Archive for 2020

Profiles in Persecution: Abdulla Habib Swar – Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain

Abdulla was a student and a football player for Al-Shabab Club when he was arrested in 2019, after authorities pursued him for six years for his participation in the peaceful protest and religious events demanding democracy in 2013. Since his arrest, Abdulla has been tortured and convicted in unfair trials; …

For ADHRB Weekly Newsletter 343, click here.

The Struggle for the Soul of Twelver Shiʿism in Qajar Iran

Abstract From the 1770s onwards, there was a struggle for the soul of Shiʿism in Iran – a struggle over what the true nature of religion should be. On one side was the dominant Uṣūlī religious hierarchy, focused on the Shariʿa and asserting that its rationalist methodology was the path to true knowledge.

1.Workshop on “Cinema & Islam – How Filmmaking Shapes Islam and How Islam Shapes Filmmaking”, Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, London, 12 June 2020

The workshop examines the ways in which filmmakers explore Islam as a human and historical phenomenon characterized and constituted, not merely by immense variety and diversity, but by the prodigious presence of outright contradiction shaped by Muslims and Non-Muslims.

Information: https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/5856093/call-paper-creative-work-cinema-islam-how-filmmaking-shapes

 

 

 

 

2. BRISMES Annual Conference 2020: “Knowledge, Power and Middle Eastern Studies”, University of Kent, Canterbury, 29 June – 1 July 2020

In light of the rapidly-evolving public health situation connected to the COVID-19 outbreak, the BRISMES Annual Conference (29 June – 1 July 2020) has been postponed until 2021.

http://www.brismes.ac.uk/conference/postponed-brismes/

 

 

 

 

3. 49^th Annual Conference of the North American Association of Islamic and Muslim Studies (NAAIMS): “Diverse Approaches to Qur’anic Studies in the Western Academy”, George Washington University, Washington, DC, 25 September 2020

Papers might address the following questions: What Determines the Course Outline for Qur’anic Studies in the Western Academy and the Curricula for Qur’anic Studies in Muslim-Majority Nations? What Roles do Social Media Platforms Play in Understanding the Qur’an? How has Digitization of Texts Affected the Field of Qur’anic Studies? Etc.

Deadlines for abstracts: 20 April 2020. Information: https://naaims.org/

 

 

 

 

4. International Conference: “Musical Sources and Theories from Ancient Greece to the Ottoman Period”, Ruhr-University Bochum, 19-21 November 2020

Papers will focus on Arabic, Persian and Byzantine music theory, instruments and ways of transmission, with their roots in Ancient Greece and an outlook onto Ottoman and Safavid music. We encourage especially early career researchers to send their proposals.

Information: https://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/orient/aktuelles/index.html

 

 

 

 

5. Various Grants of the Istanbul Research Institute

The grants are offered for researchers working on projects related to its departments of Byzantine, Ottoman, Atatürk and Republican-Era studies, and its “Istanbul and Music” Research Program, including grants for PhD projects as well as travel und conference grants.

Deadline for applications: 11 May 2020. Information: https://en.iae.org.tr/Grants/18

 

 

 

 

6. PhD in History at Koç University in Istanbul

The History PhD program seeks to provide students with a strong grounding in the advanced study of history, especially in Ottoman history and the following areas: the Arab World (Greater Syria and Egypt), Europe (East and Southeast Europe including Russia and the former Soviet Union), the Eastern Mediterranean, and Turkey.

Deadline for application: 29 May 2020. Information: https://gsssh.ku.edu.tr/en/academics/history/program-overview/

 

 

 

 

7. CALL FOR PAPERS International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA)

Special Issue: “Hinterland Forces: Architectural Responses at the Margins”

Thematic volume planned for July 2022

Abstract submission deadline: 15 June 2020

The hinterland is a realm beyond the known, beyond the confines of the urban core, or beyond the acceptable iterations of religious praxis, cultural identity, political affiliation, and ways of being. The hinterland is a notional locale and a physical one, operating as a geographical reference, a spatial designator, and a conceptual frame. Those who stray or are forced into hinterland spaces may be at the frontiers of new thought, interactions, and technologies, but they are also at the margins. In current parlance, “marginality” describes a state that is the result of societal conditions that should be ameliorated. In other words, those at the centre (of power, urbanisation, settlement, scholarship, education, religious decision making, economic stability, etc.) have superior resources to those on the margins and may even be the source and cause of their peripheralisation. The marginalised may face state and societal pressure to conform or face punitive actions, including physical relocation, or the loss of access to important shrines, prayer spaces, schools, and other resources including hospitals, banks, and government offices. The architectures of persecuted, disadvantaged, and vulnerable people showcase unique adaptive strategies, which, in the writings of French thinker Michel de Certeau, reflect “tactics” that co-exist with the long-term and therefore spatially entrenched “strategies” of those in power (de Certeau, 1984).

