Archive for February, 2022

‘To be God’s Sign in the Age of Globalisation: MarjaꜤiyya between Crisis and Progress’
Contacts: Minoo Mirshahvalad, Bianka Speidl // mmirshahvalad2@gmail.com
More information at:
http://www.sesamoitalia.it/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/25.-Mirshahvalad-and-Speidl.pdf

The XV Conference of SeSaMO, Explaining Crisis, Beyond Chaos. The Middle East and North Africa in Global Change will take place in presence at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’, Naples – Italy the 22-24 of June 2022.

The Psycho-Architectonics of the Imżā Inscriptions: Denotations and Connotations of Text in the Arts of the Safavids

The Courtauld, University of London
March 3, 2022, 18:00-19:30 (London)

By Dr. Mahroo Moosavi

By working between the two media of art and literature, this paper challenges some manners by which the textually infused arts of the early modern Iran have been conventionally perceived. While through the inherited discourse of Western art history, the inscription or epigraph is an appurtenance of the object’s visual and thematic language or is, on some occasions, reduced to a purely scientific and palaeographic element, this paper suggests an alternate discourse that extends the significance of such texts, especially the imżā [signature] inscriptions, beyond the normative, emphasising their particular agency as possible strategic ‘interventions’ envisioned and adopted by the artist, architect, or the patron.

Tracing its earlier roots in the increasing use and thematic specificities of text in the artistic productions of the Persianate societies from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries onwards, this paper aims to open the current methodologies and understandings of the arts of the Safavids (1501-1722 AD) to a rereading. It does so by engaging with the ‘signature inscriptions’ as systematic architectonic design strategies that constantly de and re construct the object/space and the inter-woven micro politico-cultural context around it through activating the emotive-cognitive recipients of the user. By focusing on a number of cases such as the early seventeenth century mosque of Luṭfullāh in Isfahan and the mid-sixteenth century Sultan Ibrāhīm Mīrzā’s manuscript of Haft Awrang of Jāmī, this study shows how the application of text in the arts of early modern Iran operates as a mechanism through which the boundaries between different branches of art and knowledge may blur, making space for the reception and perception of art as an abstruse apparatus that functions through the layers of connotations of Persian psyche, language and literature.

Dr Mahroo Moosavi is Bahari Fellow in the Persian Arts of the Book at University of Oxford, Oliver Smithies Lecturer at Balliol College, University of Oxford, and Lecturer in architectural history, theory, and design at the University of Sydney. Her research is concerned with the intertext of art/architecture and poetry/prose, with a particular focus on the early modern Iran, through an interdisciplinary study of art/architectural history, literature, and post-structuralist philosophy. Her current project analyses the interpretations of form and structure of rhetorical devices in the chancellery writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Iran to discern possible resonances within the artistic and urban system of the new city of Isfahan.

Please register at: https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/imza/

1. ONLINE Webinar: “Sextarianism: Sovereignty, Secularism, and the State in Lebanon” with Maya Mikdashi and Attiya Ahmad, Institute for Middle East Studies, Washington, DC, 28 April 2022, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm EST

Maya Mikdashi offers a new way to understand state power, theorizing how sex, sexuality, and sect shape and are shaped by law, secularism, and sovereignty. Drawing on court archives, public records, and ethnog-raphy of the Court of Cassation, the highest civil court in Lebanon, Mikdashi shows how political difference is entangled with religious, secular, and sexual difference.

Information and registration: https://imes.elliott.gwu.edu/events/sextarianism-sovereignty-secularism-and-the-state-in-lebanon-with-maya-mikdashi-and-attiya-ahmad/

 

 

 

 

2. Summer School on “Philology and Manuscripts from the Muslim World”, Leiden University, 23 August – 2 September 2022

This course includes lectures by experts, hands-on classes and much practice with manuscripts from Lei-den`s famous collection of oriental manuscripts. The course is meant for graduate students (MA and PhD) and researchers.

Deadline for abstracts: 17 June 2022. Information: https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/9711267/lucis-summer-school-philology-and-manuscripts-muslim-world-aug

 

 

 

 

3. Kashf Al-Zunūn ‘An Asāmī Al-Kutub Wa Al-Funūn

(The removal of Doubt from the Names of Books and the Sciences)

By Muṣṭafa ibn ʿAbd Allāh
(known as Kātip Çelebī and Ḥājjī Khalīfa)
Critical edition by:
Ekmeleddin ihsanoğlu and Bashar Awad Ma’rouf

Al-Furqan, 2022

Receive a 10% discount on our website using the following coupon code*:
DX9MB6WS
*Valid until 31st March 2022

 

4. AKU-ISMC 12-13 May Short Course – Manuscripts in Arabic Script: Introduction to Codicology (Online)

This online course 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 

12-13 May 2022, 11:00-15:00 (London Time).

Tickets and Booking

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

 

 

 

 

5. The 13th Annual International Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Conference (IRTP) will be held on 29th June – 2nd July 2022 in Vilnius, Lithuania. 

Abstract submission extended till 28^th February 2022.

All detailed information about the Conference can be found at this website:  https://irtp.co.uk/the-13th-annual-international-religious-tourism-and-pilgrimage-irtp-conference-2021/

 

 

 

6. The British Library:

The art of small things (5): Recitation markers in Qur’an manuscripts from Southeast Asia

 

 

 

7. Qur’an Gateway, a tool for critical study of the text, construction, and language of the Qur’an which used to require subscription is now available as open source under the name Qur’an Tools.

1. “Tekye-ye Dowlat” a documentary
Babak Rahimi is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Tekye-ye Dowlat
Time: Feb 15, 2022 12:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/91833762354

Meeting ID: 918 3376 2354

One tap mobile
+12133388477,,91833762354# US (Los Angeles)
+16692192599,,91833762354# US (San Jose)

Dial by your location
+1 213 338 8477 US (Los Angeles)
+1 669 219 2599 US (San Jose)
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
Meeting ID: 918 3376 2354
Find your local number: https://ucsd.zoom.us/u/abZ4emITJu

2. “Photography of Moharram Rituals inside the Golestan Palace(1860s-1900s)”
Pedram Khosronejad (Powerhouse Museum, Sydney)
Time: Feb 17, 2022 02:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/99404838317

Meeting ID: 994 0483 8317

One tap mobile
+16692192599,,99404838317# US (San Jose)
+16699006833,,99404838317# US (San Jose)

Dial by your location
+1 669 219 2599 US (San Jose)
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 213 338 8477 US (Los Angeles)
Meeting ID: 994 0483 8317
Find your local number: https://ucsd.zoom.us/u/aRLInGyfT

1.The first International Ottoman Studies Congress (OSARK) took place in Sakarya, Turkey, from October 14-17, 2015. The next OSARK was held in Tirana, Albania, from October 17-20, 2018.

We would like to inform you that the third OSARK will be held in Istanbul, Turkey, from September 7-9, 2022, at Istanbul Medeniyet University. OSARK 2022 welcomes and encourages individual paper and thematic panel proposals within any field of Ottoman History.

For further details see:

http://www.ottomanstudies.org

 

 

 

 

2. The MLA Global Arab and Arab American Forum invites proposals for the following panels at the MLA Convention in San Francisco (5-8 January 2023):

Writing and Cultural Production as Oppositional Work

Oppositional work of writing and cultural production in the Arab region and global Arab diaspora, including protest and dissident literature/art/activism that resists surveillance and discursive/cultural practices of domestication and containment. 250-word abstract & bio by March 15, 2022 to rc49@soas.ac.uk (Rasha Chatta, Freie Universität)

Migrants as Working Subjects

Literary and artistic representations of migrant labor in the Arab region and global Arab diaspora, as inflected by class, race, ethnicity, language, nomenclature, and sociocultural/economic practices including sponsorship. 250-word abstract & bio by March 15, 2022 to azstanton@psu.edu (Anna Ziajka Stanton, The Pennsylvania State University)

 

 

 

 

3. Rescheduled: UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series – Latest Developments in Afghanistan Panel

Sunday, April 10, 2022 at 11:30am Pacific Time via Zoom

Panel in Persian

Registration Required

Ahmad Nader Nadery

Former Chair of Independent Civil Service Commission in Kabul, and Member of the Peace Negotiation Team for Afghanistan

The Taliban’s Return to Power and Its Implications for Afghanistan and Iran

Homeira Qaderi

Afghan Writer and Women’s Rights Activist, and Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University

How Women in Afghanistan have Strived for Their Rights
Farah Karimi

Head of the Dutch Parliamentary Delegation to the OSCE PA and Former UN Consultant for Capacity Building of the Afghan Parliament

 

4. 2022 AMECYS Friday Digital Author Series Schedule

Spring 2022 AMECYS Friday Digital Author Series

Throughout the spring on the 2^nd Friday of each month, digitally join AMECYS’ authors, who will discuss their most recent monographs, articles or book chapters. Sessions will consist of a 30-minute interview with AMECYS board member (unless noted otherwise) followed by Q&A from audience.

