The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto, in collaboration with the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America, the Ontario Zoroastrian Community Foundation, the Zoroastrian Society of Ontario, and the Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation, will host a new lecture in the Zoroastrian Studies Seminar Series.

The upcoming event, titled “Travellers’ Accounts on the Destiny of the Soul”, will be presented by Dr. Céline Redard from the University of Strasbourg. The lecture will take place on Friday, May 9, 2025, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time (Canada & US), which corresponds to 9:30 to 11:00 p.m. Tehran time. This online session will be held via Zoom.

In her talk, Dr. Redard will explore European travellers’ accounts from the 16th to 18th centuries, focusing on the Zoroastrian funerary practice of placing the Towers of Silence. In particular, she will examine the curious belief about which eye of the corpse is eaten first by vultures. Where did this superstition originate? Why did the deceased’s relatives pay attention to this detail? Are there other noteworthy elements mentioned in these travelogues?

Dr. Céline Redard earned her PhD from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) in Paris with a dissertation on chapter 19 of the Vidēvdād. From 2008 to 2014, she worked as a research assistant at the Collège de France in Paris. She then received a Marie Curie Fellowship and conducted research at the University of Liège in Belgium (2014–2016). From 2017 to 2022, she collaborated on the Multimedia Yasna Project at SOAS, University of London. Currently, she is Associate Professor in the History of Religions at the University of Strasbourg. Among her notable works are The Gujarati Ritual Directions of the Paragnā, Yasna and Visperad Ceremonies (co-authored with Dr. Kerman Daruwalla, 2021) and a critical edition of the Srōš Drōn (Yasna 3 to 8).

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