Jamsheed Choksy

Jamsheed Choksy is a Distinguished Professor of History at Indiana University Bloomington, where he holds the position of Distinguished Professor and Director of the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies. He maintains adjunct distinguished professorships in Religious Studies, Ancient Studies, India Studies, and Medieval Studies, and chairs the Advisory Board of the Center for the Languages of the Central Asia Region while serving on the Advisory Board of the Center for the Study of the Middle East. Choksy earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1991 and BA from Columbia University in 1985, serving as Junior Fellow in Harvard's Society of Fellows from 1988 to 1991. His career includes leadership as Former Chair of Central Eurasian Studies, Former Chair of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and Former Director of the Middle East Program. Additionally, he was a U.S. Presidentially-nominated and Congressionally-confirmed Member of the National Council on the Humanities from 2008 to 2019, overseeing the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Choksy's research examines the development of sectarian communities in Central Asia, the Near East, and South Asia via interdisciplinary methods in religious studies, history, international affairs, politics, anthropology, archaeology, language, literature, and numismatics, with specific emphasis on Zoroastrianism, Islam, Manichaeism, Iranian and Persian Studies, and Indian subcontinental studies. He has conducted fieldwork in Iran, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Jordan, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and other countries. Major publications include the books Purity and Pollution in Zoroastrianism: Triumph over Evil (Austin, 1989), Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society (New York, 1997; Persian translation, Tehran, 2002), Evil, Good, and Gender: Facets of the Feminine in Zoroastrian Religious History (New York, 2002), and Gifts to a Magus: Indo-Iranian Studies Honoring Firoze Kotwal (co-editor, New York, 2013). Recent articles feature collaborations in Foreign Affairs such as “Iran’s Nuclear Tipping Point” (2024) and “Iran Is Breaking Out of Its Box” (2023) with Carol E. B. Choksy. Choksy has received the Trustees Teaching Award from Indiana University (2023–2024) and was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022, reflecting his influence in the field.