 

Friday March 11, 11 am CST

Dr. Hedi Viterbo, Associate Professor of Law,

Queen Mary University of London

Author of Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood

In Israel/Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2021)

Interviewed by Sunaina Maira (Professor, University of California, Davis)

 

Friday April 8th, 11 am CDT 

Mr. Shivan Fazil, Researcher, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

Dr. Bahar Baser, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies,

Durham University

Editors of Youth Identity, Politics and Change in Contemporary Kurdistan (Transnational Press London, 2021)

 

Friday May 13, 11 am CDT

Dr. Rania Kassab Sweis, Associate Professor of Anthropology

at the University of Richmond

Author of Paradoxes of Care: Children and Global Medical Aid in Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2021)

 

Links for series will be sent to all AMECYS listserv members, so make sure signed up for the listserv! Digital medium for series is Zoom (https://zoom.us/download).

For information, email dylan.baun@uah.edu  or hmorrison@uwlax.edu

 

 

 

 

5. Jaleh Esfahani Poetry Prize 2022

Date: 18 February 2022 Time: 6:00 PM

Finishes: 18 February 2022 Time: 8:30 PM

Venue: Brunei Gallery Room: Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre (BGLT)

Type of Event: Performance

This is the first in-person Annual Jaleh Esfahani Poetry Prize event that will be held since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. This year’s prize also coincides with the 100th birth anniversary of the late Jaleh Esfahani.

The event marks the 12th year of the poetry prize, in which young (under 30) Persian poets from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and the diaspora, compete. At this year’s event the winners, from among the three shortlists of 5 poets, for each country, which were selected from nearly 200 original participants, will be announced.

During the event well-known Persian language poets and the judges will speak, and the winners will read samples of their poems, intertwined with music from Persian-speaking countries and a Sama (Whirling) Dance.

Programme

6.00pm: Reception in the foyer of the BGLT

6.30pm: Event starts

* Please note that the language for this event’s proceedings will be in Persian.

Admission is free and open to the public, however, donations of £5 are greatly appreciated.

Organiser: Jaleh Esfahani Cultural Foundation in association with the SOAS Middle East Institute

Contact email: fsp@parand.co.uk

 

 

 

6. The Leiden University Centre for Islamic Thought and History (LUCITH) is hosting a two-day international conference on Wisdom Literature in Early Islam. 

12-13 September, 2022

The conference will have a mixed format, with both in-person and online presentations. The conference will address the question of wisdom literature, as a tool of persuasion, to deliberate its content, to analyse its philosophical and ethical messaging, and identify major themes and tropes in Arabic literature, philosophy, intellectual history, linguistics, and ethics, among other things, in Early Islam (broadly conceived of as the first few centuries).

Themes the conference could address:

• Transmission of wisdom literature, aphorisms, and texts
• Recurring tropes and themes
• Devotional piety and wisdom literature
• The Qur’an and wisdom literature
• The Arabic reception of ancient wisdom literature
• Tools of persuasion and rhetoric
• Philosophical and ethical dimensions

For consideration, please send a 300-word abstract in English to lucith@hum.leidenuniv.nl by the 15th of March 2022. The conference will be held in English.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, only participants located within Europe will be invited to join us in person and will be offered a one-night stay with their travel and accommodation costs covered by the conference organiser. Participants located outside of Europe will be invited to join us online.

Contact Info:

Tamar Tros, Conference Coordinator

Contact Email:

lucith@hum.leidenuniv.nl

 

 

 

7. The latest issue of Mamlūk Studies Review(XXIV [2021]) is now available for download from our website:

http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/browse-download.html

 

 

 

8. Al-Maqrīzī’s al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar. Volume IV, Section 2: The Idols of the Arabs.Critical edition and introduction by Michael Lecker, annotated translation by Yaara Perlman. Leiden and Boston: Brill, February 2022 (Bibliotheca Maqriziana, vol. 8), xii-381 pp. ISBN: 978-90-04-49986-7 (e-book); 978-90-04-49983-6 (hardback).

For more information on published and forthcoming volumes, see https://brill.com/view/serial/BIMA.