 

This special issue of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture invites papers on architectural responses at the margins, including examinations of the forces that create the hinterland categories of marginalisation, the tactical approaches of the marginalised, and the strategic efforts to destroy sites, limit spatial agency and access, and control people. We particularly welcome papers on regions and communities not widely covered in the published record of Islamic architectures, sites and responses, including but not limited to western and coastal China, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. The margins are in constant flux; this is both the result of and cause for outright conflict and restrictive policies. Indeed, scholarly emphasis is sometimes determined by the accessibility of study sites and regions. Subjects that may exist beyond the traditional scholarly scope of the field and outside what is often considered the geographical heartland of the Islamic world, and work on those living at the extremities of cultural and doctrinal expectations for communities entrenched in either predominantly Muslim or majority non-Muslim surroundings are also welcome.

 

In the Islamic context, marginalization creates specific architectural responses that are often dynamic, transient, temporary, mobile, or executed in an everyday/vernacular idiom. Whether these are the mosques of the Uyghur minority in western China, the prayer rooms of Muslim students in Latin American universities, or the schools and dormitories of the recently besmirched Hizmet movement in Turkey, these sites and the people that make, care for, and use them are frequently at risk. Built environments made marginal, or made by or for the marginalised, can draw the ire of the central power structure, even long after the historical period of their construction. The iconoclastic destruction of shrines and manuscripts in Timbuktu, Mali in 2012 is a case in point. In other contexts, such buildings may escape the notice of those expecting “mainstream” approaches to religious and social life by providing hidden congregational spaces and sanctuaries for the people and activities within.

 

A number of historical Muslim communities formed on the outer reaches of the early Islamic world. Muslims settled seasonally and permanently along Chinese and Southern African coastal cities, on islands and peninsulas in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, and on the frontiers of sub Saharan trade routes, bringing Islamic beliefs and practices with them. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the move from empires to nation states, the end of colonial rule, and shifting sources of international financing have created heretofore unknown categories for people and their architectures in marginal zones. Social theories of the dichotomies between steppe and savannah, rural and urban, nomadic and settled, centre and periphery have been used as a framework for many historical studies. Yet, dynamic forces persistently cause people to interact and to intertwine their lives, so that populations grow and change. Ideas about “purity” in race, religious heritage, practice and behavior in Islamic society deny the social realities of the hinterland. Language, cuisine, doctrine, the use of space, and design preferences at the margins take on new aspects precisely because they are subject to hinterland forces. These innovations and adaptations are not always accepted by the broader community, or are seen as a threat by those in power.

 

Studies which examine the impacts of disenfranchisement and the structural conditions that lead to marginalization have strong applications in policy development. In the Islamic context, people on the margins may not fit societal expectations, may have made intentional moves to live outside the “centre,” or may have been forced into the hinterland by their governments, religious leaders, or neighbours. While the role of architecture is not typically central to these discussions, architecture is a significant marker of marginalisation. Social issues, political shifts, neoliberal policies, and transnational design questions are at the forefront of the contemporary built environment, and some aspects of design have abetted the creation of new margins. The term “Islamic” can be used to regulate and restrict design projects, a strategy that is emerging as states with Muslim governance are reacting against international policies and perceived amorality and heterodoxies.

 

Architectural technologies and media for monitoring spatial change are being used by scholars and activists to assemble data on the destruction of buildings, the movement of people, the shifting of boundaries, and the eradication of ecosystems. Open-source collaborations are positioning architectural approaches at the forefront of hinterland analysis, and while digital reporting once provided a kind of shield for those seeking to disseminate critical examinations of refugee landscapes, crimes against the vulnerable, and spaces of contention, activists and scholars of the marginalised are no longer beyond the surveillance of authorities who may detain, question, and deny them the ability to obtain travel papers and entry visas.

 

This special issue encourages case studies of architectural forces that have impacted people by relocating them to hinterland positions or emphasising their marginalisation, as well as architectures created, utilized, and envisioned by marginalised groups within the Islamic context. The issue particularly welcomes: scholarship from disciplines and methodological approaches that posit new definitions of what constitutes architecture and space or of what makes architecture “Islamic”; studies that combine statistical analysis and architecture or offer policy assessments alongside architectural matters; positions beyond the design and history of architecture fields (geography, anthropology, religious studies, linguistics and religious studies, gender and children and youth studies, musicology, sociological disciplines, and others); analysis of design solutions for people at the margins; projects at the “academic margins” (reporting on lived experience, traditional teachings on the environment, journalism).

 

Questions that might be addressed by contributors to this special issue are unlimited but might include:

1. What means are available to investigate the palimpsest left behind by sites that existed for a brief time, were confiscated and converted for other uses, or were razed and removed from the record, even the record of community memory?
2. What is the relationship between state and ethnic geographical margins and groups that gravitate away from doctrinal centrality?
3. How have postcolonial and post-secular tendencies impacted the built environment of the hinterland?
4. What are the possible architecturally-rooted relationships between poverty, labour, impermanence and tenuousness, and marginalisation?
5. How do marginalised communities access emergency services or participate in state and international policy formation during a disease pandemic or a natural disaster? How do such communities cope with legal, health, and supply issues within their own sectors?
6. How do marginalised spaces function when ties are severed to the historical archive of buildings, documents, and oral histories?
7. How do the areligious and antireligious function in devout societies, and how are believers marginalised amongst non-practising communities?
8. How are new technologies used in capturing, recording, and disseminating information about and from the margins, including photographic methods, satellite mapping, social media, and open-source collaborations?
9. Why are some subjects more readily available in the published record or course offerings?
10. How does focusing linguistic training for researchers on Arabic and Persian, or emphasizing connections to what are frequently called the “central” Islamic lands, seemingly push western Chinese, Southeast Asian, Sub-Saharan African, Eastern European, and Latin American Islamic architectures to the hinterlands of the publishing and scholarly realms of Islamic fields? Furthermore, do conference topics, journal entries, the parameters for research grants, and the wording of job applications support or defy what lies on the margins?
11. How do the margins operate, conceptually and physically, to quarantine people to certain sites and spaces?

Articles offering historical and theoretical analysis (DiT papers) should be between 6000 and 8000 words, and those on design and practice (DiP papers) between 3000 and 4000 words. Practitioners are welcome to contribute insofar as they address the critical framework of the journal. Urbanists, art historians, anthropologists, geographers, political scientists, sociologists, and historians are also welcome. Please send a title and a 400-word abstract to the guest editor, Dr. Angela Andersen (angela.andersen.53@gmail.com), by 15 June 2020. Authors of accepted proposals will be contacted soon thereafter and will be requested to submit full papers by 30 January 2021. All papers will be subject to blind peer review. For author instructions, please consult: www.intellectbooks.com/ijia

1. University of Chicago Press posts this notice on its website: “all e-books on our site are immediately available for direct purchase at 30% off using the EBOOK30 code at checkout.” (https://pressblog.uchicago.edu/2020/03/31/a-message-from-university-of-chicago-press-director-garrett-kiely.html)

 

 

 

2. CfP: The First International Online Conference on “Ethics and Inclusive Disasters (Focusing on Coronavirus Disease)”

 

Faculty of Religious Studies of Shahid Beheshti University,Tehran,Iran July 6th, 2020

 

The first international academic conference on “Ethics and Inclusive Disasters (Focusing on Coronavirus Disease)” is an academic event in ethical/moral studies. The conference will be held online by Shahid Beheshti University, in Tehran, Iran. All accepted abstracts/ papers will be published after double-blind peer review. This conference has five main aims:

1) Analyzing religious and moral challenges caused by the spread of coronavirus disease

2) Strengthening social tolerance and soothing the community

3) Helping the country’s health system in crisis situations

4) Helping governmental institutions in controlling and guiding society in crisis situations

5) Analyzing the behaviors and religiosity of contemporary man in the post-corona period

Conference Topics:

1. a) Medical ethics and the challenges of coronavirus disease
2. b) Media ethics and inclusive disasters
3. c) Political ethics and the duties of governments in the face of inclusive disasters
4. d) Inclusive disasters and religious moral lifestyle
5. e) Socio-economic ethics and inclusive diseases

 

Important Dates:

Abstract submission deadline: May 4th, 2020.

Final paper submission deadline: June 19th, 2020.

Conference online holding date: July 6th, 2020.

 

Email: ayenehmarefat@sbu.ac.ir

Phone number: 021- 22431785

 

 

 

 

3. Manchester University Press offers free access to its digital content of over 1,600 eBooks and journals.
It can be accessed through this platform: https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/

 

 

 

4. Middle East History. Wesleyan University’s History Department invites applications for a visiting assistant professor to teach the history of the Middle East. The position will run from September 1, 2020 until May 31, 2021.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled. Interviews for finalists will be conducted via Skype or Zoom.

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=60079

 

 

 

 

5. The Department of History at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, invites applications for two full-time assistant professors in the field of History of Science.

The candidates’ research record and teaching should focus on one of the following fields:

• History of science in the Islamic world from the Medieval or Early-Modern to the Modern era;
• History of science in the Ottoman World from the Medieval or Early-Modern to the Modern era;
• History of science in Europe and the US from the Medieval or Early-Modern to the Modern era.

 

 

The deadline for submitting applications is May 7, 2020.

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=60078

 

 

 

 

6. AMECYS Call for Papers:

Graduate Student Paper Prize

 

Submissions deadline:  Friday, May 1, 2020

The Association of Middle East Children’s and Youth Studies (AMECYS) calls graduate students engaged in the study of children and youth in the region to submit their papers to the AMECYS graduate student paper prize.

 

Papers can be submitted in any capacity that aligns with AMECYS’ mission statement:

The AMECYS is a private, non-profit, international association for scholars with an interest in the study of children and youth in the Middle East, North Africa and their diasporic communities. Through interdisciplinary programs, publications, and services, AMECYS promotes innovative scholarship, facilitates global academic exchange, and enhances public understanding about Middle Eastern children and youth in diverse times and places. 

 

Requirements for submission:

• Papers should not exceed 7,500 (excluding bibliographies and endnotes)
• The paper should never have been submitted for publication
• The format needs to include: Standard font, Double-spaced, 1” margins, IJMES standards for endnotes and transliteration
• Registered member of AMECYS
• Proof of registered graduate student enrolment for the 2019-2020 academic year may be requested at a later date

 

Send submissions as a pdf or word doc to Dylan.baun@uah.edu.

The AMECYS program chair and one other AMECYS board member will review all papers submitted by members of AMECYS that are received by the deadline of Friday, May 1.

For any queries, email AMECYS program chair at dylan.baun@uah.edu.

 

 

 

 

7. CFP: Catastrophes and Memory (500-1500 CE), 4th Edinburgh Conference in Late Antique, Islamic, and Byzantine Studies 19-20 November 2020

Disasters (natural, manmade or “supernatural”) shape historical memory and our understanding of the past. This conference focuses on the problematic relations between catastrophes and memory in Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine societies. Memory plays a crucial role in the way events are perceived, understood and narrated by different groups and elites: locals might see the conquest of their city as a catastrophe, while the conquerors portray the same as glorious or divinely inspired.We invite papers and posters that address issues and questions including, but not limited to:

• Natural/environmental: Plagues, earthquakes, famines/droughts, floods, fires,climate change
• Socio-cultural/linguistic: Iconoclasm, artistic and urban disruption/renewal, cultural vandalism, translation movements, language death and breaks in literary tradition
• Political/military: Conquests, coups, sieges, wars, revolts, revolutions, civil wars, usurpations, succession crises and religious/ “holy” wars (Crusade/Jihad)
• Religious: Heresies, schisms, theological or dogmatic conflict, new religions, apocalyptic traditions and eschatology
• Memory “devices” and strategies:How do memories of catastrophes manifest themselves in material culture, texts, images and other different sources? Where do we see evidence of intentional forgetting?
• Comparative/Interdisciplinary: Elites versus non-elite memory of catastrophes; geographical (Mediterranean and Eurasia); temporal (500-1500CE)
• The role of the 21st century cultural historian: What is and should be modern scholars’ role in situating catastrophe?

This conference will be hosted by the Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Society of the University of Edinburgh on November 19-20, 2020 in Edinburgh.We welcome papers and posters from postgraduate students and early career researchers from all disciplines with an interest in Late Antique, Islamic or Byzantine studies.

Papers: Presentation is 20 minutes in length, delivered in English.

Posters:Participants will present their research at a poster session. Dimensions should not exceed 70cm (width) x 100cm (height) and posters must be printed and brought by the author.We strongly encourage undergraduate, masters and first-year PhD students to summit posters of their dissertations or research.

To apply, please respond with an e-mail including whether you hope to present a paper or poster, an abstract of no more than 300 words, and a small academic biography of no more than 120 words to edibyzpg@ed.ac.uk.

The deadline for submitting papers and posters is June 15, 2020.

Registration Fees:

Students speakers: £15 before September 15, 2020; £20 after

Non-Students speakers: £35 before September 15, 2020; £40 after

(fee includes lunch both days)

We will publish a selection of the papers in a peer-reviewed volume that will bring together the strongest contributions in each area to produce an edited volume of high-quality, deep coherence and rich variety.

Any questions please address to edibyzpg@ed.ac.uk

 

From Attachment to a Sacred Figure to Loyalty to a Sacred Route: The Walking Pilgrimage of Arbaeen

Around 20 million Shia pilgrims shape one of the world’s biggest pilgrimages in Iraq, called “Arbaeen,” many of whom walk long distances to Karbala city as a part of the ritual every year.

Extended Call for Papers: “The Regulation of Purity (Ṭahāra) and Impurity (Najāsāt) in Islam: Practical, Socio-Ethical and Theological Implications” – Al-Mahdi Institute

In light of the current circumstances surrounding COVID-19, the Al-Mahdi Institute (AMI) has decided to virtually host its 8th Annual Contemporary Fiqhī Issues Workshop. As such, AMI has elected to extend the deadline, for the submission of abstracts, to Monday …

1.AIS (Association for Iranian Studies) 2020 Conference is Cancelled, But Plans to Reschedule are Underway

“Were you thinking that you needed more time to get that conference paper ready? Well, we got you covered.

For the past few weeks, AIS Executive Committee has been making contingency plans in the event that the COVID 19 pandemic made cancellation necessary. After consultations with our Conference Chair, Miguel Angel Andres Toledo, it is time to implement those plans.

Here is what you need to know now:

1) The AIS Conference scheduled for August 25-28, 2020 is cancelled.

2) Registration fees for AIS 2020 will be honored at the next conference.

3) The rescheduled conference will be at the University of Salamanca, Spain.

4) Awardees will be announced this year, but we’ll celebrate properly at the rescheduled conference.

It is still too soon for us to offer the precise dates for the rescheduled conference. We will advise on that as soon as possible. But, let us assure you of something: the registration fee you have paid will be honored at the next conference you are able to attend. So, if, for some reason, you cannot make the rescheduled conference, you can apply your registration to the next conference.

In the coming weeks, in addition to working on rescheduling the conference, we will be studying ways to support Iranian Studies activity in the near term. I hope to present those initiatives to you soon.

For those of you who were looking forward to an AIS conference in Spain, as I most certainly was, the good news is that we can still look forward to it. Our conference will come.

In the meantime, I know every single one of you is working extra hard to support your students, your communities, and your families through this crisis. In the midst of all that, academic study – even of something so dear to us as Iranian Studies in all its forms – may seem like a misplaced priority. But that is not so. History is so often the miserable tale of disasters and suffering. But, it also the story of people like you who reclaim our common humanity with every act of learning.

I look forward to hearing about your scholarly accomplishments during this difficult time, in person; and I will. So, stay well in the meantime.

Cam Amin

AIS President

 

 

 

 

2. Notice of a website (Atelier Ideas & Research) that curates an on-going list of digital map collections: https://www.air4edu.com/. 

There have been three episodes dropped so far to create a census of digital collections of maps / globes / atlasses, with a few more archives across the world:  https://www.air4edu.com/academic-life/maps-globes-and-plans-an-ongoing-census-of-free-digital-archives-3/

 

 

 

 

3. CFP: Online Symposium on “Epidemic Urbanism: Reflections on History”

 

Epidemic illnesses—not only a product of biology, but also social and cultural phenomena—are as old as cities themselves. The recent pandemic of COVID-19 has put into perspective the impact of epidemic illness on urban life, and exposed the vulnerabilities of the societies it ravages as much as the bodies it infects. How can epidemics help us understand urban environments? What insights from the outbreak, experience, and response to previous urban epidemics might inform our understanding of COVID-19?

