Archive for February 18th, 2020
Shii News – UN Rapporteurs Condemn Bahrain
8 UN Experts Condemn Bahrain’s Treatment of Political Prisoners – Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain
17 February 2020 – 8 UN Special Rapporteurs have expressed “grave concern” about the mistreatment of political prisoners Hajer Mansoor, Medina Ali and Nabeel Rajab in Bahraini detention centres, “which may amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” In a letter to the Bahraini government, the experts …
- February 18, 2020
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.Arab Diaspora Conference 2020: “Reclaiming the Public Narrative, Voices of the Middle East“, University of Ottawa, 24 February 2020
This is a unique gathering that brings together around 30 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) human rights and democracy defenders from the MENA region. Defenders will present on public panels with participants invited from the public sector, academia, civil society and activist communities in Canada.
Information and registration: https://uocal.uottawa.ca/en/node/24419
2. Conference: “Acts of Excommunication in the Late Antique and Early Islamicate Middle East”, University of Leiden, 12-13 March 2020
This conference aims to bring together both senior and junior scholars to present research which illuminates the dynamics implicit in the act of excommunication and associated practices: ostracism, anathema, and other forms of religio-social exclusion, among the major religious communities of the Islamicate world, 600-1200 CE: including various Christian and Jewish denominations, Sunni, Shiʿi, ‘Khārijī’ and other groups within Islam; Zoroastrians and other relevant groups.
3. 3rd Islamicate Digital Humanities Conference (Online Conference) of the Islamicate Digital Humanities Network (IDHN), 29 April 2020
We are calling for contributions from scholars employing digital methods in their research within the Islamicate Studies and related fields in the Humanities, as well as from our colleagues in Linguistics and Computer Science. We will have 4-6 presentations of 20 minutes each in which you can introduce your project and share your expertise and questions with the network.
To contribute, send an email to info@idhn.org with a description of your presentation. Information https://idhn.org/conferences/ and join the network at https://idhn.org/contact/.
4. 10 Postgraduate Bursaries for the MA Programme at the Centre for Islamic and West Asian Studies, Royal Holloway University of London
The bursaries will reduce tuition fees by between £500 and £5000.
Deadline for application: 30 March 2020.
Information: https://bit.ly/37tQgFh; contact: ciwas@rhul.ac.uk
5. GTOT Grant for Innovative Projects by Young Scholars – Funding Period: 2020, Society for Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish Studies
All proposals aiming at supporting young scholars and/or Turkology as a study program will be considered.
Extended deadline: 21 February 2020.
Information: http://www.gtot.org/news/gtot-call/?lang=en
6. Intensive Ottoman Summer Program, Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED), Istanbul, 6 July-14 August 2020
The program aims to develop the students’ reading and comprehension skills and expertise on a variety of Ottoman sources including archival documents, manuscripts, and epigraphic material. The material will accordingly present a wide array of content and narrative types.
Deadline for application: 9 March 2020.
Information: https://anamed.ku.edu.tr/en/summer-programs/ottoman-summer-program/
7. CFP: Ceramics from Islamic Lands – V&A, Dec. 3-5
International conference:
Ceramics from Islamic Lands
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
3 to 5 December 2020
Organised by Mariam Rosser-Owen (V&A) and Leslee Michelsen (Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art)
The V&A proposes to hold a conference on the theme of ceramics from Islamic lands. Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers on any theme, including but not limited to: significant bodies of archaeological material, ceramic imports into the Islamic world, trade with China, Europe and the Americas, ceramics produced in South and South-East Asia under Muslim rule, object-focused and art historical studies, studies in conservation or restoration, scientific analysis, technology and technique, architecture, epigraphy, historicism and revival (in particular within the region), the formation of private and public collections from the 19th century to today, continuity and change under colonialism, modernism, contemporary artistic practice, and contemporary craft traditions.
Please send abstracts of 250 words to ceramicsfromislamiclands@gmail.com by 30th April 2020. We aim to contact those selected to participate by the end of June. We plan to cover speakers’ travel and accommodation costs for the duration of the conference. We also hope to provide fellowships to support the travel of a limited number of colleagues and students from under-represented institutions and countries who wish to attend the conference. Further information on these will be announced later in the year.