 

 

 

 

9. Translating Contemporary Iran

Panel with Mariam Rahmani and Nasrin Rahimieh (UCI)

Thursday, February 17
Remote via Zoom
1:00 pm (Pacific Time)

About the Panel

Since its first publication in 2008, Mahsa Mohebali’s edgy cult hit, Nigarān nabash, has been off and the shelves in Tehran. Following Shadi, a cynic and opium addict who cross-dresses to evade hijab law, throughout an apocalyptic day of earthquakes that are destroying the city, the novel offers a view of contemporary Iran too seldom seen in the US – but now available to in translation under the title, In Case of Emergency (Feminist Press, 2021). Please join us for a conversation between scholar Dr. Nasrin Rahimieh and translator Dr. Mariam Rahmani on issues of translation and mistranslation – both literal and cultural– from a Persian Iranian to Anglophone American context.

About the Panelists

Mariam Rahmani is a writer and translator. Her fiction and essays have appeared in Granta, Gulf Coast, BOMB Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Rumpus as well as in exhibition catalogs and her translation in n+1, Columbia Journal, and the collected volume, After Cinema: Fictions From A Collective Memory (Archive Book, 2019). Her 2021 translation of Mahsa Mohebali’s In Case of Emergency, the 2008 Iranian cult hit, was well reviewed in the New York Times and has garnered other positive press in the New York Times “Globetrotting,” Publishers Weekly, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, World Literature Today, and the Center for the Art of Translation. Rahmani holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA and an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. Among her honors and awards are the 2021 Henfield Prize, the Columbia MFA’s highest honor in fiction, a 2018 PEN/Heim translation grant, and a US Fulbright fellowship. Rahmani currently teaches at UCLA as a Lecturer in English and Comparative Literature.

Nasrin Rahimieh is Howard Baskerville Professor of Humanities and Professor Comparative Literature at the University of California. She is currently the Director of the Humanities Core program at UCI, former Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature (2016-19) and Maseeh Chair and Director of the Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture (2006-14). Her teaching and research are focused on modern Persian literature, the literature of Iranian exile and diaspora, contemporary Iranian women’s writing. Among her publications are Oriental Responses to the West: Comparative Essays in Select Writers from the Muslim World (1990), Missing Persians: Discovering Voices in Iranian Cultural History (2001), Forugh Farrokhzad, Poet of Modern Iran: Iconic Woman And Feminine Pioneer Of New Persian Poetry (2010) co-edited with Dominic Parviz Brookshaw and Iranian Culture: Representation and Identity (2015). She translated the late Taghi Modarressi’s last novel, The Virgin of Solitude (2008) from Persian into English.

For more information and to register:

https://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/event/15371

 

 

 

10. 2 PhD Positions in Digital Islamic History, University of Hamburg

I am advertising for two PhD positions in my project “The Evolution of Islamic Societies (c.600-1600 CE): Algorithmic Analysis into Social History” (EIS1600). Each position is 2+2 years. The deadline for applications is March 31, 2022. Successful applicants will work on one of the case studies of the project and will write and defend a PhD thesis on the topic of their choice, within a selected case study. Descriptions of both positions and detailed information on the application process can be found at the following links: https://tinyurl.com/PhD01; https://tinyurl.com/PhD02. Feel free to email me, if you have any questions (maxim.romanov@uni-hamburg.de). The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the framework of the Emmy Noether Program (https://tinyurl.com/EIS1600). It is hosted at the Institute of Asian and African Studies (Islamic Studies Division) of the University of Hamburg.

Best regards,
Maxim Romanov
Emmy Noether Junior Research Group Leader, “The Evolution of Islamic Societies (c.600-1600 CE): Algorithmic Analysis into Social History” (2021-2027), Universität Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, 20146 Hamburg, maxim.romanov@uni-hamburg.de

 

 

 

11. Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World,

ʿAbdīshōʿ of Nisibis and the Apologetic Tradition

S Rassi

Oxford, 2022

 

 

 

 

12. Regards sur les arts du monde iranien / Insights into the Art of the Persianate Societies

coorganisé par l’Institut Français de Recherche en Iran (IFRI) et le CeRMI,

aura lieu

le mardi 22 février 2022, de 15h à 17h (heure de Paris) / 17h30-19h30 (heure de Téhéran).

 

Cette deuxième séance s’articulera autour du thème « Regards sur la céramique, 1 / Insights into ceramic arts, 1 », avec les interventions suivantes :

• New data about the «Poteries de Bamiyan» (Afghanistan)

Guergana Guionova (CNRS, Aix Marseille Univ, LA3M, Aix-en-Provence),
Thomas Lorain (MAFAB/University of Bamberg)

• Architectural decoration, tiles and brickworks of Alamut Castle through historical data

Hamideh Choubak (ICCAR, RICHT, MCTH)

• A Research on the Islamic Ceramics of the Sultâniyya plain, Iran

Mahsa Feizi (PhD Tehran University/Lyon 2)

Discussion. Chairperson: Yves Porter (Aix Marseille Univ/IUF/LA3M)

 

Pour suivre cette séance en ligne (sur Skyroom), une inscription est nécessaire. Un lien d’inscription sera mis à disposition très prochainement.

 

>> Pour plus d’informations sur le Webinaire

 

 

 

 

13. 2022 Ann Lambton Memorial Lecture

Unequal Treaties and the Question of Sovereignty in Qajar and early Pahlavi Iran

With Professor Ali Gheissari

Hosted by Durham University, the event is jointly organised by BIPS and IMeEIS (Durham University).

9 March, 2022, 5-6 pm (UK time)

Via Zoom

To join on the day, see:

https://www.bips.ac.uk/event/lambton-lecture-2022/

Studies in Shiʿi Materiality, the Sensorium, and Ritual
Proposed Book Series, Edinburgh University Press
Series Editors: Karen Ruffle (University of Toronto) and Babak Rahimi (University of California, San Diego)

The goal of this proposed book series is to provide a forum for innovative works that contribute to new studies of Shiʿi traditions that are in conversation with and contribute to broader scholarly discussions on everyday life and sensory experiences while bringing attention to lived traditions and understudied locations and temporalities. Studies in Shiʿi Materiality, the Sensorium, and Ritual welcomes books that make bold claims, present fine-grained studies, explore theories and concepts related to material culture, the sensorium, its related rituals, practices, and relation to architecture, literature, the body, and more.

With the aim of inclusivity of wide historical contexts and geographies of Islam, Studies in Shiʿi Materiality, the Sensorium, and Ritual attempts to expand the line of critical enquiry to reconceptualize Shiʿism beyond the normative models of text/scripture, Twelver Shiʿism, and the Iranian world. Projects that reframe these models are encouraged. The series aims to foster approaches that engage with the body and memory, and by and large sensory and material practices that shape lived Shiʿism. The series also embraces empirical methods within the humanities and the social sciences ranging from ethnography to discourse analysis. While the geographical focus of the series is on the Shiʿi world between the Balkans and Southeast Asia, we also welcome research that focuses on often-overlooked regions such as China and sub-Saharan Africa. In broad scholarly terms, the series aims to publish diverse disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches ranging from anthropology, art history, history, media studies, urban studies, philosophy, religious studies and sociology.

More specifically, we encourage submissions for innovative research that include:

Studies on Zaydi, Ismaʿili, Alevi, Bektashi, Bohra, and other communities of ʿAlid devotion, including Sufi-oriented
Ritual, theater, and performative studies
Qualitative methodological approaches such as ethnography, including autoethnography
Urban, space and critical border studies
Comparative historical studies from the medieval to modern periods
Technology and mediated practices

For full consideration, email a two-page proposal and CV to Karen Ruffle (karen.ruffle@utoronto.ca) and Babak Rahimi (brahimi@ucsd@edu).

 

 

1.Please join us on February 20 from 2 – 4 p.m. EST as we gather to commemorate beloved author and satirist Iraj Pezeshkzad, who passed away this January. This event is cosponsored by Damavand Cultural Foundation and will feature a roundtable discussion in Persian of Pezeshkzad’s life, works, and impact. Our speakers will be:

 

Ardeshir Lotfalian – Writer, Diplomat, and Advisor to Damavand Cultural Foundation

Seyyid Ali Mirfattah – Writer and Satirist

Ali Dehbashi – Writer and Chief Editor of Bukhara Magazine

Fatemeh Keshavarz – Director of Roshan Institute for Persian Studies

Marjan Moosavi – Lecturer at Roshan Institute for Persian Studies

 

Please use this Zoom link to join us then:

 

https://go.umd.edu/pezeshkzad

 

 

2. We are reaching out to share the Jasūr Magazine (previously known as Juhood) Spring 2022 Call for Submissions. This semester’s theme is Power: Political Economies of the Middle East. Jasūr is Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s undergraduate-run journal for academic and short-form writing on the Middle East and North Africa.

You can find a complete call for submissions below, and we would really appreciate your help in spreading it to students in your department. We will also be hosting several virtual events this semester, and invite anyone who is interested in attending and/or learning more about the publication to visit jasurmagazine.org. If you or any of your students have questions about the journal or submission guidelines, please contact Editor-in-Chief Jasper Schutt (jasperms@live.unc.edu), and/or editorial board member Eleyan Sawafta (ersawafta@uncg.edu).

All our best,

The Jasūr Editorial Board

The editorial board of Jasūr Magazine calls for submissions from undergraduate students for Jasūr 4.2, Power: Political Economies of the Middle East. Jasūr is a journal for critical scholarship and writing on the Middle East and North Africa, broadly defined, and is run by undergraduates at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Submissions for the Spring 2022 issue will be accepted until Monday, February 28th, at which point the editorial board will contact selected authors.

The theme of this Spring’s issue of Jasūr is political economy. We take an intentionally expansive definition of the term, and understand it to mean the critical study of economic systems, class relations, and domestic and international institutions. Simply put, we’re looking for work that takes a materialist approach to analyzing any contemporary issue in the MENA region. Some examples of relevant topics include histories of capitalism in the region, how interventions by international financial institutions affect societies in the MENA region, or how political and economic constraints impact the region’s artistic sectors.

 

Submission Guidelines 

1. We are accepting submissions of complete academic and short form essays, as well as proposals for short form work. By academic work, we mean essays that are between roughly 8 and 30 pages and contain significant amounts of primary and/or secondary research. We are happy to accept longer submissions, especially of theses or other papers that contain original research, and can work with you to abridge the work for publication.
2. Submissions of short form essays might offer political commentary, criticism of state and/or firm policies, and in general, examine current events from a political-economic perspective. In addition to completed pieces, we are also accepting proposals for short pieces, which should be submitted with a writing sample of similar length to the proposed piece.
3. All submissions should be sent to jasurmagazine@gmail.comor submitted through our website’s submissions tab by February 28th, 2022. 
4. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the editorial board (jasurmagazine@gmail.com) and/or Editor-in-Chief Jasper Schutt (jasperms@live.unc.edu).

In addition to the journal, the Jasūr team also accepts and publishes short-form and creative work on any topic all year-round. Throughout the year, we also host events on a variety of topics related to the MENA+ region, which are open to public attendance via Zoom. To learn more, visit jasurmagazine.org.

 

 

 

 

3. SOAS, University of London – Post-Doctoral Researcher in Islamic
Manuscripts of Sumatra
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=62981

Closing date: 20.2.22

 

 

4. Introductory Old/Classical Armenian course at Notre Dame this summer through their Classical, Medieval, and Near Eastern Language Institute. It is open to undergraduate or graduate students.

The course will meet M/T/R 4:00–6:00pm ET (FULLY ONLINE) May 31st–July 7th (6 weeks).

Tuition rate info is here (the course is 3 credits): https://summersession.nd.edu/tuition-financial-aid/

I don’t think ND offers funding for the course, so students would need to apply for funding locally or seek other external scholarships, such as the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Short Term Grant for Armenian Studies or a NAASR grant

Jesse S. Arlen, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Armenian Orthodox Studies
Orthodox Christian Studies Center | Fordham University
Director, Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center,
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern)

630 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10016
(212) 686-0710 ext. 126
jarlen@fordham.edu  |  jarlen@armeniandiocese.org

 

 

 

 

5. ONLINE Lecture: “Copying and Reading Sacred Scriptures: Qurʾan and Torah in Comparative Perspective” by Prof. Daniella Talmon-Heller (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), UCLA, 9 February 2022, 12:00 pm PST

The Jewish tradition preserved the ancient form of the scroll, written in scripta defectiva, for its elaborate rituals of liturgical reading in the synagogue. The Muslim tradition, with its preference for the oral performance of the text, makes no such distinction, yet likewise regulates the work of the scribe and the handling of the book.

Information and registration: https://mailchi.mp/mediterraneanseminar/attend-copying-and-reading-sacred-scriptures-quran-and-torah-in-comparative-perspective-9-february-online?e=82aeb6c61d

 

 

 

 

6. Workshop: “Continuity and Change Throughout the Ottoman Longue Durée,” Third Annual Mid-Atlantic Ottomanists Workshop (MAOW), University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, VA, 1-3 April 2022

This workshop will provide an opportunity for scholars of Ottoman studies to gather, discuss their research, and receive substantive feedback. This initiative aims to bring together scholars of all stages who are working to advance the study of the Ottoman Empire and its interactions with the wider world from the late 13th century through the early 20th century.

