Room B22/278
Aida Alavi is a postdoctoral scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, where she works on the project “Astral Imagery in the Islamicate World from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period (12th–18th century).” She is a member of the “Heavens in Your Hand” Working Group. She received her PhD in art history from the University of Bordeaux Montaigne (2017–2023) with a dissertation on Safavid magical objects, exploring their inscriptions, motifs and connections to astrology, Shiite ideology and princely propaganda. Her broader research examines astral magic and astrology, with particular attention to their visual and material expressions across Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts. She is especially interested in the circulation of astral knowledge and practices across Iran, India and the Ottoman world. Alavi has also taught Islamic art at the École du Louvre and actively contributes to digital humanities projects, including manuscript cataloguing, metadata management and digitization initiatives.