This conference is being organised to coincide with two exhibitions taking place at the V&A this autumn: Epic Iran (17 October 2020-3 May 2021) and Contemporary Ceramics from the Middle East (8 June 2020-31 January 2021). The backdrop to the conference will be one of the greatest collections of ceramics in the world. The V&A’s holdings include examples of the earliest type of glazed wares made in the Middle East as well as pieces from the 19th century, and they range across all the geographies encompassed within the discipline of ‘Islamic art’, with particularly large and significant groups of ceramics from medieval and Safavid Iran and the Ottoman world. The Museum also holds important European material inspired by Islamic designs. Today its curators are actively bringing these collections into the 20th and 21st centuries.
For further information, please contact the organisers on the above email address.
8. Aga Khan Museum Collection Online
The Aga Khan Museum is proud to announce that 500 artworks in our collection are now available online, where they can be studied by researchers and enjoyed by the general public.
The Museum launched this digitization project in 2017, three years after opening. At the outset of the project, we focused on digitizing the majority of our Shahnameh paintings, most of them dispersed; our Tiraz textiles; and our Iranian ceramics from different eras. In 2018, we turned our attention to manuscripts, other paintings, and drawings; and last year, artworks in different media were our primary focus.
I would like to acknowledge and thank all of you—including more than 30 scholars worldwide and Aga Khan Museum staff—who have devoted time and expertise to this ambitious endeavour. The digitization of the collection is an ongoing project, and, in time, we aim to provide free online access to our entire collection.
Please visit us at agakhanmuseum.org to explore our collection. To view a selection of published artworks, see AKM165, AKM673, AKM289, AKM646, AKM386,AKM809.
9. Call for Applicants – An Introduction to Islamic Manuscript Culture Workshop, University of Michigan Library – 28-29 Oct.
An Introduction to Islamic Manuscript Culture
Workshop with curator and manuscript specialist, Evyn Kropf
28-29 October 2020, Special Collections Research Center, University of Michigan Library
Offered in conjunction with the HIAA 2020 Biennial Symposium “Regime Change” at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, this intensive workshop will provide participants with a broad introduction to the study of Islamic manuscript cultures and will feature exemplars from the Islamic Manuscripts Collection preserved in the University of Michigan Library.
The workshop will be structured around lectures interspersed with hands-on sessions presenting fundamental elements of Islamic manuscript studies with a focus on codicology & palaeography. The following topics will be covered:
-An introduction to codicological studies
-Writing material: parchment and paper
-Structures: the codex & beyond
-Bindings
-Layout / ruling, media and ornament
-Scripts & hands
-Paratexts, annotations, marks of ownership, etc
-Overview of describing manuscripts
Attendance will be capped at fifteen participants. Priority will be given to graduate student attendees of the symposium, but applications from postdocs and established scholars will also be considered.
Through generous grants from the U-M History of Art Department and University Library, fees will be waived, and selected participants will be offered two nights’ accommodation (Tuesday 27 October and Wednesday 28 October) as well as refreshments and lunch each of the workshop days. Participants will be expected to cover their own travel and dinners.
Interested applicants should submit this form (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc1qDF0JlNSRQkg6ZOo5YiXqvXRBlqGmF3xzl_IEYtzzsUTJA/viewform) and email a copy of their CV to ekropf@umich.edu.
Applications will remain open until 15 March 2020.
Selected participants will be notified by 15 April 2020.
Feel free to contact ekropf@umich.edu with any questions.
10. Umayyad Art Re-examined: A New Attitude to Images and Discourse in Visuality
with Dr Valerie Gonzalez, Research Associate, SOAS
on Thursday 27 February 2020 from 5.30 pm to 7 pm
SOAS, 10 Thornhaugh St, Bloomsbury, London WC1H 0XG Room 4426 (4th floor, Main Building)
Convenor: Professor Anna Contadini
This seminar will re-examine the established scholarly findings of Umayyad art as a transitional production essentially anchored in the Western and Eastern Late Antique traditions that have inspired it. It will be argued instead that the Umayyads brought about an aesthetic revolution laying out the fundaments of what has become known as ‘Islamic ornament’, a predominantly aniconic form of visual expression. For beyond the adaptive borrowing of pre-existing forms, the Umayyads redefined the art’s condition of meaning based on an unprecedented attitude to images and visual discourse informed by Islamic ontotheology and metaphysics.
For further inquiries, contact Dr Tanja Tolar on tt30@soas.ac.uk.
- February 18, 2020
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment