Archive for September, 2021

1. ONLINE Lecture Series: “Fabrics of Devotion: Religious Textiles in the Eastern Mediterranean”, Orient-Institut Istanbul, 29 September, 13 and 20 October 2021

The aim of this lecture series is to enquire into the intricacies of religious history and local forms of devotion in the Eastern Mediterranean through the medium of textiles. What insights can be gained by exploring tex-tiles – their making, their use and ritual, and their multi-layered meanings – as a source for the study of religion?

Information and registration: https://www.oiist.org/fabrics-of-devotion/

 

 

 

 

2. ONLINE Webinar: “Activism in Exile: Diasporic Communities in the Wake of the Arab Uprisings”, Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University Qatar, 30 September 2021, 12:00 pm ET

This panel of scholars, activists, and practitioners seeks to explore the demography of the recent diasporas, their forms of community organization, and modes of political mobilization. This panel asks what is “new” about these recently formed exiled communities, especially in light of the historical legacies of political or-ganization by diaspora communities since the latter half of the twentieth century.

Information: https://www.thearabuprisings.org.

Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9ZRegLibQhilNrV3DYE_qw

 

 

 

 

3. ONLINE Lecture: “Different Forms of Othering: Arab Diaspora Social Media in Sweden: Site of Information or Site of Struggle?”, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, 30 September 2021, 5:15 pm CEST

The lecture focuses on platforms where one can examine the identities of migrants and critically analyse the discourses and ideologies emerging in the texts in commentary sections.

Information and registration: https://ccrs.ku.dk/calendar/2021/different-forms-of-othering/

 

 

 

 

4. ONLINE Lecture Series on “Middle Eastern Media, Diaspora and Politics Post-Arab Spring”, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, 30 September, 7, 14, 21 October 2021, 5:15 pm CET

Information and registration: https://ccrs.ku.dk/research/centres-and-projects/mediatizeddiaspora/lecture-series/

 

 

 

 

5. “Tenth Islamic Legal Studies Conference” by the International Society for Islamic Legal Studies (ISILS), Aga Khan University, London, 19-21 May 2022

The conference will be open topic – abstracts on all aspects of Islamic law, from earliest to most recent times, are welcome.

Deadline for abstracts: 31 October 2021. Information: https://isils.net/isils/call-for-papers/

 

 

 

6. Lecturer (Education Focused) in Arabic Language and Culture, School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews

Qualification: Previous teaching experience, full professional competency in Arabic and English, and exper-tise in the delivery of classes/lectures in modern standard Arabic and modern/contemporary Arabic culture for a fixed-term (one year) position.

Deadline for applications: 19 October 2021. Information: https://www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/5534/0/314610/889/lecturer-education-focused-in-arabic-language-and-culture-ao1745sb

 

 

 

7. Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory University

Disciplinary, regional, and chronological parameters are open; a focus on material culture and excellent rel-evant language skills are strongly preferred. Applicants should be able to teach survey courses in Ancient Near Eastern Studies and introduction to Middle Eastern Civilizations.

Deadline for applications: 1 November 2021. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/94849

 

 

 

8. New Series: Routledge Studies in Islam and Human Rights

The critical events in the Arab countries and the ongoing discussion of the compatibility of Islamic teachings and institutions with modern human rights norms and the place of Sharia in public life inside and outside Muslim-majority countries underscore the need for rigorous, critical research focusing on Islam and human rights.

Information: https://ahmed.souaiaia.com/research/routledge-studies-in-islam-and-human-rights/

 

 

 

 

9. The British Library: The art of small things (4): Juz’ markers in Qur’an manuscripts from Southeast Asia

 

 

 

 

10. Mejlis Institute Fall 2021 Intensive ONLINE Persian Courses 

Mejlis Institute, Armenia-based NGO, is inviting applications for semester-long intensive online Persian courses for Beginner/Lower Intermediate and Upper Intermediate/Advanced level students. The courses, lasting for twelve weeks between October 4 and December 23, 2021 are designed for students who would like to make fast progress in Persian and become acquainted with different aspects of the culture and society of modern Iran.

For more information, please visit https://mejlisinstitute.org/semester-persian-courses.

 

 

 

 

11. The Portrait of Abu l-Qasim al-Baghdadi al-Tamimi

E. Selove, et al., eds.,

Gibb Memorial Trust, 2021

 

 

 

 

12. Islamic Matters in Africa and the Colonial Atlantic

The Launch of the Islam, the Humanities, and the Human Working Group
Featuring Prita Meier (NYU) and R.A. Judy (University of Pittsburgh)

Friday, October 1, 2021 at 11:30 AM EST on Zoom

The Islam, the Humanities and the Human Working Group seeks to contribute to the development of a transformative Humanities at Rutgers-Newark by offering a space for faculty and students to engage with the breadth and depth of Islamic history and Muslim societies. During the 2021-2022 year, the faculty seminar will hold a series of readings, conversations, and invited lectures around the inaugural theme, “Islamic Matters in Africa and the Colonial Atlantic.” This theme brings together the study of material culture with intellectual history and humanistic expression. Through a focus on Africa and the colonial Atlantic, the theme seeks to displace “the Muslim question” from its geographic confinement in the Middle East and its ethnic association with Arab identity. This geographical focus will also create links between African studies and Middle Eastern studies, two fields traditionally separated by the historical boundaries of area studies. The theme will focus on material objects, from manuscripts and devotional objects to photography and fine art, forging interdisciplinary connections between the historians, literary scholars, and art historians in the group. Bridging these disciplinary divides and unsettling conventional representations of Islam will invite new reflection on what diverse human experiences and how Islam, as a global phenomenon, teach us about what it means to be human.

For more information, visit our website: https://sites.rutgers.edu/islam-humanities/

To register for the event: https://rutgers.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qJJlN58SQPauANlmrvoWZg

 

 

 

13. Great Lakes Adiban 2021 Workshop – Schedule and Registration

We are pleased to announce the schedule for the 2021 Great Lakes Adiban Workshop, hosted by the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor! The workshop is free and open to all, and participants can attend either in person or via Zoom. Click here for the flyer (feel free to redistribute), and read on for the full schedule. If you have any questions, please email greatlakesadibansociety at gmail.com.

• Dates and Times:
  Saturday, October 9, 9:00am–3:30pm EDT
  Sunday, October 10, 9:00am–4:00pm EDT
• Physical Location:
  2022 South Thayer Building
  202 South Thayer St
  Ann Arbor, MI 48104 [link to map] (street parking readily available)
• Remote Participation:
  Click here to register in advance. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

 

 

 

14. News from the ‘Invisible East’ Project

We are hiring: If you have (or know someone who does): a PhD or near-PhD, classical Persian skill, and savviness in Digital Humanities, and want to work with our fantastic team in Oxford, please apply and/or share with your network. Details and application form are

here: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CJL461/research-associate-persdoc-project

Our first conference this week: Digital humanities and textual research in medieval languages will be the focus of the presentations delivered by colleagues working on 15 DH projects, starting in two days’ time, and running this Thursday and Friday (30 September and 1 October 2021). Participation is free, but registration is required. To register, please click here.

New tools: we have added two innovative graphics on our website this week: 1) a story map through which you can explore the documents we are studying in the programme, and a timeline of the earliest Persian writing. Both can be accessed through our home page!

 

 

Performing Iran: Culture, Performance, Theatre – B. Rahimi, ed.
Bloomsbury, 2021
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/performing-iran-9781784535612/

Chapter 3 on Taziyeh maybe of interest to colleagues working on Muharram studies.

Chapter 3. The Question of Audience in Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘A look to Taziyeh’ –
Babak Rahimi (University of California, San Diego, USA)

1.The International Journal of Islamic Architecture is pleased to announce the

Professor Hasan-Uddin Khan Article Award
In honour of Professor Hasan-Uddin Khan’s contributions to the field of Islamic architecture, the International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA) offers this award in recognition of ground-breaking scholarship on the subject published in peer-reviewed journals. The criteria on which papers will be judged are: innovation in approach(es) to posed research question(s), originality, written clarity and style, and the overall impact on research in the field. Articles should provide new insights into the field, making a distinct or significant scholarly contribution to the understanding of architecture, architectural heritage, and the built environment in the Islamic world (both historic and contemporary), especially in marginalized geographies. This award will be offered every two years and the jury will include three members of the academic community. The inaugural award will be given in 2022 and we are delighted that Professors Renata Holod, Abidin Kusno, and D. Fairchild Ruggles will serve on the first jury. Papers published in English in a peer reviewed journal in 2020 or 2021 will be eligible for the first award.

Nominations should be submitted by scholars or journal editors to IJIA Associate Editor Mehreen Chida-Razvi at HUKaward@gmail.com by 30 November 2021. Self-nominations are permitted. The nominations should include a PDF of the published paper, full details of publication, and the author’s affiliation and contact information. The winner will be announced in March 2022 on the IJIA website, social media platforms, and in the journal’s July issue. In addition, they will receive a cash prize of $1000 as well as a two-year subscription to IJIA. The winner will be announced in March 2022.

—————

Academic Editor of IJIA from 2012–21, Hasan-Uddin Khan is an architect trained at the AA in London and a writer who has worked and lived all over the globe. He considers himself a modern nomad who believes in crossing boundaries – both geographic and disciplinary. Professor Khan was founder and Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Mimar: Architecture in Development. He helped form the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1977 and was its second Convenor and a Steering Committee member. He coordinated His Highness the Aga Khan’s worldwide architectural activities between 1984 and 1994. After being a Visiting Associate Professor at MIT, he joined Roger Williams University in 1999 as Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Historic Preservation and twice was a Visiting Professor at Berkeley during his sabbaticals. He is now Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Roger Williams University. Professor Khan has served as on several international architecture juries, lectures widely and is the editor/author of nine books and over sixty published articles.

 

 

 

 

2. Manuscripts in Arabic Script: Introduction to Codicology

This online course, offered by the Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC),  aims to introduce key concepts in the field of Arabic manuscripts and codicology. It is designed to attract participants who want to learn basic knowledge about Arabic manuscripts. The first day will provide an overview of the field of codicology and its role in the manuscript field in general and in identifying key features of manuscripts in particular. The second session will be dedicated to writing supports, the structure of quires, ruling and page layout, bookbinding, ornamentation, tools and materials used in bookmaking, and the palaeography of book hands. Some practical examples will be given based on the lecturers’ long experiences. The second day will focus on the importance of manuscripts in research. While the first session will cover the paratextual features in the Arabic manuscripts, the second session will demonstrate the different approaches in editing manuscripts.
This introductory course is intended for students, researchers, and librarians who wish to increase their knowledge in the manuscript field. 
Learning Outcomes

– Basic understanding of the field of Arabic manuscript studies

– Identify the role of manuscripts in knowledge production in different areas of studies in Muslim cultures.

Download course structure.
Course Convenors

Dr Walid Ghali is the Head of the Aga Khan Library, London, Associate Professor of Islamic and Arabic studies at the Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations and a Chartered Librarian of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). Dr Ghali received his PhD in Islamic Manuscript Studies from the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University (2012). Dr Ghali’s current research projects focus on Islamic manuscript traditions, particularly in Arabic script and book history. He has published on Arabic literature, Sufi traditions and Islamic manuscripts cultures.

Dr Anne Regourd is researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris, France. She has published extensively in the fields of history and philology dealing with codicology, paper studies, and papyrology. She is the editor of book, The Trade in Papers Marked with Non-Latin Characters, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 2018, and heads the free access online journal, Nouvelles Chroniques du Manuscrit au Yémen.

Dr Eléonore Cellard is a specialist in Qurʾānic manuscripts. She started her research activities in 2008 under the supervision of Professor François Déroche. In 2015, she submitted her dissertation entitled The Written Transmission of the Qur’an: Study of a Corpus of Manuscripts from the 2nd Century AH/ 8th Century CE (INALCO/EPHE). She has collaborated on several international projects about Qurʾānic manuscripts, and recently carried out a research project on one of the Qurʾān copies attributed to the caliph ʿUthman ibn Affan’. She has also authored several monographs and articles on Qurʾānic manuscripts.
Date and Time 

15-16 November 2021, 11:00-15:00 (London Time).
Tickets and Booking

Tickets: £80 professionals | £50 students, AKU alumni and staff. Book as soon as possible.

*The course will be delivered via Zoom. Further details will be provided later upon registration. 

 

 

 

 

3. University of Dayton, Ohio – Assistant Professor Specializing in Middle Eastern or North African History
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=61934

Applicants must complete their application by 11:55 PM EST October 18, 2021.

 

 

 

4. MIT – Tenure-track faculty position in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA) in the Department of Architecture

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=61964 

Deadline: Oct 30, 2021

 

 

 

 

5. Webinar – THE BODY OF THE MERCHANT: ART AND EXPERIENCE IN THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION
Wednesday, September 29th, 12:30pm ET

 Silsila Fall 2021 Lecture Series

From the early thirteenth century traders from Italian mercantile families started travelling eastward, to the European frontiers, to areas such as Crimea in the northern Black Sea region, where commercial outposts served as markets for trading goods with Eurasia and beyond. The lecture centers on the experience of those traders, focusing on metalwork and the way it shaped discourse regarding art, heritage, and the indigenous, both in the European frontiers and “back home” in Italy’s domestic spaces.

Full details of the event and a link to register as an attendee can be found at:

https://as.nyu.edu/silsila/events/2021-2022/the-body-of-the-merchant—art-and-experience-in-the-commercial-.html

Only registered attendees will be able to access this event

 

 

 

 

6. Ernst Herzfeld Award

for Master Theses in Islamic Art History and Archaeology

Call for Applications

Deadline November 15, 2021

The Ernst Herzfeld-Gesellschaft für Islamische Kunst und Archäologie | Ernst Herzfeld Society for Studies in Islamic Art and Archaeology is pleased to announce the second edition of the Ernst Herzfeld Award for Master Theses in Islamic Art History and Archaeology. The aim of the award is to encourage and support young scholars in Europe who are working on visual and material culture of Islamic countries in the fields of Art History, Archaeology, and Building Archaeology (Bauforschung). The Ernst Herzfeld Award highlights the diversity and innovation of current research in these growing fields. The successful candidate is honored at the annual colloquium of the Ernst Herzfeld Society, offered a full travel grant to present their master thesis at the colloquium, and is granted publication of the presented paper in the series of the Society, Beiträge zur Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie (BIKA).

Eligibility:

• Outstanding master thesis (MA, Master, M.phil., and similar) on a topic situated within the research fields of History of Islamic Art and Architecture, Islamic Archaeology, or Building Archaeology (Bauforschung) on Islamic Architecture.
• The thesis must have been written and supervised at a European university. For this call, theses are eligible that were fully reviewed and marked in the timeframe between January 1, 2019 and October 31, 2021.
• Accepted languages of the thesis are: German, English, French, Italian, and Spanish.

 

Application procedure:

• Applicants are proposed by the supervisor of the MA thesis.
• Applications include 1) the complete MA thesis as a PDF document and as it was submitted; 2) a summary in English (3 pages); 3) a letter of recommendation in English by the proposing supervisor; and 4) the original official review/evaluation of the thesis for/by the university, at which it was submitted.

 

Review Procedure:

• The review procedure is jointly organized by the award and steering committees and the advisory board of the Ernst Herzfeld Society.
• Proposing supervisors are excluded from the review procedure and the peer-review.
• Applications fulfilling the criteria of eligibility will go through a double blind peer-review by the joint committees and by external reviewers.

 

Submission:

Please send the complete application by November 15, 2021 to award@ernst-herzfeld-gesellschaft.com

Notification:

Applicants will be notified about the outcome of the evaluation process by March 15, 2022.

 

 

 

 

7. Tolerance and Risk

How U.S. Liberalism Racializes Muslims

Mitra Rastegar

University of Minnesota Press, 2021

https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/9781517904852/tolerance-and-risk/

 

 

 

8. The Centre for the Study of Islam (at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies here in Exeter) is pleased to announce its new series of online events, the Monday Majlis. The first 4 majalis are linked below – 4 more will be advertised in late October.  All members of the Islamic Studies -community are welcome to attend – pre-registration is required – here is the blurb:

The CSI Monday Majlis is a Monday evening, online event, where invited speakers present on aspects of their current research.  This may be a book they have recently published, a new project they are working on, or an exciting new potential avenue of Islamic studies research.  They take place Mondays, online 1700-1830 UK time.

To register, click on the links below (separate links and separate registration for each Majlis).

4^th October: Professor Ahmed El Shamsy (Chicago University) will speak about his recent publication Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How editors and Print culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition (Princeton, 2020).

To register click here: https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0kce-spjwpGdHnnCzIFCOohI6pPzsojcAi

18^th October: Dr Nizamuddin Ahmed (Honorary Research Fellow) studies with us passages from Ibn ʿArabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam – this is the first of two sessions led by Dr Ahmed. This will be an Arabic texts reading session.

To register click here: https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYtcOqhqjspE9Z01vJCjv0QtfYV6gyFfkPO

25^th October: Dr Arezoo Azad (University of Oxford) will speak about the Sacred Landscapes of Medieval Afghanistan, and he project on the Afghan document collection (the so-called Afghan geniza).

To register click here: https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUlcOutqz4qGtCMq1WrrlfBB6OTepUKNnAB

1^st November: Dr Bianka Speidl (Budapest) will talk about her new book Islam as Power: Shi‛i Revivalism in the Oeuvre of Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah (Routledge 2020).

To register click here: https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUtf-qvqT8oHtySTlXHEhcmPRlFPOtmJtTb

In line with University of Exeter online seminar regulations:
1. Registration is open until 1700 UK TIME on the day BEFORE of the seminar.
2. You will receive the link to join the seminar on the morning of the seminar.
3. You will need to use the same email to join the seminar as you did to register.
4. Please add the date to your calendar now, as you will not receive a confirmatory email (and link) that you have registered until the day of the seminar.

 

 

 

9. 30 September 2021 Event – Digitalising Borders

AKU ISMC

Population Surveillance, the Body, and Mobility

Digitalising Borders

30 September 2021

Governance Programme Dialogue Series 2021/2022: Population Surveillance, the Body, and Mobility
The series examines twenty-first century population surveillance (ID cards, passports, checkpoints, and policing) in the Global South and/or spaces of its intersection with the Global North. It examines how population surveillance has been transformed through new technologies, whilst also seeking to uncover continuities with the colonial past/present. It asks how do forms of population surveillance today affect the body, movement, and power?
Lecture 1: Digitalising Borders

Join us for a session on Digitalising Borders that brings together a conversation between two prominent scholars whose work on space, technology, and mobility pushes us to examine the unequal, violent, and racialised nature of borders today.

Speakers

Polly Pallister-Wilkins is an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics, University of Amsterdam. As a political geographer, her research focuses primarily on humanitarian responses to border violence and mobility injustice. She is the author of the forthcoming Humanitarian Borders: Unequal Mobility and Saving Lives (Verso) as well as a number of articles looking at what she calls humanitarian borderwork with a specific focus on the Mediterranean and the Greek hotspots. Growing from this, her current research is concerned with what black radical — especially feminist — traditions and indigenous knowledges can offer for decolonialising humanitarianism.

Helga Tawil-Souri is a media scholar whose work focuses on the overlaps between spatiality, technology, and politics with a particular focus on Palestine/Israel. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication and the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University.
Chair

Sanaa Alimia is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations.

Date and Time

30 September 2021, 17:00 – 18:30 (London).

Registration

Join us online via Zoom by registering here.

 

 

 

10. The Alwaleed Centre, University of Edinburgh, is delighted to be offering a special series of four webinars exploring climate change and climate action across the Muslim world to mark the forthcoming COP26 UN Climate Change Conference. 

‘Environmentalism and the Muslim World’ will bring together leading academics, experts, practitioners, and activists in the fields of religion, politics, and social science to highlight diverse climate change issues and climate action across the Muslim world.

This free series will be hosted online via Zoom and further details, including registration, can be found here: www.alwaleed.ed.ac.uk/cop26

 

 

 

11. CfP: Under-Mapped Spaces: New Methods and Tools for Critical Storytelling with Maps (Workshop)

“Under-Mapped Spaces: New Methods and Tools for Critical Storytelling with Maps,” an intensive, student-designed workshop for emerging scholars. The workshop will be held from February 28-March 4, 2022 at Stanford University, and is co-hosted by the David Rumsey Map Center and Stanford Geospatial Center, and Branner Earth Sciences Library and Map Collections.

Cartography continues to reproduce and amplify global inequalities in the production of knowledge. Drawing on Stanford’s rich map collections, this initiative aims to apply cutting-edge digital tools to the creation of compelling, accessible, and ethical narratives about “under-mapped” spaces.

Graduate student applicants may want to consider one or more of the following questions as a point of departure:

• How have racism, sexism, economic exploitation, and imperialism contributed to the privileging of certain cartographies over others? What are the consequences of this for knowledge production?
• How have the cartographic contributions of indigenous populations and the economically marginalized been collected and examined? How do the legacies of this appropriation affect our understanding of the history of places today?
• How have the past half-century of technological innovations and the accessibility of maps affected cartographic production? In an age of surveillance, what is underexplored?
• How have imagined cartographies conditioned the ways that people think about places? How have these fantastical expectations shaped cartographic practices and historical outcomes?
• How can ephemeral lived experience–seasons, migrations, populations—be mapped? Can map design improve our ability to recognize emergence, lifetimes, and loss?

Participants will select a historical map from the Stanford collections linked to their own area of research. The five-day workshop presents an opportunity to use that map to reexamine the politics of cartography, develop new digital skills (ArcGIS, Leaflet, Wax), and explore innovative ways to incorporate critical storytelling with maps for classroom and public audiences. Sessions will include hands-on digital workshops on multiple platforms, public lectures, coworking sessions, and seminar-style discussions that engage the ethical questions underlying our work. Following the workshop, participants’ projects will be made available to the public in a digital exhibit, fostering an ongoing, inclusive dialogue around whose stories we tell with maps and how we tell them.

Please submit your application via this form by November 12, 2021. Your submission will include:

• Name
• Email contact
• Institutional affiliation
• Project title
• A proposal (300-500 words) explaining your current research, its engagement with “under-mapped spaces,” and how it would benefit from the application of digital cartographic tools and methods
• The link to a map of your choice from the Rumsey (https://www.davidrumsey.com/) or Branner collections and a brief description of its relevance to your research area. Note that many maps have not yet been digitized. If you are having difficulty identifying maps in your area of interest, please reach out to Andria Olson (andolson@stanford.edu) at Branner Library or G. Salim Mohammed (gsalim@stanford.edu) at the David Rumsey Map Center.
• A brief description of any prior experience with digital humanities tools and/or skills you would like to build

 

 

 

12. Register Today: The Study of Islam & Muslim Communities in Latin America and the Caribbean in Transdisciplinary Perspective

20-21 October 2021, online via WebEx
This colloquium features scholars addressing gaps in both Islamic studies and the study of Latin America as well as the Caribbean in transdisciplinary perspective. As the study of Latin America and the Caribbean is not at the center of Islamic studies and vice versa, this colloquium offers space for discussing novel, experimental research in both fields, which will further promote their respective incorporation.
You are invited to attend the colloquium and to register HERE (https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=63075a13d3&e=f70992245e) . Only registrants will receive an invite to attend the panels. Registration is limited to 25 people per panel, while Dr. Aisha Khan’s keynote and The Muslims of Latin America and the Caribbean book launch are open to the public. The deadline for registration is on October 17, please register before. Looking forward to seeing you!

 

 

 

13. YouTube videos: Pre-modern comparative literary practice in the multilingual Islamic world(s)

Dear colleagues, we hope our message finds you and your beloved ones in the best health.