 

These questions in mind, we are organizing an online symposium in May 2020 to bring together academics from a range of disciplines to present case studies from across the globe to demonstrate how cities in particular are not just the primary place of exposure and quarantine, but also the site and instrument of intervention. Presentations will be informal, brief (7-10 minutes), and illustrated with 2-4 slides.

 

We welcome presentations on a range of illnesses and epidemics, geographies, time periods, urban interventions, observations on the impact of these epidemics on society and urban life, and insights to understand, critique, or complexify the conception of and response to COVID-19.

 

Each presentation should tell the story of a city, an outbreak of illness, and the city’s response to the epidemic. For example:

• What notable interventions or actions were implemented? With what effect?
• What impact did the epidemic have on urbanism, urban design, and urban planning?
• What impact did the epidemic have on architecture in the short and long term?
• What impact did the built environment have on the epidemic, or the experience of illness?

Our goal is to create a venue to use history as a medium to provide a better understanding of the current crisis.  Especially welcome are proposals by historians, public health experts, art/architectural historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and medical experts. The proposals should address the following:

 

• The idea of an epidemic or widespread illness in the geographical context you study;
• The employment of urban design, architecture, landscape, and/or experience in response to the illness or the epidemic;
• The insight(s) your case study can offer to understanding today’s COVID-19 pandemic and response.

 

Proposals can be sent to Dr. Mohammad Gharipour, Morgan State University (mohammad@gatech.edu) and Dr. Caitlin DeClercq, Columbia University (cd3100@columbia.edu) by April 10, in 200-250 words.  After proposals are reviewed, the symposium organizers will coordinate with accepted presenters to finalize a date and time for this event.

 

 

 

 

4. International Doctoral Conference in Religious Studies: “Resistance to Order and Authority in Religion“, Central European University, Budapest, 25-27 June 2020

The conference invites contributions studying the conceptualization, management and instrumentalization of religious ideas and beliefs with regard to past and contemporary resistance movements.

Information: https://religion.ceu.edu/crs-elte-masaryk-phd-conference-25-27-june-2020

 

 

 

 

5. 15^th International Congress of Ottoman Social and Economic History (ICOSEH), University of Zagreb, 13-17 July 2020

The Congress will address various aspects of the economic and social history of the Ottoman Empire as well as any aspects of the Ottomans and the Mediterranean and the Ottomans and Central Europe.

Information: https://networks.h-net.org/node/11419/discussions/4222924/icoseh-zagreb-2020-cfp

 

 

 

 

6. Workshop: “Trembling and Inundation: Natural Disasters in the History and Culture of West Asia and North Africa”, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lancashire, 8 September 2020

What happens to our understandings of histories, societies and cultural production when human activity is interrupted by earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, droughts and plagues? What do these mighty forces, impacting on all, irrespective of social position, but experienced differently according to it, tell us about societies? This workshop is intended to facilitate intensive discussion with the aim of producing a published collection.

Information: https://sarahirving0.wixsite.com/tremblingsinundation

 

 

 

7. 27^th International Congress of the German Middle East Studies Association for Contemporary Research and Documentation (DAVO), University of Osnabrück, 24-26 September 2020

Papers are invited in social sciences and humanities related to the Middle East, North Africa and the entire Islamic World.

Deadline for abstracts of papers and closed panels: 15 July 2020.

Information: https://www.iit.uos.de/davo2020 (click on English version).

 

 

 

 

8. Meeting of the European Network for the Study of Islam and Esotericism (ENSIE): “Islamic Esotericism in Global Contexts”, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, 24-26 September 2020

The aim is to consider the relationship between Islam and esotericism, and Islamic esotericism, in a global context, shifting the emphasis not only from Western perspectives, but also being more inclusive of the experience of Islam beyond the Arabo-Persian domains.

Deadline for submissions: 1 May 2020. Information: http://ensie.site/conferences.html

 

 

 

 

9. Summer School: “Cultural Encounters and Ibadi Theological Developments” and Workshop: “Assessing the Study of Early Ibadi Sources: Methodologies, Developments and Perspectives”, University of Tuebingen, 7-11 September 2020

The Summer School will focus on text studies (early sources) bearing on the emergence and early development of Ibadi theological thinking within the culturally and religiously multifaceted context and spectrum of Early Islam. The workshop is intended to pay tribute to the contribution which Professor van Ess made to research and study particularly on Early Ibadi sources.

Deadline for abstracts: 19 May 2020. Information: https://ibadistudies.org/index.php/summer-school/37-application-details-for-the-2nd-summer-school

 

 

 

 

10. Articles on “Constructing Islam: Politization of Muslim Identity in the Contemporary World“ for Special Issue of “Islamology – Journal for Studies of Islam and Muslim Societies”

Authors are invited to examine the phenomenon of politicization of Muslim identity: on the one hand, what image is being shaped in different sectors of public space? and, on the other hand, how does the Muslim community react to the set frames? In what cases and why does a certain community position itself as ‘Muslim’?

Deadline for abstracts: 1 June 2020. Information: https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/6074071/special-issue-constructing-islam-politization-muslim-identity

 

 

 

 

11. Articles on “Religious Transformation in the Middle East – Spirituality, Religious Doubt, and Non-religion” for Special Edition of Journal “Religions”

This Special Issue looks to compose a cross section of current work in social science, religious studies, and related fields on Islam/religion and non-religion in the Arab World. It aims at collecting case studies that offer carefully contextualized explorations, grounded in theoretically informed analyses.

Deadline for manuscripts: 1 December 2020.

Information: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/Religious_Arab

 

 

 

 

12. Articles for “CyberOrient – Online Journal of the Virtual Middle East and Islamic World”

The peer-reviewed and open-access journal of the American Anthropological Association is devoted to research on the impact of cyberspace and its representation on the Middle East, North Africa and wider Islamic world in Asia.

Deadline for articles: 1 June 2020. Information: https://cyberorient.net

 

 

 

13. University of Pennsylvania Press e-books available for free download through 30 June 2020

Link to the main Penn Press search page: https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/catalog.html. Note: for most of its books, Penn Press doesn’t sell the e-book directly. For that, you have to go to its “Partners” page (https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/about/ebooks.html). One can find material, for example, through the University Press Content Consortium page.

 

 

 

Profiles in Persecution: Abbas Ismaeel Ghuloom – Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain

Abbas Ismaeel Ghuloom was a professional football player in Bahrain, having played for the Manama Club and the national team between the years 2000 and 20O2. He graduated from Ahlia University and worked as an accountant in the Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait for seven years. In March 2011, he …

For ADHRB Weekly Newsletter 341, click here.

[Editor’s note: I will continue to circulate this ‘academic items’ list but please note that I am unable to know if any items are going on, postponed or even cancelled. My advice is to check the website/email address(es) given for each. Stay healthy!]

 

1.Workshop: “Travelling Practices and the Emergence of Tourism in the Middle East (16^th-20^th Centuries), Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Vienna, 12-13 June 2020

This workshop will analyse travel literature (travelogues and guidebooks) from the 16^th to the 20^th centuries with regard to the practices, patterns and significations of travel. In shifting the focus to routine and mundane aspects of travelling, it will serve to place travel narratives in a relational framework combining basic questions of infrastructure and transportation with the movements and pathways of individual travellers.

Information: https://travelmena.univie.ac.at

 

 

 

2. 24^th Conference of the Comité International des Études Pré-Ottomanes et Ottomanes, Thessaloniki, 23-27 June 2020

The aim is to provide a platform of a high scholarly level, which will promote the knowledge and sustain the memory of Ottoman history. Panels and individual papers will focus on the following topics: the Ottoman Empire in the Age of Revolutions; Sources: New Interpretations and Approaches; etc.

Information: https://www.univie.ac.at/ciepo/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/CIEPO24_1st_Circular.pdf

 

 

 

 

3. 9^th International Conference: “The Dynamics of Change in the Pakistan-Afghanistan Region: Politics, (Dis)integration and Reformation in the Borderland,” University of Peshawar, Baragali, 24-26 June 2020

Papers are invited on: War, Genre, and Critique; Religion, Difference, and Violence; Law, Human Rights and Gender Rights; Democratic Governance, Public Space, and Resistance; Youth and Radicalization; Economic Transformation and Development; Migration, Diaspora, Refugees, and Internally Displaced Persons; Politics of Identities; etc.