Information: https://maow.umwblogs.org/

 

 

 

 

7. Workshop: “History and Anthropology through Literature: Approaches & Methodologies to the Study of Medieval and Modern Texts and Manuscripts”, Trinity College Dublin,  15 July 2022

The Cairo Genizah is a treasure trove of medieval and early-modern Arabic manuscripts stored away in Egypt’s Ben Ezra Synagogue over nearly a thousand years. This one-day workshop seeks to bring together scholars of manuscript sciences, history, anthropology, literary criticism, philosophy, and sociology to chal-lenge the investigation of history, sociology, and anthropology though pre-modern literature and its manu-scripts.

Information: https://t.co/Sy28Pbzp9x

 

 

 

 

8. International Workshop: “Religion and Secularism as Problem Space in Post-colonial Occidentalist Discourses within the MENA Region”, Leipzig University, 3-4 November 2022

The workshop aims to discuss the question of religion and secularity/secularism in (post-colonial) Occidentalist discourses and their critiques in the MENA region. The workshop intents to explore the trajectories of post-colonial Occidentalist discourses in the MENA region. It aims to reflect on their various genealogies, forms, and contents.

Deadline for abstracts: 30 March 2022. Information: https://multiple-secularities.de/events/event/international-workshop-religion-and-secularism-as-problem-space-in-postcolonial-occidentalist-discourses-within-the-mena-region/

 

 

 

9. CfP: Turkologentag, September 21–23, 2023, Vienna

GTOT e.V. (Society for Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish Studies) invites researchers from all over the world working in the fields of history, linguistics, philology, literary studies, social sciences, anthropology, and political sciences in Turkey and the Turkic world to participate in the Fourth European Convention on Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish Studies (Turkologentag 2023). The conference will take place on September 21 – 23, 2023 at the University of Vienna. It is organized in co-operation with the Chair of Turkish Studies at the University of Vienna.

The conference aims to bring together individual scholars, institutions and organizations from Europe and elsewhere who are engaged in Turkish and Turkic Studies. The four-day event will provide an opportunity for an intellectual exchange and conversation between participants and allow them to build networks for future cooperation. There will be a special forum for PhD candidates and graduate students.

The organizers encourage individual paper and thematic panel proposals within the following sections:

1. Linguistics
   2. Studies on Central Asia/Volga Region/Siberia
   3. Caucasus
   4. Turko-Persian Islamicate world
   5. Ottoman Studies
   5.1 Transottomanica (DFG Priority Programme)
   5.2 Digital Humanities and Ottoman/Turkish Studies
   5.3 Manuscript Cultures
   5.4 Ottoman-Habsburg World
   5.5 Balkan region and Southeast Europe
   5.6 Hungary, Poland, Ukraine
   5.7 Arab Provinces, Palestine
   6. Environmental History and History of Science of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey
   7. Literary Studies
   8. Cultural Studies, Heritage / Art History
   9. Studies of Contemporary Turkey
   10. Kurdish Studies
   11. Studies on Ethnic, Religious Minorities
   12. Women and Gender Studies
   13. Research on Religion
   14. Musicology
   15. Social Sciences and Migration Studies
   16. Social Anthropology
   17. German-Turkish Language Research /Education

If you like to join us on September 21 – 23, 2023, please submit an abstract (in German, English, French or Turkish, max. 250 words) on the Registration Portal: www.conftool.pro/turkologentag2023/. The deadline for individual paper proposals is 31 December 2022 and for panel proposals (3-4 panelists) is 30 November 2022. For submission guidelines, important dates, and further information stay tuned at turkologentag2023.univie.ac.at

Once your paper is selected, you will be asked to pay your conference participation fee. You can pay your fee in advance after the registration. In the case that your proposal is not accepted, the participation fee will be refunded. We encourage you to become a member of GTOT to benefit from reduced conference participation fees (especially students) and to be part of a growing international network of researchers engaging in Turkic, Ottoman, and Turkish studies! For further and detailed information please contact our homepage: turkologentag2023.univie.ac.at.

GTOT is an academic organization operating in the field of Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish studies. GTOT aims at creating a network for scholars and especially for young researchers in the field of Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish studies encompassing a wide range of research interests including the diverse range of religions and ethnic groups existing and living in areas populated by Turkic groups in the past or present

 

 

 

 

10. In Presence or HYBRID: International Conference “Iconic Figures: Intersecting Religious and Political Narratives of the Past”, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin, 7-9 December 2022

The conference will bring together scholars of various disciplinary orientations and working on different re-gions to examine the intersections and the entanglements between religious and political construction and deconstruction of historical icons and role models. It will pay particular attention to the ways in which discur-sive traditions in multi-religious contexts influence these processes.

Deadline for abstracts: 31 March 2022. Information: https://www.zmo.de/fileadmin/Karri-ere/Ausschreibungen_2022/Call_for_Papers_Iconic_Figures.pdf

 

 

 

 

11. Assistant Professor in Arabic Studies, University of Durham

Applicants should have a research interest and expertise in (comparative) literary, cultural and/or visual studies, as well as translation studies. Candidates are required to have a PhD in Arabic Studies or a related subject.

Deadline for applications: 28 February 2022. Information:

https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CMR473/assistant-professor-in-arabic-studies-mlac22-1

 

 

 

 

12. Lectureship in International Relations of the Middle East (2.5 Years), University of Leiden, Netherlands

Criteria: PhD in International Relations, political science, development studies, geography, sociology, or an-thropology with a focus on modern Middle East; Experience in teaching undergraduate and graduate stu-dents, and supervising theses; Proficiency in English; Ideally proficiency in Arabic.

Deadline for applications: 27 February 2022. Information: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/vacancies/2022/q1/22-044-10663-25-year-lectureship-in-international-relations-of-the-middle-east

 

 

 

 

13. Associate Professor in Arab Modern and Contemporary History, University of Sharjah, UAE

Qualification: PhD in Arab Modern & Contemporary History from one of the recognized universities in the field of specialization; experience in university teaching in the field of specialization (8 years at least); ability to develop and lead high-quality research; published in high quality refereed journals in the specialty; fluency in Arabic and English (speaking and writing).

Deadline for applications: 25 February 2022. Information: https://newhr.sharjah.ac.ae/en/Pages/JobDetails.aspx?Jid=1817&IsDean=No

 

 

 

 

14. Visiting Assistant Professor (2 Years) in the History of the Ancient Mediterranean (North Africa, Mesopotamia, West Asia), University of Denver

Qualifications: PhD emphasis on Ancient History, including the Mediterranean world, Mesopotamia, North Africa, and West Asia.

Deadline for applications: 25 February 2022. Information: https://cu.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobde-tail.ftl?job=24243&lang=en&src=LinkedIn

 

 

 

 

15. Fellowships/Associateships for Advanced Historical Research in Islamic Art, Architecture, Material Culture, and Archaeology, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture 2022-2023, Harvard University

Deadline for applications: 1 April 2022. Information: https://agakhan.fas.harvard.edu/fellowships-associateships

 

 

 

 

16. Lecturer in Arabic Language, University of Michigan-Arbor

Applicants should have Superior level proficiency in Standard Arabic, English, and at least one variety of spoken Arabic. Experience with teaching Arabic at the post-secondary level is required. Applicants must have a demonstrated ability to use a proficiency-based, communicative methodology in language instruction. Minimum of a Master’s degree in foreign language teaching or equivalent field required.

Deadline for applications: 1 March 2022. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/102108

 

 

 

 

17. Postdoctoral Scholar/Teaching Fellow, Department of Middle East Studies, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Researchers with training in environmental studies, anthropology, political economy, urban studies, and ge-ography are particularly welcome to apply. This fellowship is renewable for a second year contingent upon administrative approval.

Deadline for applications: 1 March 2022. Information: https://usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-angeles/postdoctoral-scholar-teaching-fellow-in-the-department-of-middle-east-studies/1209/22787922576

 

 

 

 

18. Special Issue of Religions on “Muslim Identity Formation in Contemporary Societies”

Possible themes: Qur’anic and Prophetic understandings of identity, difference, and pluralism; migration, citizenship, and belonging; identity formation and state politics; the umma, trans-locality, and Muslim cosmopolitanism; Muslim identity politics; the impact of Islamophobia on the formation of Muslim identities; the projection and representation of Muslims in the media; etc.

Deadline for manuscripts: 15 September 2022. Information: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/muslim_identity#info

 

 

 

 

19. Chapters for First Edited Book of the New Publication Series “Reading Ottoman Minds in Its Long History”, Sivas Republic University

With the help of this study, we are targeting to get a better picture on the questions like how did the Ottoman mind work, what were important moral or political principles for the Ottoman as making their decisions, and (if possible) to put forward the changes on the way they thought of the world around them in the course of its long history? Deadline for abstracts in English, German and Turkish: 15 March 2022.

Information: https://ottomanminds.cumhuriyet.edu.tr/