It is our great pleasure to share the videos of our OCCT conference that we organized last July. The three-day conference is divided into nine videos, and each video bears a description of its content. Here is the link for your consideration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUtwGu5vdPM…

We hope that these efforts would allow anyone who could not attend the virtual conference to access them anytime. Watching many sessions again, we realized how lucky we were to have such brilliant papers and discussions about the role of Islamic Multilingualism in challenging the current Eurocentric frame of Comparative and World Literature. So please feel free to share the videos with anyone interested.

Our Special thanks to the two brilliant keynote speakers Dr Fatemeh Keshavarz and Dr Michael Cooperson. We are also grateful to Dr Matthew Reynolds, the director of Oxford’s OCCT, for hosting the conference. Here is the link to the conference’s programme attached, so you can also check any paper that you would like to watch its video.

https://www.occt.ox.ac.uk/pre-modern-comparative-literary-practice-multilingual-islamic-worlds

As organizers, we thank all the contributors again for being part of our movement to generate new knowledge production that challenges the long-established Eurocentric ‘norms’ in various Islamic and Comparative Literature Studies.

 

 

 

14. Course announcement – Discussing Islamic Art, Aesthetics and Visuality – January 2022

The intensive course, ‘Discussing Islamic Art, Aesthetics and Visuality’, hosted by the Islamic Azad University/OICC, Oxford, UK, will be offered in January 2022.This course is a unique opportunity for advanced training in reading and thinking critically about Islamic art. As the term ‘discussing’ in its title indicates, it involves an active participation of the audience that conventional teaching lectures usually do not permit. It particularly places the focus on concepts, aesthetic-philosophical questions and creative processes that history-based conventional courses tend to sideline.

Description:

The course is a ten-session module (2 and a half hours per session) introducing the artistic culture of Islam from the viewpoint of its aesthetics and meaning. It is conceptualized like a forum for both learning and appreciating the rich and beautiful arts of Islam so that the audience will get a sense of what these arts mean and express for the Muslim faithful. The program aims to cover the most important artistic art forms and visual concepts that distinguish this culture in both aspects of its unity and diversity. The Muslim world is indeed vast and encompasses an immense variety of local cultures. It is also spiritually shaped by different interpretations of the Islamic faith. Nevertheless, this world remains united through the shared acknowledgement of the truth of God’s words in the Qur’an and of God’s messenger and representative, Prophet Muhammad. This acknowledgement constitutes the metaphysical core of Islam that informs Islamic art-making.

For further details, please visit this website:

https://www.oicc.uk/k-event/discussion_islamic_art/

Valerie Gonzalez,

Research Associate, SOAS, University of London.

 

1. Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Classical Islam, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University
Candidates must demonstrate expertise in classical Islamic texts in
context, excellent command of Classical Arabic, and
the ability to teach courses using original sources and English
translation at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Deadline for applications: 15 October 2021
Information: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/19548

 

 

 

2. Lecturer in Arabic Language

New York University Shanghai, China

Location: China, Shanghai

Start date: Aug 31, 2021

Description

NYU Shanghai invites applications for a full-time Language Lecturer position to teach Arabic to a diverse group of students from around the world. Preference will be given to candidates with experience teaching diverse varieties of Arabic and/or incorporating varieties of Arabic into the classroom.

NYU Shanghai is looking for dynamic individuals who are eager to contribute to its growing language programs through innovative teaching, student-centered initiatives, faculty development, and participation in the intellectual life of NYU Shanghai. Appointments are for three years effective September 1, 2022, subject to a review at the end of the first year; contracts are renewable.

Terms of employment at NYU Shanghai are comparable to NYU New York and other U.S. institutions.

Qualifications

Applicants should have near-native fluency in the language(s) of instruction, a Master’s degree in a related field, and at least two years of post-degree teaching experience in a college or university setting. Candidates must be able to teach at the elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels of a rigorous and demanding undergraduate language program, and should have experience teaching in culturally diverse classrooms. According to Chinese visa regulations, qualified applicants must hold a valid passport from a country where Arabic is an official language.

Application Instructions

The deadline for applications is November 1, 2021. To apply, please submit a cover letter, CV, statement of teaching philosophy, and a document listing the names of three references.
Please visit our website at   http://shanghai.nyu.edu/en/about/work-here/open-positions-faculty for instructions and other information on how to apply. If you have any questions, please email the NYU Shanghai NY Office of Faculty Recruitment shanghai.faculty.recruitment@nyu.edu.

Apply here: https://apply.interfolio.com/93524

 

 

 

 

3. International Conference  / Colloque international

Authorship and Textual Transmission in the Manuscript Age: Contextualizing Ideological Variants in Persian Texts from the 11th to 19th Centuries

will take place online via Zoom / aura lieu en visioconférence via Zoom

on Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd October, 2021 / les 1-2 octobre 2021

https://uni-leipzig.zoom.us/j/64612529366?pwd=S0IrKzVzL2dwU2dyeEs1NmoxYjkzdz09

The conference will discuss ideological variants as cultural and historical phenomena particularly illustrative of the concept of dynamic and collective authorship. These phenomena will be addressed by the speakers in a wide array of case studies, including historiographical and literary texts produced from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries in various parts of the Persianate world, from Anatolia in the West to Central Asia in the East (see program attached).

Convenors: Philip Bockholt (Leipzig University) and Sacha Alsancakli (CeRMI/Sorbonne nouvelle)

Contact : philip.bockholt@gmail.com & sacha.alsancakli@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr

The conference is supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the University of Leipzig, and the Centre de Recherche sur le Monde Iranien (CeRMI,  CNRS UMR 8041)

——————————————————–
CeRMI – CNRS UMR 8041
Centre de Recherche sur le Monde Iranien

1. New Exhibition – L’Orient inattendu, du Rhin à l’Indus

Strasbourg

Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire

September 18, 2021 – January 16, 2022

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the National and University Library and the University of Strasbourg, the exhibition

L’Orient inattendu, du Rhin à l’Indus (The unexpected Orient, from the Rhine to the Indus), offers a new look on the history of Strasbourg, Alsace and the Rhine region from the perspective of their relations with the Orient and more specifically the lands of Islam. It aims to present an overview of these relations from the medieval period up to the 20th C., through works that are mostly unknown or even unpublished.

An event in partnership with the Museums of Strasbourg and the Louvre Museum.

https://www.bnu.fr/fr/evenements-culturels/nos-expositions/lorient-inattendu-du-rhin-lindus

 

 

 

 

2. New OA book: A Handbook and Reader of Ottoman Arabic
Esther-Miriam Wagner (ed.) | September 2021
488pp. | 4 B&W or colour illustration | 6.14″ x 9.21″ (234 x 156 mm)
Link: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/1168

 

 

 

 

3. Research Associate in Historical Iranian Linguistics (Fixed Term)

The Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge invites applications for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the field of Historical Iranian Linguistics.

The Postdoctoral Research Associate would work in the research team of the ERC-funded project ‘Echoes of Vanishing Voices in the Mountains: A Linguistic History of Minorities in the Near East’ (ALHOME) under the direction of Professor Geoffrey Khan. The project aims to reconstruct the complex, socioreligious past of Aramaic-speaking and Kurdish-speaking communities in Western Asia through a study of the history and interrelationship of their languages.

Closing date: 4.10.21

https://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/31407/

 

 

 

4. Christ’s College, Cambridge

Academic Vacancies

Two Stipendiary Junior Research Fellowships

Stipend £25,217 (with a PhD) £20,675 (without a PhD)

The College invites applications for two Stipendiary Junior Research Fellowships, summarised below.  Both Fellowships are tenable for four years from not later than 1st October 2022 and are not renewable.  Candidates are advised that a Junior Research Fellowship is intended for a researcher early in their career.  A successful applicant is expected to be either a graduate student, probably in the latter stages of research leading to a PhD degree (or equivalent), or a post-doctoral researcher who has completed their PhD Degree after 1st January 2021.

Applications and referees reports must be submitted through the web site and received by the College by 12:00 noon on Thursday 21st October 2021.  Selected candidates will be invited to the College for interview on or around Wednesday 12th January 2022.

Click here for the application web site which will give further information.  (Queries should be directed to jrf@christs.cam.ac.uk as stated on the application web site.)

