Archive for July 18th, 2020
Shii News – Academic Items
1.We are delighted to announce the launch of the report from our AHRC funded Re/presenting Narratives of Islam on Campus.
This AHRC-funded research Re/presenting Narratives of Islam on Campus provides the first nationwide picture of how Islam is experienced, perceived and interacted with on university campuses in the UK. This research shows how the UK Government’s counterterrorism Prevent strategy has reinforced negative stereotypes of Muslims and has encouraged ‘a culture of mutual suspicion and surveillance’ on university campuses. Based on findings from a national survey of 2,022 students across 132 UK universities and interviews and focus groups conducted with 253 staff and students at six higher education institutions, we recommend that universities take an active role in building peaceful relations on campus and beyond. This can be achieved through active challenge of prejudice and empowering Muslim and all marginal voices. As discussed in the forthcoming book, suspicion and negative stereotypes need to be replaced with shared, equal and just understandings of who we all are. To read the full report – https://www.soas.ac.uk/representingislamoncampus/publications/file148310.pdf
The research has been covered favourably in the media:
Times Higher: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/prevent-reinforces-negative-views-islam-among-students-uk
Open Democracy: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/limits-inclusivity-islamophobia-higher-education/
Research Professional: https://www.researchprofessional.com/0/rr/he/agencies/other/2020/7/Prevent-duty–discouraging-free-speech–in-universities.html
2. MIDDLE EAST HISTORY / STUDIES
Darmstadt University of Technology – Postdoc Researcher: Global History of Material Culture and Technology, 1850-2000
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=60214
Closing date: 8/21/20
3. Layli and Majnun
By Nezami Ganjavi,
Translated by Dick Davis
Mage, 2020
‘ Dick Davis is an accomplished poet and scholar; he is also the finest translator of Persian poetry. With Layli and Majnun, he brings Nezami’s classic to life for the first time in brilliant and moving English verse that captures all the extraordinary power and ingenuity of the original poem. Meanwhile, an introduction and copious explanatory notes shed a fascinating light on Nezami’s life and work, and the astonishing virtuosity of his poetic style, that help set the stage for the reader’s enjoyment of this tour de force of Persian literature.’
https://magepublishers.com/layli-majnun/
4. The Iranian-American Diaspora and The Black Lives Matter Movement Webinar – Wed., July 22, 2020, 4-5 pm PST
Speakers:
Dr. Cornel West, Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University
Dr. Ali Akbar Mahdi, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Ohio Wesleyan University
Dr. Touraj Daryaee, Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies and Professor of History at University of California, Irvine
Moderated by:
Dr. Annahita Mahdavi, Associate Professor, Social Sciences Dept., Long Beach City College
This event is presented by UCI Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture.
Zoom Registration at:
https://ucihumanities.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zQ6j2PhKRVa2vkYJpuJvkA
We expect this online event to exceed the maximum capacity for attendees. If you are unable to join the Zoom webinar, you may also view this event LIVE on UCI Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/samueljordancenter )
5. We warmly invite you to join Anthropology of the Middle East and Central Eurasia network meeting, which will take place online on Monday July 20th, 2020; 11.00 – 13.00 (Lisbon time, GMT+1).
Here are the technical instructions on how to access our network meeting provided by organisers:
“Anyone interested can use that link to RSVP. They enter their name, email, institution and an hour before the meeting they’ll receive an automated email reminding them to login. From 59 minutes before the meeting begins, that same URL changes from being an RSVP to direct entry into the meeting.”
https://shindig.com/login/event/easanet-acme
The meeting will be an opportunity to hear an overview of AMCE’s activities since last EASA conference including our journal, film program and social media activities. We will also discuss our future plans, including new structure of our journal.
AMCE was established in 2010 as one of the active networks of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) with the aim of getting together all like-minded and interested anthropologists, students and researchers of social science working on a diversity of aspects of modern and contemporary societies in the Middle East and Central Eurasia, including those who work on minority groups, or on religious themes.
The recent long wars and increasing political, religious, and ethnic clashes in the different regions of the Middle East and Central Eurasia, signal that more geopolitical changes in these regions are forthcoming. Under such present conditions of conflict and transformation, anthropologists have plenty of work to do, and may yet contribute to a better understanding of complex problems and their resolution.
All are welcome to join us.
Dr. Pedram Khosronejad | Adjunct Professor
Religion and Society Research Cluster | School of Social Sciences
E: P.Khosronejad@westernsydney.edu.au
6. The Great Lakes Adiban Society (GLAS) invites submissions for its fourth annual workshop, scheduled to take place online on September 5–6, 2020, from 9:00–1:30 EDT (with breaks).
The primary purpose of this gathering is to share work in progress for critique and feedback, rather than to present work that is already finalized or published. Graduate students and first-time participants are especially encouraged to apply. Applicants will have the option of presenting their projects as either a ‘lightning talk’ of 5 minutes (with 15 minutes for discussion), or as an in-depth presentation of 20 minutes (with 30 minutes for discussion). In either case, we encourage you to privilege the conceptual issues you wish to discuss, and to be provocative with respect to your topics, discipline, and methodology. This could include projects that use non-traditional sources, employ digital humanities approaches, or foreground collaborative practices in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on research into Islamicate literatures. We are expressly mindful of the fact that our time together is most valuable when it involves exchange and argumentation; for that reason, we also ask that participants commit to attending the full duration of the workshop.
If interested, please fill out our online application by August 7, 2020. Please be aware that we have a limited number of slots available, and may not be able to accept every application. If this happens, however, you are still welcome to participate in the workshop as an audience member. A link to register as an audience member will be circulated in mid-August, along with the finalized schedule.
About us: GLAS aims to provide a regional forum for scholars of Islamicate adab, particularly of the medieval and early modern periods, primarily based in the Great Lakes region of North America, to meet and share their work. We leave our parameters of language and genre intentionally open in order to invite as wide a collaboration as can be useful, but as a group we are generally interested in the literary production of the broad complex of premodern Muslim societies across the Eastern Hemisphere. This naturally includes the major Islamicate languages of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu, as well as many others (Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew, Spanish, etc.) that participate in similar literary conventions. We consider this comparative angle an essential part of our scholarly work. For more about GLAS and the work we have done in the past, please visit https://greatlakesadiban.github.io/; if you have any questions, you can email Cameron Cross at kchalipa [ at ] umich [ dot ] edu.
- July 18, 2020
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment