Associate Professor Farshid Emami, in collaboration with Niloufar Lari, has written a book titled, Coffeehouses of Isfahan: Urban Life, Architecture, and the Public Sphere in Safavid Iran. Published in Tehran by Nashr-e Ney, the book is based on Emami's 2016 article, which has been revised and expanded in this publication. The book also features a hitherto unpublished Persian-language treatise (ca. 1600 CE), edited and annotated by Niloufar Lari, which offers fresh insights into perceptions of novel stimulants such as coffee and tea in early modern Iran. Farshid Emami specializes in the history of architecture, urbanism, and the arts in the Islamic lands, with a focus on the early modern period and Safavid Iran.
His first monograph, Isfahan: Architecture and Urban Experience in Early Modern Iran (2024), reconstructs the spaces and senses of seventeenth-century Isfahan, the Safavid capital, and narrates its story as a social living environment. Drawing on literary sources, the book takes the reader on journeys through Isfahan’s markets, promenades, and coffeehouses, bringing to life the social landscapes that animated the lives of urban dwellers and shaped their perceptions of themselves and the world. Isfahan won the 2025 Book Award from the International Journal of Islamic Architecture and received an honorable mention from the Persian Heritage Foundation-Association for the Study of Persianate Societies 2025 Book Award.