1. Stipendiary Junior Research Fellowship

This Fellowship is open to those whose research is principally in one or more of the following subject areas:

Asian & Middle Eastern Studies; Anthropology; Archaeology; Classics; Economics; History (limited to Modern History from circa 1800); History of Art; Land Economy; Politics & International Studies.

 

1. George Kingsley Roth Junior Research Fellowship

There is an additional stipendiary JRF open to those whose research is principally in one or more of the following subject areas:

Anthropology; Ethnology; History or Contemporary Issues (eg economics, sociology or politics)

In specified countries within the South Asian, East Asian or Pacific Basin regions (see the application web site for further details).

Please note that applications in eligible subject areas will be considered for both the Stipendiary and the George Kingsley Roth Junior Research Fellowships.

https://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/vacancies-christs-college

 

 

 

 

5. Call for Contributors

Literary Snippets: Colophons Across Space and Time

Editors

Sabine Schmidtke and George A. Kiraz

(Institute for Advanced Study)

The colophon, the ultimate or “crowing touch” _paragraphs of a manuscript or a book, provides readers with a the historical context in which the scribe produced the manuscript (or the publisher, a book). At its most fundamental level, the colophon gives us the “metadata” _of the manuscript: who was the scribe? When and where was the manuscript produced? For whom was it produced and who paid for it?

But colophons are far more rich. They are literary works on their own right, having a style and rhetoric independent of the main literary text of the manuscript. Some are assertive, providing contextual data about the scribe/publisher and manuscript/book; others are expressive, demonstrating the scribe’s feelings and wishes. Some are directive, asking the reader for an action; others declarative, providing all sorts of statements about the scribe/publisher or even the reader. The latter sometimes provide historical facts otherwise lost to histories: wars, earthquakes, religious events, legal agreements, etc. The aim of this volume is to bring together scholars from various disciplines to study colophons in Middle Eastern manuscripts in various languages and traditions across space and time, including, but not limited to, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Hebrew, Persian, and Syriac—as well as the ancient tra-ditions of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Topics may include:

 

The colophon as a literary genre

Typology of colophons

The formulaic structure of colophons

Factoids found in colophons

How can colophons confirm/help reconstruct historical events?

Colophons born in print publications or born digital

Scholars interested in contributing may send via email a proposal between 1,000 and 3000 words (i.e. a good first draft) for consideration. After acceptance, final papers are expected to be around 6,000 words +/-. Proposals are to focus on the colophon (i.e. not a study of the main literary text of the manuscript). Papers are expected to have an analytical component. Comparative analyses across traditions is encour-aged but not required.

Proposal submission deadline is December 15, 2021. Final papers are due April 1, 2022. Submissions are to be sent via email directly to George A. Kiraz at gkiraz@ias.edu.

 

 

 

 

6. Call for Posters: ASMEA Annual Conference

The Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) is pleased to invite undergraduate students to participate in its Poster Competition at the Fourteenth Annual Conference being held November 13 – 15, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

In addition, we will award Travel Grants of up to $500 to assist in covering costs associated with attending the event. This competitive opportunity is open to student members of the Association. Undergraduates can join at this membership level here.

Presenting a poster is an excellent opportunity for young scholars to showcase their work in a visual format that promotes discussion, enables interaction with seasoned academics, and receive feedback about their projects.

Information for applicants:

• Applicants must be juniors or seniors in the Fall 2021 academic year to be eligible to apply.
• Interested students must submit an application via the online submission portaland include a 300-word abstract of original unpublished data.
• Topics must be related to the Middle East and/or Africa.
• Posters may be presented virtually or in-person.
• To submit a poster proposal students do not need to be members, however, to apply for the Travel Grant in conjunction with the poster proposal, applicants will need to become undergraduate student members.
• To apply for the Travel Grant, a student will need to submit a letter of reference from an advisor.
• The deadline to submit is October 15, 2021.

Posters will be judged by how well the presenter demonstrates understanding of their subject matter as well as by the clarity of their presentation.

For further information, please visit our Call for Posters page or contact info@asmeascholars.org.

 

 

 

 

7. Perspectives on Academic Persian

Abbas Aghdassi, ed.

Springer, 2021

‘Initial Taliban moves fail to convince Afghanistan’s neighbours and near-neighbours’
By James M. Dorsey
China-India Brief #188
August 28, 2021 – September 14, 2021

1. ONLINE Seminar: “Afghanistan Lives: Then and Now”, Center for Middle East Studies, Brown University, 14 September 2021, 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EST

This event will focus to the experiences of the people of Afghanistan, the hardships of the most marginalized and vulnerable communities, and the question of what led to the latest crisis. Speakers:Mejgan Massoumi (Stanford University), Valentine Moghadam (Northeastern University), Arash Azizzada (writer, photographer, and community organizer).

Information and registration: https://watson.brown.edu/cmes/events/2021/panel-afghanistan-lives-then-and-now

 

 

 

2. ONLINE Keynote Address for AAIMS Conference: “The Covenants of Prophet Muhammad: From Shared Historical Memory to Peaceful Co-Existence” by Prof. Ibrahim M. Zain, Charles Sturt University, 14 September 2021, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm AEST

Numerous copies of the covenants of Prophet Muhammad exist in monasteries and patriarchates which were once under the rule of Islam. Could it be that the copies of these documents which have been preserved in Christian, Jewish, Magi, and Samaritan sources are faithful replicas of the original documents?

Zoom Link: https://charlessturt.zoom.us/j/66680238821 . Information: zkeskin@csu.edu.au

 

 

 

3. ONLINE Seminar: “Islam and Esotericism: Societies, Politics, and Practices”, Meeting of the European Network for the Study of Islam and Esotericism (ENSIE), 29 September – 1 October 2021

Panels on Premodern Esotericism and the Occult, Socio-political Contexts and Applications of Esotericism in South Asia and the Ottoman World, the Sufi Revival in the Post-Socialist World, Twentieth-Century Islamic Esotericism in the West, and Theology and Ethics in Twentieth-Century Sufism: Malaysia and Turkey. Key-note by Nile Green (UCLA) on “Islam and Esotericism in Global Intellectual History: Comparisons, Problems & Methods”.

Information and registration: http://ensie.site/conferences.html

 

 

 

 

4. ONLINE International Symposium on “Religion and Civilization in the Middle East”, Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, 22-24 October 2021

The symposium will focus on the issues of historical dynamics of the Middle East, the identity formation processes of the Middle Eastern peoples, the conflicts centered on religion and civilization, the language and culture, and the philosophical accumulation.

Information: https://sempozyum.erbakan.edu.tr/UODMS/en/s/717/0

 

 

 

 

5. ONLINE Conference: “Sites of Encounter and Cultural Exchange in West Asia and the Medi-terranean (500-1500 CE)”, Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Society, University of Edinburgh, 4-6 November 2021

The following issues with be included: Sites of Encounter in Material Culture; Frontiers; Marginality; Multilin-gualism; Religion as Site of Encounter; Mapping and Geographic Writings; Commercial Networks and Trade.

Information: https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/7717863/sites-encounter-and-cultural-exchange-west-asian-and

 

 

 

6. ONLINE 6th IDHN Conference of the Islamicate Digital Humanities Network, 17 November 2021

Contributions are invited on developing or deploying digital methods and tools in the study of Islam and Muslim communities and Islamicate languages.

Deadline for abstracts: 8 October 2021. Contact: team@idhn.org . Information: idhn.org

 

 

 

 

7. Conference: “Jews of the Arab World, Why Did They Leave?”, Museum of Jewish Art and History, Paris, 19-20 January 2022

This conference invites to readdress the departure of Jews from the Arab world, keeping its distance from political exploitations, in a comparative perspective opened up to international specialists, in order to present an up-to-date inventory of our knowledge about this history.

Deadline for abstracts: 20 September 2021. Information: https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announce-ments/7844644/jews-arab-world-why-did-they-leave-paris-19-20-jan-2022

 

 

 

 

8. Workshop on “Sacred Space(s)”, Mediterranean Seminar, Fresno State University, 11-12 February 2022

Contributions are invited on any subject (historical, cultural, literary, artistic, or historiographical) relating to sacred spaces in the premodern or modern Mediterranean, including the Near East and North Africa.

