions of the Narratee in the Masnavi”. Fathollah Mojatabaii established the award for theses and dissertations in the field of Persian language and literature, religion and mysticism. The ceremony was attended by several officials and literati Fathollah Mojatabaii, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Zia Movahhed, Hossein Masumi Hamedani and Seyyed Mahmud Doaee. Bameshki defended her dissertation in summer 2009 at the University of Ferdowsi in Mashhad. Her advisor was Mohammad-Taqi; Purnamdarian and Abolqasem Qavam are the dissertation’s readers. At the ceremony, Iranian Academy of Persian Language and Literature Director Haddad-Adel extolled Mojtabaii over bestowing the award from his own funds which boosts research in literature and humanities. Afterward, jury members Zia Movahhed and Hossein Masumi mentioned some characteristics of Bameshki’s thesis and its impact on the comparative literature researches. “I hope that the award would be a candle that lights more candles in the realm of literary and cultural research,” Mojtabaii mentioned during the event. Bameshki went on stage in tears of joy with her little child, receiving loud, sustained applause from the participants. In addition to the award, her dissertation will be published as an academic book by Hermes Publications. Bameshki, 30, got her doctorate degree from the University of Ferdowsi in 2009 and she is now a professor at the university She described her dissertation as “an analysis of the influence of the narratee’s predilections and responses on Masnavi’s plot and to examine the other functions of narratees in Masnavi.” Mojtabaii, 84, has got his doctorate in oriental philosophy from Harvard University forty years ago. He is now a permanent member of the Iranian Academy of Persian Language and Literature. He has written, translated and corrected over 200 books, articles, poetry and criticism in Persian and English.