Archive for June 11th, 2022

1.British Institute of Persian Studies WEBINAR

Roi sur son Trône: the Achaemenid royal audience in late Qajar media

29 June 2022, 5PM BST

Lindsay Allen, Senior Lecturer in Greek and Near Eastern History at King’s College London.

For more information and to register:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/7016510585756/WN_DeF8offES6C_naWNIZL4gg

2. ‘Decolonising Human Rights: Theories and Practices’: Prof. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim and Prof Noorhaidi Hasan, Monday 13 June, 2pm BST via Zoom

You are warmly invited you to a special online event ‘Decolonising Human Rights: Theories and Practices’ featuring Prof. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim (Emory University) and Prof. Noorhaidi Hasan (Indonesian InternationaI Islamic University), chaired by Alwaleed Fellow Dr Siti Sarah Muwahidah.

The event will take place online via Zoom on Monday 13th June, starting at 2pm BST.

For further information and registration, click here: https://decolonisinghumanrights.eventbrite.co.uk

With very best wishes from us all,

The Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam

in the Contemporary World

University of Edinburgh

16 George Square

Edinburgh

EH8 9LD

3. Islam and Creativity in Popular Culture (Online Short Course)

This is a three-day online course that addresses the many new expressions of mass mediated creative arts that make reference to Islam. These expressions may be motivated by a wish to express an Islamic interpretation or spirituality, but they may also be for other reasons, such as from anti-racism or critical perspectives. Muslims, as well as non-Muslims, take part in this ongoing art making process. By looking into a number of exciting and intriguing case-studies, and by combining this with the latest theoretical ideas in the field, this course aims to enable participants to individually analyse and comprehend contemporary creativity in relation to Islam.
Read and download course structure: https://fal.cn/3pm67
Course Convenor
Professor Jonas Otterbeck is a specialist on contemporary Islam. He is Head of Research at the Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC) and the current holder of the Rasul-Walker Chair in Popular Culture in Islam. The three main topics of his research are Islamic views on music, Muslims in Europe, and contemporary Islamic ideas. Theoretically, he has worked within gender, culture, and religious studies. In August 2021, Otterbeck’s new book The Awakening of Islamic Pop Music was published by Edinburgh University Press, and his current research is on creativity and Islam.
Date and Time
12, 19 and 26 September 2022,13:30 – 16:00 London Time.
Tickets
£75 professionals | £45 students, AKU alumni and staff. Book soon: https://fal.cn/3pm65
Organiser
Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC), London.
*The course will be delivered via Zoom. Readings and further details will be provided later upon registration.

4. Graduate Student Research Workshop

“New Directions in the Study of the Arab World”

March 4-8, 2023 

The NYU Abu Dhabi Humanities Research Fellowship for the Study of the Arab World program invites applications for its second Graduate Student Research Workshop to be hosted in spring 2023 at NYU Abu Dhabi.

The Humanities Research Fellowship for the Study of the Arab World program welcomes applications from international doctoral students with the opportunity to present and thoroughly discuss their Ph.D. projects related to the Arab world.

The workshop provides the opportunity for current advanced doctoral candidates who are currently in the writing stage to present, discuss, and receive valuable feedback on their research. Accepted applicants will pre-circulate an English-language chapter of their project and orally present a short overview of the project, raising questions or challenges to be discussed with the group.

Participants will read and discuss each other’s work in addition to presenting their own. NYUAD-based scholars in a variety of disciplines will offer feedback on the students’ projects and questions related to research, writing, and professional development. The workshop is also an opportunity to meet, learn from, and develop relationships with colleagues in the field.

Participants will be required to prepare a 10-minute presentation of their research project, which will be followed by 10 minutes of commentary from an assigned discussant, and a 35-minute open discussion.

Applications are encouraged for projects that range broadly across the arts, humanities, and social sciences related to the study of the Arab world, broadly defined, its rich literature and history, its cultural and artistic heritage, and its manifold connections with other cultures.

The Humanities Research Fellowship for the Study of the Arab World program will cover travel costs to and from Abu Dhabi, accommodation, and meals during the three-day workshop.

Applicants should submit a curriculum vitae, a two-page statement about the research, a one-page work plan with the projected date of completion of the degree, an abstract of the chapter that would be presented, and a letter of recommendation from the dissertation advisor. Application materials must be submitted in English.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, NYUAD reserves the right to adapt the conference format and structure and host the event online or in a hybrid format if necessary.