Deadline for abstracts: 1 November 2021. Information: https://mailchi.mp/mediterraneanseminar/cfp-sacred-spaces-winter-2022-mediterranean-seminar-workshop-11-12-february-fresno-924796?e=82aeb6c61d

 

 

 

 

9. 15th Annual Conference of the Muslim Studies Program on “Belong Nowhere: States of State-lessness in the Muslim World”, Michigan State University, 24-25 February 2022

Papers will reflect a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary backgrounds—including refugee studies, soci-ology, history, anthropology, psychology, political studies, law, and religious studies.

Information: https://muslimstudies.isp.msu.edu/about/conference

 

 

 

 

10. Tenure-Track Position in Middle East Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Candidates are expected to hold a Ph.D. and are expected to demonstrate commitment to full-time teaching, supervision of graduate students, service to the department, faculty and the university. Candidates are equally expected to present an active research and publication agenda. The instruction language is Hebrew.

Submission deadline: 17 October 2021. Information: https://bguacademicrecruitment.force.com/Recruit-ers/VF_BGUPositions?Id=02i5I000007sKWpQAM

 

 

 

11. Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Qualification: PhD on History of the Modern Middle East (1500 to present). We particularly encourage applications from scholars whose thematic focuses complement our department’s existing expertise in transregional histories, social identity, gender, empire, or memory.

Deadline for applications: 1 October 2021. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/92773

 

 

 

12. Articles for Diyar 6. We welcome original and as yet unpublished contributions in German, English, and French from all research areas of Ottoman, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies. Reviews can also be submitted at any time. Deadline for articles: 15 February 2022. Information: https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announce-ments/7844858/cfp-diy%C3%A2r-journal-ottoman-turkish-and-middle-eastern-studies

 

 

 

13. The British Library: Epic Iran: Manuscripts from the Islamic era

In a recent blog I wrote about three of our Zoroastrian treasures which were part of the  Epic Iran exhibition organised by the V&A with the Iran Heritage Foundation in association with The Sarikhani Collection. Sadly the exhibition is now over, but this second blog on the Islamic period manuscripts which we loaned can serve as a reminder for those who were lucky enough to visit, or as a visual reference for those who weren’t so fortunate.

 

 

 

14. BYU Conference: “The Islamic World Today,” 18-19 Oct 2021

ISLAM is growing faster than any other religion and is projected to surpass Christianity as the world’s largest faith by 2070. With such a huge increase and the related pressures of being a worldwide community, debates about Islam continue among Muslims and non-Muslims alike. How should the Qur’an and the words of the Prophet Muhammad be understood? How do historical divisions impact the Muslim world today? What is the function of Sharia in the West? When do perceptions of Islam and Muslims cross the line into Islamophobia? What is the role of women and gender?

“The Islamic World Today: Issues and Perspectives,” a two-day conference held at Brigham Young University (18-19 October 2021), will address these questions and more. Aimed at a general audience, the conference will include presentations on a number of subjects, followed by discussion and questions from the audience. For those unable to attend, livestreaming will be provided and the recorded sessions will be available after the event. Please see the conference website for details.

 

Featured speakers:

• Asma Afsaruddin (IU Bloomington)
• Jonathan Brown (Georgetown University)
• Natana DeLong-Bas (Boston College)
• John Esposito (Georgetown University)
• Dalia Fahmy (Long Island University)
• Sherine Hafez (UC Riverside)
• Shadi Hamid (Brookings Institution)
• Sherman Jackson (University of Southern California)
• Tarek Masoud (Harvard Kennedy School)
• Hadia Mubarak (Queens University of Charlotte)
• Asifa Quraishi-Landes (UW Madison)
• Tahera Qutbuddin (University of Chicago)
• Abdulaziz Sachedina (George Mason University)

 

 

 

15. Abbasid History Podcast

With 32 episodes made so far, the Abbasid History podcast is a great way to learn more about this specific period in history. The makers of the podcast formulate their intentions as follows: “An audio platform for the study of the pre-modern Islamic(ate) past and beyond. We interview academics, archivists and artists on their work for peers and junior students in the field. We aim to educate, inspire, perhaps infuriate, and on the way entertain a little too. Suitable also for general listeners with an interest in geographically diverse medieval history.”

 

 

 

16. Research Positions, University of Toronto, Dept. of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations and the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies.

Closing Date: 09/20/2021

Requisition 16345 – Research Associate: https://jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-ON/550404017/

Requisition 16346 – Research Associate: https://jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-ON/550404117/

Requisition 16347 – Research Associate: https://jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-ON/550404217/

1.Recordings Available – Ceramics from Islamic Lands conference panel discussions

The recordings of the panel discussions of the Ceramics from Islamic Lands conference have now gone live here, embedded in a blog post about the conference: https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/projects/ceramics-from-islamic-lands-conference

If you registered for the conference, you will know that all papers were pre-recorded and available to registrants from two weeks before conference week. The conference per se consisted of moderated panel discussions and Q&A. These were recorded and are now available to watch at the link above.

The pre-recorded papers are still available to view on the closed Vimeo site, until the end of September, to give you a chance to watch or re-watch alongside the panel discussions. If you do not have the link, or would like further information about the conference, please contact us at ceramicsfromislamiclands@gmail.com (note that this inbox is only checked once a week) or vari-events@vam.ac.uk.

 

 

 

2. Workshop (Hybrid) – Eighteenth-century Persianate Albums Made in India: Audiences – Artists – Patrons and Collectors (Berlin, 15-17 Sept 2021, CEST)

The workshop will be held as a blended format with a mix of online and on-site presentations at the Museum of Asian Art and the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin.

You are cordially invited to join all presentations via webex. Admission Free – All Welcome

To join the event online please click here (Time listed is CEST – Central European Summer Time):

DAY 1 (15 Sept): 3.00 pm – 6.20 pm

https://spk-berlin.webex.com/spk-berlin-en/j.php?MTID=m5f7033da94677f7711ac04861f1e7e0a

DAY 2 (16 Sept): 9.30 am – 4.30 pm

https://spk-berlin.webex.com/spk-berlin-en/j.php?MTID=mc7494ed5d79c95f339d9d5a148e8554f

DAY 3 (17 Sept): 9.45 am – 3.30 pm

https://spk-berlin.webex.com/spk-berlin-en/j.php?MTID=m6893774ec81bc112d573c4ccf307a34e

We anticipate that the event will be recorded.

If you wish to attend the workshop in person, please note that the number of seats at both venues is limited. Advance registration for on-site attendance is essential: f.weis@smb.spk-berlin.de

The workshop will address the role of Indo-Persianate albums (muraqqaʿs) that were assembled for or collected by the Mughal governors of Awadh (Uttar Pradesh), Shujaʿ al-Daula (r. 1754–1775) and his successor, Asaf al-Daula (r. 1775-1797), as well as other local elites in Bengal and Bihar. Europeans also participated in the creation and consumption of albums, as patrons and collectors. In 1882, the Prussian State acquired a group of twenty albums from the twelfth Duke of Hamilton; so far, these artworks have received little study. Eight of them belonged to the Scottish surgeon and interpreter Archibald Swinton (1731–1804) and ten to the Franco-Swiss engineer-architect Antoine Louis Henri Polier (1741–1795) – both were Company officers deeply acquainted with Indo-Persian aristocratic culture. Many more albums are linked to well-known European figures, such as the Governor-General of Bengal Warren Hastings (1732–1818) and the French Company officer (and special agent to Shujaʿ al-Daula in Faizabad) Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gentil (1726–1799). Numerous interrelated questions arise from the study of this material, concerning audiences, artists, patrons, collectors and their wish to produce and preserve knowledge; these questions are to be discussed in this workshop.

PROGRAMME

Wednesday, 15 September 2021: Museum für Asiatische Kunst (staff entrance), Takustrasse 40

3.00 pm (CEST)

Raffael Gadebusch (Berlin): Welcome

3.15 pm (CEST)

Friederike Weis (Berlin): Welcome and Introduction

Session I: Polier’s Albums and Manuscripts: Contents and Contexts – Chair: Friederike Weis

3.50 pm (CEST)

Susan Stronge (London): Collecting the Mughal Past

4.30 pm Break

5.00 pm (CEST)

Malini Roy (London): Blurred Lines: Looking at the Paintings by the Artist Mihr Chand and Determining the Boundaries between Innovation, Imitation or Intentional ‘Duplication’

5.40 pm (CEST)

Firuza Abdullaeva-Melville (Cambridge): Three Highlights of Polier’s Collection from Cambridge: Treasures or Leftovers

Thursday, 16 September 2021: Museum für Asiatische Kunst (staff entrance), Takustrasse 40

Session II: Patrons, Collectors and Compilation Strategies – Chair: Susan Stronge

9.30 am (CEST)

Emily Hannam (Windsor): Fit for a King? Two Late Mughal Albums in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle

10.10 am (CEST)

Axel Langer (Zurich): Obvious or Hidden Narratives in the Large Clive Album

10.50 am Break

11.20 am (CEST)

J.P. Losty (Sussex): Archibald Swinton’s Indian Paintings and Albums – an Analysis

12.00 pm Lunch Time

Session III: Recurrent Themes and Tropes in Indo-Persianate Albums – Chair: Laura Parodi

1.20 pm (CEST)

Katherine Butler Schofield (London): Performing Women in the Polier and Plowden Albums: Pursuing Khanum Jan

2.00 pm (CEST)

Molly Aitken (New York): Intoxicating Friendships: Figuring Classical Indian Aesthetic Regimes in Mughal Album Painting

2.40 pm Break

3.10 pm (CEST)

Yuthika Sharma (Edinburgh): Topography as Mughal Utopia? Polier’s ‘Garden Series’ and Artistic Exchange in 18^th-century Periphery-Centre Imagination

3.50 pm (CEST)

Anastassiia Botchkareva (New York): Tropes and Outliers: Tracing Patterns of Iconography in the Polier Albums

Friday, 17 September 2021: Archäologisches Zentrum (Administrative Offices of the Museum für Islamische Kunst), Brugsch-Pascha-Saal, Geschwister-Scholl-Strasse 2-6

9.45 am (CEST)

Stefan Weber / Deniz Erduman-Çalış (Berlin): Welcome

Session IV: Calligraphy in the Berlin Albums: Historicism and Contemporary Mughal Masters – Chair: Axel Langer

10.00 am (CEST)

Claus-Peter Haase (Berlin): The Calligraphies of the 16^th-17^th Centuries in the Berlin Albums – Reflections on their Origins and Purpose in a Muraqqaʿ

10.40 am (CEST)

Will Kwiatkowski (Berlin): Expanding the Canon – Mir Muhammad Husayn ʿAta Khan and the Polier Albums

11.15 am Break

Session V: Indian Muraqqaʿs Collected by Europeans: Networks and Relationships – Chair: Deniz Erduman-Çalış

11.50 am (CEST)

Laura Parodi (Genova): Allegory and Verisimilitude in Later Indian Albums

12.30 pm (CEST)

Isabelle Imbert (Manchester): Like a Garden Bedecked: Floral Margins in 18^th-century Awadhi Albums Produced for European Patrons

1.10 pm Lunch Time

2.20 pm (CEST)

Yael Rice (Amherst, MA): The London Market for South Asian Muraqqaʿs and the Hastings Albums

3.00 pm Final discussion

Organiser: Friederike Weis (Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Takustrasse 40, 14195 Berlin). The event is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

 

 

 

 

3. BYU Arabic tenure track position

Job Title:  Asian & Near Eastern Languages (Arabic) Full-Time Faculty

This is a Continuing Faculty Status (CFS, or tenure) track position, but may be filled by a non-CFS candidate as a visiting position.

The Department of Asian & Near Eastern Languages and the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies at Brigham Young University invite applications for a position of Arabic Full-Time Faculty to begin August 2022.

Job Classification: CFS-Professorial, may be filled by visitor

Posting close date: September 24, 2021

Start date of this position:  August 2022

Required Degree: PhD in a relevant field (e.g., Arabic language teaching, Arabic literature or linguistics, Middle Eastern Studies, or Second Language Acquisition)

Required degree must be completed by the start date.

Experience:   The successful candidate will have significant formal training in foreign language teaching and learning; a minimum of (ACTFL standard) Superior-level fluency in Arabic and English; and at least three years of experience in teaching various levels of Arabic (including advanced content courses) at the postsecondary level using proficiency-based, communicative methodology.

Duties/Expectations: The successful candidate must demonstrate outstanding aptitude and interest in undergraduate teaching of Arabic language from beginning through advanced levels; curriculum development; and an active research and publishing agenda.  This candidate must be willing to lead a semester-long intensive Arabic and Near Eastern Studies study abroad program in Amman and Jerusalem in a regular rotation with other members of the Arabic section.  In addition, this individual is expected to take an active role in developing the overseas programs along with other members of the Arabic section.

Desired qualifications include previous experience with in-country intensive language program coordination (study abroad); teacher training and materials development; and experience with using an integrated curriculum that reflects the sociolinguistic realities of the Arab world.  The expected teaching load for this position is 3-2-1, including language classes at all levels and courses in the individual’s area of specialization.

Information required at the time of application – Please list the individual contact information for each of your three recommenders on the faculty application. At some point during the selection process, they may be contacted to submit their letters of reference electronically

Document(s) required at the time of application – Please attach your updated Curriculum Vitae and cover letter to the faculty application.

To apply, see: https://hrms.byu.edu/psc/ps/PUBLIC/HRMS/c/HRS_HRAM.HRS_APP_SCHJOB.GBL?Page=HRS_APP_SCHJOB&Action=U&FOCUS=Employee&SiteId=70&

 

 

 

4. Workshop “European perspectives on the Qur’an (16th-18th C.): polemics and beyond”

December 2, 3, 2021

The workshop, organized by researchers from the ERC Synergy Grant EuQu project (Emmanuelle Stefanidis, Maxime Sellin, Yaser Gün and Javier De Prado Garcia) will further explore the diversity of approaches to Islam and the Qur’an in the early modern period and will encourage a reflection on the tools and sources available to scholars for mapping out approaches to Islam’s sacred text during this critical juncture of European history. Program soon online here.

Register at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdt_NDu2H8dhGqcS_JVubh11Go0YgjfqxYYwn4mc8tWBYm50A/viewform

 

 

 

5. The Latin Qur’an, 1143-1500

Translation, Transition, Interpretation
In: The European Qur’an, 1
Edited by: Cándida Ferrero Hernández and John Tolan
De Gruyter |2021
This book is the result of the Workshop held at the UAB in Barcelona “The Latin Qur’an, 1143-1500. Translation, Transition, Interpretation”.

 

 

 

6. University of Tennessee_Knoxville – Assistant Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History

http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=61814

Closing date: Dec 2, 2021

 

 

 

7. How to teach a hegemonic language? Reflections on putting al-Hariri’s Impostures

(published 1111) into fifty different Englishes

https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/24675

 

7 October 2021

5.00pm – 6.30pm

Online seminar

Part of the Convocation Seminars in World Literature and Translation

Co-convened with LINKS (London Intercollegiate Network for Comparative Studies)

Speaker: Michael Cooperson (University of California)

Michael Cooperson teaches Arabic at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has published numerous studies of early Abbasid cultural history, including Classical Arabic Biography (2000) and Al-Ma’mun (2005).  His translations from Arabic include The Life of Ibn Hanbal, by Ibn al-Jawzī (NYU Press 2017), which won the Sheikh Hamad Prize for Translation and International Understanding; and al-Hariri’s Impostures (NYU Press, 2020), which won the 2021 Sheikh Zayed Book Award in the translation category. His other research interests include Maltese language and culture.

This free event will be held online, at 17:00 BST. Please note that you will need to register in advance to receive the online event joining link. To register go to: https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/24675

 

INSTITUTE OF MODERN LANGUAGES RESEARCH

School of Advanced Study | University of London

Room 239 | Senate House | Malet Street | London WC1E 7HU | UK

http://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk | modernlanguages@sas.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

8. Salafism and the State: Islamic Activism and National Identity in Contemporary Indonesia: Thursday 23rd September, 1pm BST (online via Zoom)

You are warmly invited to the Alwaleed Centre’s first event of the new academic year discussing Dr Chris Chaplin’s new book Salafism and the State: Islamic Activism and National Identity in Contemporary Indonesia (NIAS Press).

