Archive for October 16th, 2021

1. The Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) cordially invites you to the online workshop

Manuscript Albums: Collecting & Compiling Handwritten Items

Friday, 29 October, 02:00 pm – 05:35 pm CEST

Saturday, 30 October, 02:00 pm – 06:15 pm CEST

Registration: https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/en/register-workshop13

In various cultural contexts, it has been common practice to collect and compile in one ‘codicological unit’ handwritten items that are of various origins. The contributions to such manuscripts were usually selected in accordance with a thematic focus and can comprise text, musical notation, images, or pieces of decorative arts. These ‘one-volume’ collections are often named ‘albums’. Sometimes this naming goes back to their original context, as in the case of alba amicorum; sometimes it was used by later researchers, as in the case of Persian or Ottoman albums. Regarding their material composition and production, manuscript albums are not homogeneous: On the one hand, items can enter the collection by being written directly on the blank pages of a book or on loose sheets of paper that are prepared for this purpose. On the other hand, single folios, cut-outs from book pages, and other handwritten pieces can be mounted onto blank pages or inserted into new page margins. And collections of loose album leaves can be bound to a codex, kept in a box, or connected in some other way.

In the workshop, we want to focus on manuscript albums compiled to collect knowledge and memoirs as well as artistic and/or authentic handwriting of more than one individual. By assessing examples from various manuscript cultures that meet the criteria described above, we aim at a comparative view on the material aspects of these written artefacts, their production and use.

PROGRAMME

Friday, 29 October 2021, 02:00pm–05:35pm CEST

02:00–02:25: Welcome and Introduction

Session 1: 02:25pm–03:35pm CEST

Chair: Uta Lauer (Hamburg)

02:25–03:00: Ilse Sturkenboom (Munich): ‘Chinese’ Paper in the Istanbul Albums H. 2153 and H. 2160: Evidence for Fifteenth-Century Appreciation and Appropriation of Foreign Aesthetics in North Western Iran

03:00–03:35: Hans Bjarne Thomsen (Zurich): The Tekagami and the Japanese  Album Culture

03:35–03:50: Break

Session 2: 03:50pm–05:35pm CEST

Chair: Thies Staack (Hamburg)

03:50–04:25: Henrike Rost (Berlin): Nineteenth-Century ‘Musik-Stammbücherʼ: Variety of Material and Contexts of Use

04:25–05:00: Sabine Kienitz (Hamburg): From Church Wall to Paper Work: On Interpreting Intercession Books as Albums

05:00–05:35: Gwendolyn Collaço (Los Angeles): Traces of Market Trends: Mapping the Image Corpus and Codicology of Ottoman Costume Albums

Saturday, 30 October 2021, 02:00pm–06:15pm CEST

Session 3: 02:00pm–03:45pm CEST

Chair: Andreas Janke (Hamburg)

02:00–02:35: Friederike Weis (Berlin): Emperors, Women, Saints, Angels: Images in Indian Albums and their European Titles

02:35–03:10: Oliver Huck (Hamburg): Album Amicorum, Commonplace Book, and Lute Book

03:10–03:45: Deidre Lynch (Cambridge, MA): Bugs in Books

03:45–04:00: Break

Session 4: 04:00pm–05:45pm CEST

Chair: Janina Karolewski (Hamburg)

04:00–04:35: Robyn Dora Radway (Budapest/Vienna): Caspar von Abschatz’s Album Amicorum: Collecting (in) the Ottoman World

04:35–05:10: Janine Droese (Hamburg): Albums as Monuments: On the Production and Use of Public Albums in 19th-Century Europe

05:10–05:45: Stephanie Bung (Duisburg/Essen): Collecting Handwritten Items in Seventeenth-Century France

05:45–06:15: Final Discussion – Moderator: Oliver Huck (Hamburg)

2. 12.10.21

Dear Colleagues & Friends,

Heralding a dynamic era for Iranian Studies, we are delighted to announce an innovative multiyear partnership between the University of Toronto and the Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation.  This new alliance will be dedicated to sharing with the world exciting new research in two key fields – Iranian Women Poets and Iranian Cinema.

The digital research compendium projects are:

Iranian Women Poets (IWP) is an integrative reference work of medieval, modern, and contemporary women poets writing in Persian. Informed by several decades of transdisciplinary recuperative research in Persian literary studies, IWP provides literary-historical articles on female poets and their poetic agency, imagination, tropes, narratives, and lives and the provenance and literary/historical significance of their poetry. As a digital compendium, IWP is an academic reconceptualization of women poets’ biographical dictionaries (taḏkira), which began with the mid-sixteenth century Javāher-al-ʿAjāyeb (Jewels of Wonder) of Faḵri Herāvi.

Iranian Cinema (IC) is an authoritative reference work of all aspects of film and motion picture production in Iran. Spanning from the rudimentary film industry of the late-19th century to the counterintuitive surge of internationally acclaimed cinema following the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Iranian cinema has proven to be one of the most active sites of cultural production in modern Iran.  IC provides historical articles on Iranian cinema, genres, film movements, filmographies, scenarists, directors, composers, stars, lyrists, cinematographers, set designers, sound specialists, editors, choreographers, film studios, movie theaters, film posters, film critics, and audiences, among other subjects related to this theme.

The Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation will publish the digital research compendia via its website, freely accessible to all. 

Founded in 1827, the University of Toronto has evolved into Canada’s leading institution of learning, discovery, and knowledge creation and is regularly ranked amongst the top twenty universities in the world.  Within the Faculty of Arts & Science, the Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations (NMC) is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the civilizations and cultures of the Near and Middle East.  This ranges from Neolithic times to the present, including archaeology, history, mythology, religion and thought, art and architecture, and language and literature.  Over the past decades, NMC, along with other departments across the University, has devoted significant resources to the development of Iranian Studies.  In 2020 the University announced the establishment of the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies, which brings together over twenty academics from various disciplines in social science and humanities.   The extraordinary depth, breadth and the high quality of research produced at the University, the variety of courses that are offered, and the significant number of excellent students and graduates in the fields related to Iranian civilization all make the University a natural partner for the Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation.

Professor Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi will be the Principal Investigator for both projects. While the research effort will draw from academic expertise across the world, the research and editorial team will be based in the Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations of the University of Toronto.  This will include a dedicated Managing Editor, two Associate Editors dedicated to each compendium project, two Post-Doctoral Fellows or Research Associates, and four graduate (PhD level) and four undergraduate research assistants. The research assistants will be co-funded by the Foundation and by the University, demonstrating shared commitment to the project.

The Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation and the University of Toronto enthusiastically look forward to working together on these important thematic compendia in the coming years and sharing this research widely on open-access platforms easily available to diverse readers and researchers worldwide.

Ramine Rouhani, PhD

Chair

Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation

Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, PhD

Director, Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies

University of Toronto

3. Recording of Webinar “The Shuster Mission to Iran: Leaving Something Worthwhile Behind”

Below is the link to the video of the book event on Morgan Shuster with the author Joan Gaughan. Her book “The Shuster Mission to Iran: Leaving Something Worthwhile Behind,” describes Morgan Shuster’s efforts to help Iranians rebuild their economy and finances, and achieve independence from colonial powers.

Dr. Gaughan provides a great summary of Shuster’s short stay in Iran. In case you were not able to join this event, you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA_MJ5tBc80

4. “The Study of Islam & Muslim Communities in Latin America & the Caribbean” (20-21 October 2021)

This colloquium (20-21 October 2021) features scholars addressing gaps in both Islamic studies and the study of Latin America and the Caribbean in transdisciplinary perspective. Because the study of Latin America and the Caribbean is not at the center of Islamic studies and the study of Islam and Muslims is not at the center of Latin America and Caribbean studies, this colloquium offers space for discussing novel, experimental research in both fields, which will further promote their respective incorporation.

The event will be held online via WebEx and all times listed are Central European Time (CET).

Highlights include:

• Scholars from universities in Latin America, Europe, and the U.S. sharing a diverse range of disciplinary and geographic perspectives on Islam and Muslim socialities in the Americas;
• an address by Dr. Aisha Khan based on her most recent book The Deepest Dye (Harvard University Press);
• the launch of The Muslims of Latin America and the Caribbean (Lynne Rienner) and a discussion to follow.

For more information and to register, see

https://www.lacisa.org/post/the-study-of-islam-muslim-communities-in-latin-america-the-caribbean-20-21-october-2021

— The registration deadline is 17 October –

5. International Journal of Latin American Religions

**Call for Papers**
Special Issue: Islam & Muslim socialities of Latin America (submissions due Jan 15, 2022)
In recent decades, global Islamic studies expanded to include geographies and cultures beyond a conventional Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) core. Research in South Asia, Europe, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa widened the field’s scope, introducing fresh, critical understandings into scholarly discourses about Islam and Muslim realities across the world. Nonetheless, global Islamic studies’ scope still fails to fully incorporate marginal geographies and the study of Islam beyond the MENA remains underrepresented. This is particularly evident when it comes to Latin America.
Likewise, research on religion in Latin America has grown to appreciate the changeability and variety of religious expression in the region over the last several decades. Studies on various traditions thickened scholarly understanding of the region’s religious diversity and introduced new ways of understanding transformations in culture, society, and politics across the Americas. Still, the study of Islam and Muslim socialities in relation to this evolution remains negligible when compared to that of other traditions.
This thematic issue invites articles presenting research results from various disciplines, geographies, and historical periods — from the “long” 16th century to today — dealing with the broad theme of “Islam and Muslim socialities of Latin America.” Through case studies and original research, articles should move beyond population surveys, overviews of immigrant communities, and questions of conversion to address theoretical and methodological gaps in the respective fields of global Islam and/or Latin American religion. Especially welcome are submissions dealing with questions of (post)coloniality, gender, race, interreligious encounter, precarity, resilience, transregionalism, materiality, and/or affect.
**Submission Deadline: January 15, 2022**
** Read more about submission guidelines here (https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=7d8c4885e9&e=f70992245e)

6. The Latin America and Caribbean Islamic Studies Newsletter team is happy to announce the launch of an open access annotated collection of resources for the study of Islam and Muslim socialities in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Latinx U.S (https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=873bcb7a55&e=f70992245e)

The goal is to provide a starting point for educators, researchers, journalists, artists, and those interested in learning more about global Islam in general and Muslim cultures and societies in América.
Despite a long history of presence, significance, and influence in América, the study of Islam and Muslims in the region remains understudied and underappreciated. This resource list not only points to existing scholarship on the topic, but also the depth and breadth of the region’s historical relevance and contemporary importance in the study of global Islam.
** Explore the bibliography here (https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=4164be53e3&e=f70992245e