Guest Contributor for Middle Eastern and Caucasian Studies
Aida Alavi is an archaeologist and art historian specializing in the material culture of premodern Iran, with a particular focus on the Safavid period. She is a postdoctoral scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, where her research explores the occult and astral sciences in the Islamicate world. Her work examines magical and astrological representation in manuscripts and objects, situated within a broader interest in the intersections of science, religion, popular belief, and visual culture.
Her current project focuses on lesser-known astral images and forms of cultural astrology in the Islamicate world, particularly their transmission and the ways in which astral imagery acquired political and religious significance.