Dr Chaplin (LSE) will be joined by renowned scholar of Islam and politics, Professor Noorhaidi Hasan (Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia) with the event chaired Dr Sarah Muwahidah (Alwaleed Centre, University of Edinburgh).

This event will be hosted online via Zoom on Thursday 23rd September starting at 1pm BST. For further information and to register for the event, click here: https://salafism-and-the-state.eventbrite.co.uk

 

 

 

9. Webinar – The Sultans’ Tomb of Banda Aceh: A Historiography of Indonesian Islamic Art – NYU, Silsila: Center for Material Histories – September 15

New York University, Silsila: Center for Material Histories

THE SULTANS’ TOMBS OF BANDA ACEH – A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF INDONESIAN ISLAMIC ART
Mirjam Shatanawi, Reinwardt Academy/Amsterdam University of the Arts
Wednesday, September 15th, 12:30pm ET
[Webinar] Silsila Fall 2021 Lecture Series

Indonesia has long been neglected as a region where Islamic art was produced, a silence that can be traced back to Dutch colonial rule of the archipelago. Gravestones from Aceh were among the few objects that were studied in the colonial period as part of Islamic artistic production. Stylistically, the gravestones go back to Gujarati examples that were crafted in Cambay (India) and imported to Aceh from the thirteenth century. During the Aceh Sultanate (15th-20th century) the gravestones began to be produced locally, resulting in new styles. This talk will highlight the colonial and postcolonial histories of the sultans’ tombs in Banda Aceh as they moved through different regimes of image-making, and how these histories have an impact on the reception of Indonesian Islamic art today.

Full details of the event and a link to register as an attendee can be found at:

https://as.nyu.edu/silsila/events/2021-2022/the-sultans–tombs-of-banda-aceh–mirjam-shatanawi.html

Only registered attendees will be able to access this event.

 

 

 

 

10. BIPS 60th Anniversary

Reflections on Pahlavi Iran: roundtable on 60th Anniversary of BIPS

Please join us online for a roundtable discussion with Professor Ali Ansari, Dr Evaleila Pesaran and Dr Robert Steel which will be chaired by Dr Shabnam Holliday.

Based on their own research on the Pahlavi period, the panellists will reflect on the dynamics in Iran around the time of the establishment of the British Institute of Persian Studies.

Visit the BIPS 60th Anniversary page or the Events page for more information about the event and the panellists.

 

 

 

 

11. McClary, R., and Ana Marija Grbanovic, ‘On the Origins of the Shrine of ‘Abd al-Samad in Natanz: The Case for a Revised Chronology’

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society/article/on-the-origins-of-the-shrine-of-abd-alsamad-in-natanz-the-case-for-a-revised-chronology/4806947BBA2C5FFAAB5E171D9BF553AB

 

 

 

 

12. Socio-Historical Study of Religion in Greater Khorasan

Special Section in

Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion (RSSR)

BRILL – Volume 33 – 2022

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Greater Khorasan, once the crossroad of various religions, historically extended from northeast Iran to some central Asian countries, Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan, and northwest India. Regardless of the historical significance of this region in pre-, early, and post-Islam periods, Greater Khorasan is of great contemporary importance because it influenced—and continues to do so—the foundations for religiosity and spirituality in a vast area that (re)produces current religious thoughts and movements.

Although previous studies documented religion and society in this area from historical lenses, the literature remains semi-silent on the contemporary sociological and psychological developments of religion(s) in Greater Khorasan.

This call intends to cover a number of questions: Broadly framed, will historical roots find contemporary religious resonance in modern-day Greater Khorasan? Does attachment to a common historical background provide room for frameworks of understanding religion and religiosity in this region? How will narratives of the past shape the future of religion in this area?

In Socio-Historical Study of Religion in Greater Khorasan, we like to discover how historical understanding of Greater Khorasan finds contemporary relevance in religion and religiosity. Comparative studies, new models and approaches, and multidisciplinary investigations are highly encouraged.

Potential themes in the special section will include, (but not necessarily limited to),

• Revivalism of pre-Islamic traditions and denominations in Greater Khorasan
• Greater Khorasan, rationalism and anti-rationalism
• Others and otherism in socio-cultural interactions of Greater Khorasan
• Pre- and/or post-Mongol Sufism in Greater Khorasan
• (Trans-)National identities and modern self in Greater Khorasan
• Christian and Jewish narratives in Greater Khorasan
• Muslim and non-Muslim relations in Greater Khorasan

 

We invite scholars, researchers, and academics to send an abstract of their proposed papers (max. 200 words), a short bio-note (150 words), institutional affiliation/s (if relevant), and contact details to the guest editors, Morteza Daneshyar, Vali Abdi, and Abbas Aghdassi before October 15, 2021.

Abstracts and subsequent papers should be submitted in English.

Notification of abstract acceptance will be communicated by November 1, 2021. Following the notification, authors will be invited to submit their full paper by March 1, 2022. Papers would then undergo peer-reviews, at which point authors will be notified if papers are accepted for inclusion and if revisions are required.

We plan to publish the accepted papers in Brill’s Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion (RSSR), volume 33, Special Section 1—tentatively planned for November 2022. Please, note that COIVD might affect this date.

Please, circulate this call. You may download the CALL or the FLYER. For any general queries, please contact Abbas Aghdassi (aghdassi@um.ac.ir).

Guest editors                     Morteza Daneshyar, Vali Abdi and Abbas Aghdassi

IMPORTANT DATES

Abstract submission       Oct. 15, 2021

Acceptance note              Nov. 01, 2021

Full Paper submission    Mar. 01, 2022

Initial reviews                   Apr. 01, 2022

Revisions due                  Apr. 15, 2022

Section submission        May 15, 2022

 

CHAPTER FORMATA

The following format will help ensure coherence. Please, visit the RSSR website and read the Author Guidelines (link). A full paper should be 5000-7000 words plus reference, tables, figures, etc. Longer papers will be considered upon an approval from the editors.

 

TITLE	Clearly defined and relevant to the text
ABSTRACT	200 words
INTRODUCTION	800 words (approx.)
LITERATURE (context, concepts, methods)	1500 words (approx.)
DISCUSSION	3000 words (approx.)
CONCLUSION	500 words (approx.)
REFERENCES/CITATIONS	Author-Date (see the link to Author Guidelines)
KEYWORDS	4-6 words (required for indexing)
Transliteration	IJMES (Table) & (more info)
LANGUAGE	English U.S.

 

 

13. The Islamic College – MA Islamic Studies & Islamic Law Open Day

Thursday 16th of September 2021
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm (London Time)
on Zoom
Considering a MA degree in Islamic Studies or Islamic Law? Attend our open day to meet some of our staff and students, and learn more.

MA degrees in Islamic Studies and Islamic Law

1-year or 2-year options

Degrees validated by Middlesex University, UK

Study under eminent academics, Islamic scholars, and specialists

Be part of a vibrant, knowledgeable student community

Aimed at researchers, prospective PhD students, religious leaders, or anyone wanting to study Islam in-depth

In-house and distance education options.

More Information

The Project on Shi`ism & Global Affairs

How are the Afghan Shia responding to the return of the Taliban? The target of Taliban violence and sectarian enmity in the 1990s, Shi’i communities confront an uncertain future. This talk will survey the evolution of the Shi’i landscape in Afghanistan since 2001 and examine how various actors are trying to adapt to the new Taliban order today.

Speaker: Robert D. Crews, Professor of History, Stanford University Department of History

Moderator: Payam Mohseni, Director of the Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs, Harvard University.

For more information and to register, click here.

‘Targeted for genocide in Afghanistan: The Hazaras
The plight of the Hazaras isn’t well known on the international stage. They are an ethno-religious minority, about 9% of the Afghani population of 36 million.’
Minnpost,
7.9.21