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Eden Naby (born 1942) is an Assyrian-Iranian cultural historian ofCentral Asia and the Middle East. She was born in the once importantAssyrian town ofGolpashan, located outsideUrmia inIran. Eden Naby has conducted research, taught and published on minority issues in countries fromTurkey toXinjiang. Her work onAfghanistan and on theAssyrians stands out in the field of cultural survival. She was married toRichard Frye (1975) and they had one son, Nels Frye.
After graduatingTemple University in 1964 for herundergraduate degree, she served in thePeace Corps in Afghanistan, and after receiving herPhD (1975,Columbia University) she taught atPahlavi University in Shiraz, Iran from 1975 to 1977. In 1980, she led aCBS60 Minutes team for the first ever filming of theSoviet invasion of Afghanistan. She was featured inCharlie Wilson's War (2008) withDan Rather.
Naby has devoted her time since 1979 to establishing endowments at United States universities to promote the preservation of Assyrian archives, publishing, and lectures. While limited in principal, these endowments, especially atHarvard University, lay the basis for the preservation of research materials, especially in diaspora. Naby has taught as a visiting scholar at various universities including Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Wisconsin - Madison, and University of Massachusetts - Amherst.
Among her writings are many articles in theAssyrian Star (2001–2007) aimed at eliciting knowledge aboutAssyrian culture from knowledgeable members of the community. She has also mounted three exhibits (Harvard, 1998, 1999, Boston Public Library 2005) using Assyrian family photographs and the Harvard archives to illustrate 19th-20th century Assyrian history. In 2014, she curated “Animating the Word: The Calligraphic Legacy of Iran’s Religious Minorities” Tally Beck Contemporary Gallery (New York) (A calligraphy exhibit from Iran's Zoroastrian, Jewish, Assyrian and Armenian communities.)
As contributing editor on modern Assyrians for theEncyclopædia Iranica, she is responsible for dozens of entries on the Assyrians.
Naby's charitable fund, Naby-Frye Assyrian Fund for Cultural (NFAFC), has been the leading supporter of the Mesopotamian Night programs mounted annually to raise funds for the Assyrian Aid Society. The NFAFC has supported several endeavors to promote the vernacular Aramaic spoken by Assyrians through the publication and dissemination of children's books and videos.
“Abduction, Rape and Genocide: Urmia’s Assyrian girls and women,” in Hannibal Travis, ed. The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies (New York, Routledge, 2018) pp. 158–177.
"The Assyrians and Aramaic: Speaking the Oldest Living Language of the Middle East “http://catedra-unesco.espais.iec.cat (8 March 2016)