Conveners: Dr. Nathalie Peutz and Dr. Erin Pettigrew

Application process opens: July 2022

Application deadline: September 30, 2022

Project selection by: November 1, 2022

Applications should be submitted via our website.

5. AMEA Bi-annual Book Award 2022

The Association for Middle East Anthropology is accepting nominations for its bi-annual book award. This award is given to an anthropological work (single or co-authored, but not edited volumes) that features creative ethnographic writing, innovative data collection strategies, and sophisticated analysis. We solicit books that make significant contributions to anthropological knowledge and that advance our understanding of the complex forces that shape life in the Middle East and North Africa. Books submitted for the 2022 award must have a publication date in 2020 or 2021.

Submissions for this award should include a brief letter of nomination or self-nomination to the AMEA Book Award Chair. Please send this letter, along with a copy of the book, to each committee member. The letter and book may arrive separately (nominators/authors can contact the editorial office of their press to have books shipped directly to committee members). All submissions must be received by July 1st, 2022. Awardees will be announced at the fall 2022 meeting of MESA in Denver, CO.

Send any inquiries to the AMEA Book Award Chair, Anne Meneley: ameneley@trentu.ca.

Committee Members:

• Chair, Anne Meneley:

Department of Anthropology, Trent University

Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, K9L 0G2

• Second member, Angie Abdelmonem:

angie.abdelmonem@asu.edu (contact via email to receive shipping address)

• Third member, Sa’ed Atshan:

Department of Anthropology, Emory University

1557 Dickey Drive, Atlanta, GA 30322

https://mesana.org/resources-and-opportunities/2022/03/10/amea-bi-annual-book-award-2022

6. 16th Annual Muslim Studies Program Conference
Measuring Muslim Publics: Curves, Columns, Spheres and Squares
February 23-24, 2023
Michigan State University, International Center, East Lansing, MI, USA
Michigan State University is hosting an international conference entitled “Measuring Muslim Publics: Curves, Columns, Spheres and Squares.” This conference investigates who is ‘the public’ in public opinion? What effect does it have on politics? These questions have received a great deal of attention by scholars of American and European contexts where their contributions have taken on a universalistic overtone. Are these generalized assumptions valid in other societies – notably in Muslim-majority contexts? In addressing these questions, this conference aims to contribute to the interdisciplinary study of public opinion and ‘the public’ in Muslim contexts inside and outside of the Muslim world.
Previous research on public opinion and the public often falls into one of the following metaphorical categories. Survey research aggregates individual attitudes into curves measuring supplies of cultural values and of political demands. Media studies interprets the public through the writing of columns by journalists and their contemporary electronic equivalents. Social movement theories investigate the contentious social and political behavior of protest and demonstrations in city squares. Theories of public spheres investigate both the discourses that shape collective norms and the institutional settings they reside in.
Studies of public opinion from these various approaches in the Muslim world have increased in quantity and quality in recent years. However, researchers often fail to have conversations across both disciplinary boundaries and geographic scope. Area Studies specialists – of the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, or of Africa – may share interdisciplinary findings on their region of focus. Scholars within disciplines may use comparative research but without engaging with theories and methods from other fields. Moreover, with greater globalization of media and communications people hear, share (and ‘like’) content from beyond their own communities and nations. Yet, social media have also created information ‘bubbles’ while linguistic differences reflect lasting boundaries. Finally, do these theories and methods reflect imported or indigenous practices? While academic research on public opinion has been globalized in various disciplines, do the concerns of the field only reflect priorities from outside the regions they study? Thus, this conference seeks to foster a dialogue across disciplinary and geographic boundaries about research on public opinion and especially on who constitutes the public that it assumes.
Call for papers: The organizers welcome abstracts for previously unpublished research that can fall into any of these research streams about public opinion and the public in Muslim-majority contexts or Muslim contexts outside of the Muslim world. It especially encourages papers that blend them or have a comparative geographic scope. Papers that interrogate normative assumptions and methodologies in public opinion research are also encouraged. Junior scholars and post-doctoral researchers are encouraged to submit abstracts for consideration.
The deadline to apply is August 31, 2022, and accepted papers will be announced by September 30, 2022.
Click here to submit an abstract.: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc5PHqGPdzJRTbfkUfUiA_XWgeLHBYdtZHZPzHCLlGVpPL7sg/viewform?usp=sf_link

7. Iranian / Persianate Subalterns in the Safavid Period: Their Role and Depiction, Recovering ’Lost Voices‘

Editor: Andrew J. Newman

Gerlach, 2022