Deadline for abstracts: 10 April 2020. Information: http://www.uop.edu.pk/events/?q=526

 

 

 

 

4. Conference of the Working Group “Ethnology of Reiligion“ of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 6-9 September 2020

The conference wants to draw closer to the current as well as historical dynamics of the “religion-nature” interdependence and thus to the cultural ecologies of beliefs. We are interested in a broad set of questions and research foci, i.e.: how do religions and religious communities in past or present symbolically and ritually articulate and negotiate relationships with their immediate and distant environment? What role do other species – i.e. animals, plants – play within religious (knowledge) systems and practices? Etc.

Information: https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/5651674/religion-and-nature-–-cultural-ecologies-belief

 

 

 

 

5. 4^th “European Convention on Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish Studies“ (Turkologentag 2020), University of Mainz, 16-18 September 2020

The conference is organized by the Society for Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish Studies (GTOT) in co-operation with the Chair of Turcology of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and addresses the domains of language, literature, history, culture, society, politics, and philology of the Turks and the Turkic peoples.

Information: http://www.turkologentag-2020.de

 

 

 

 

6. Annual Meeting of the “International Qur’anic Studies Association (IQSA 2020)“, Boston, MA, 20-23 November 2020

Program Units include: The Qur’an: Manuscripts and Textual Criticism; Linguistic, Literary, and Thematic Perspectives on the Qur`anic Corpus; The Societal Qur`an; Qur`anic Studies: Methodology and Hermeneutics; etc.

Information: https://iqsaweb.wordpress.com/call-for-papers-iqsa-annual-meeting-2020/

 

 

 

 

7. International Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī Symposium, Sivas Cumhuriyet University, Sivas, 20-22 May 2021

Topics include: • Linguistics • Logic • Tafsīr • Astronomy • Mathematics • Medicine • Geography • Philosophy • Illuminationism • Sufism • Kalām • Music • Ethics and Political Theory • Shīrāzī in Manuscripts and Book Culture Studies • Commentaries (Shurūḥ, ḥawāshī, taʻlīqāt) • Scholarly Networks and Ijāzatnāmas • Urban Studies; etc.

Deadline for abstracts: 30 May 2020. Information: http://kutbuddinsirazi.cumhuriyet.edu.tr/en/index.php

 

 

 

 

8. Awards and Prizes of the “Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association (OTSA)” 

Applications and submissions are invited for two book prices (each $ 1000), a graduate student paper prize ($ 200) and travel grants ($ 500).

Deadline for applications: 30 April 2020 and later.

Information: https://www.ottomanturkishstudiesassociation.org/awards-prizes/

 

 

 

 

9. Two-year English-language M.A. Program in “Ottoman History”, University of Crete and Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas

The program consists of 5 history courses (four in Ottoman History, and one in Medieval or Modern History); 4 Turkish language courses; 4 Ottoman language and palaeography courses. Students are required to write an original M.A. thesis based on the critical analysis of Ottoman archival, epigraphic or narrative sources. No tuition fees.

Deadline for application: 6 April 2020. Information: http://www.history-archaeology.uoc.gr/en/graduate-studies/programs-of-post-graduate-studies/joint-english-language-m-a-program-in-ottoman/?lang=en

 

 

 

 

10. Summer School “The Middle East: Power and Ideology”, LSE, University of London, 22 June – 10 July 2020

The course will examine the regional politics of the Middle East since 1918 and their interaction with problems of international security, global resources and great power/superpower/hyperpower policies. It will also deal with more recent developments such as the 2011 Arab uprisings and their consequences.

Deadline for applications: 25 May 2020.

Information: https://www.soas.ac.uk/summerschool/subjects/the-middle-east-in-global-politics/

 

 

 

 

11. Articles for Book on “The Effects of Pandemics on Religious History” (Focus Islamic and Jewish History) Edited by Global Center for Religious Research

We welcome both industry leaders and scholars from any discipline related to religious studies, the natural or social sciences, theology, and history. Proposals may include any topic related to the impact of pandemics, diseases, or pestilence.

Deadline for abstracts: 1 July 2020. Information: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/42N4DTvxM?fbclid=IwAR0Ch2t9sSoakJaud98ysCdSAFDyOX7ia5Kij0muKg7_vLuEFn9UMUPPWZU#/main