Archive for July 30th, 2022

1.The latest Latin America & Caribbean Islamic Studies newsletter (vol 2, number 4, July 2022) can be found on the LACISA website, https://www.lacisa.org/

‘Greetings from the Southwest U.S.! As I write this letter, I am staring out into the Sonoran desert. Just back from California, I am in Arizona conducting research on themes related to immigration, dialogue across difference, and Latinx Muslim philanthropy.
As part of my research, I am finding once again how race, religion, colonial legacies, and overlapping transnational trajectories form a complex core for our research on Islam and Muslim communities in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Latinx U.S.
This edition of the LACISA Newsletter, which rounds out our second full year of publication, reflects these themes as well.
Before sharing more about what you will find on these themes in the newsletter below, I’d first like to welcome our new Associate Editor, Rahma Maccarone. Rahma is a Ph.D. candidate at Georgetown University where her research examines questions of race, identity and agency in the history and literature surrounding the narratives of enslaved Muslims in North America, South America and the Caribbean. We are immensely excited to welcome Rahma to the team. I hope you enjoy getting to know about Rahma in her letter below and in her interview with Habeeb Akande, author of Illuminating the Blackness. Her contributions to the newsletter have already been immense.
In addition to Rahma’s letter and interview with Akande, you will also find other exciting content in this edition of the LACISA Newsletter:
* a podcast episode from The Maydan (https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=6b20521049&e=f70992245e)  discussing how the story of “global Islam” is part and parcel to the story of Latin America and the Caribbean;
* a call for contributions (https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=a2e1a7a116&e=f70992245e) to a special edition of the International Journal of Latin American Religions;
* and a call for paid presentations (https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=4fc4bcb482&e=f70992245e)  at a colloquium on Muslim philanthropy in Latin America and the Latinx U.S., to be held December 7-8, 2022.
In addition, we present a round-up of several news headlines relevant to our community’s research, including stories from the U.S./Mexico border, Saudi Arabia, and beyond.
I invite you to enjoy and explore all of this content and look forward to featuring some of your own contributions in the near future. Thank you, as always, for your time, consideration, and growing commitment to our network.’
Kind Regards,
Ken Chitwood
Editor-in-Chief, LACISA Newsletter

2. Iran Namag Special Issue on Sohrab Sepehri 

Editor-in-chief: Professor Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi 

Special issue editors: Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi and Behrooz Mahmoodi Bakhtiari 

Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980) was a prominent modern poet and painter of Iran, who has had an influence on many a writer, poet, and artist after him. His main work is The Eight Books, translated into English as The Eight Books: A Complete English Translation (Brill, 2021). He has also written three essays, which his sister published posthumously in one book, entitled, The Blue Room. Sepehri is said to be a modernist poet and painter. His painting can be visualized in his poetry, and his poetry flows in his painting.

This special issue of Iran Namag is a tribute to Sohrab Sepehri, as a poet, writer, and artist. The editors seek scholarly articles on any topic related to Sohrab Sepehri’s poetry, essays, and art.

Please send your proposed title and abstracts, in Persian or English, of no more than 500 words, along with a short bio, by September 1, 2022, to Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi at pshabanijadidi@uchicago.edu and Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari at mbakhtiari@ut.ac.ir.

As a bilingual quarterly, Iran Namag accepts articles for review in Persian and English; please indicate whether your final contribution will be in English or Persian in your abstract. Authors of the chosen abstracts will be asked to submit their articles (between 4000 to 6000 words) by January 1, 2023. 

Please feel free to address any inquiries you may have to the editors of this special issue, Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi at pshabanijadidi@uchicago.edu and Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari at mbakhtiari@ut.ac.ir or to the Editor-in-Chief of Iran Namag, Professor Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi at editor@irannamag.com.

3. In Memoriam – Toh Sugimura

It is with great regret that we note the passing of Prof. Toh Sugimura at the age of 88 on July 10, 2022. He was the first East Asian scholar of Islamic art and the first to discuss the cultural exchanges between Persia and China from an East Asian point of view.

He was born in Dalian, China in 1934. At the time his father Yuzo, a historian of Chinese art, was conducting research on Manchurian sites. Prof. Sugimura’s interest in Asian art and archaeology was probably nurtured by his father, who later worked for the Tokyo National Museum and Daito Bunka University and published many books on Chinese art.

After graduating from Sophia University in Tokyo, he was awarded a scholarship from the Iraqi government and studied Islamic art and archaeology at the University of Baghdad from 1959 to 1965 under the guidance of John Shapley, an art historian specializing in early Christian and Byzantine art. He obtained his MA at the University of Michigan in 1968 and continued his doctorate studies there with Oleg Grabar. His Ph.D. dissertation titled “The Chinese Impact on Certain Fifteenth-Century Persian Miniature Paintings from the Albums (Hazine Library Nos. 2153, 2154, 2160) in the Topkapi Sarayi Museum, Istanbul” was completed in 1981.

After starting his career as a curator at the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, he became an assistant professor at the National Museum of Ethnology, Suita in 1976 and a professor in 1987, soon after which the School of Cultural and Social Studies at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies was attached to the museum. Prof. Sugimura became its deputy director-general in 1996 and professor emeritus in 1997. From this year to 2005, he was a professor at Ryukoku University, Otsu.

Prof. Sugimura’s research was not limited to his famous works on Persian and Chinese paintings in the Topkapi Sarayi Museum but also included Islamic crafts such as pottery and carpets. All of his work was based on his profound understanding of the cultures of both East and West Asia. He played a central role in reaching out to the Japanese public with his knowledge of Islamic art and crafts by publishing many art books and catalogues and leading research projects. In particular, his curation of the carpet exhibition at the National Museum of Ethnology in 1994 is highly rated, and its catalogue is still regarded in Japan as the textbook of carpets even after thirty years. His enthusiasm for Islamic art, his pioneering insight into the cultural exchanges in Eurasia, as well as his kind guidance of younger Japanese scholars interested in Islamic art, will always be remembered.

(Tomoko Masuya, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo)

Selected works by Prof. Toh Sugimura:

Toh Sugimura, “Albums in the Topkapı Sarayı Museum, Istanbul,” Oriento (Bulletin of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan) 14-2 (1971), pp. 93–107 [in Japanese].

Toh Sugimura, “The Kuan-yin with a Fish Creel (Yü-lan Kuan-yin) in the Topkapu Sarayi Museum, Istanbul,” Studies Dedicated to Professor Namio Egami on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday: Archaeology and Art History, Yamakawa Shuppansha, Tokyo, 1976, pp. 377–97 [in Japanese].

Toh Sugimura tr., Ernst J. Grube, Filiz Çağman, and Zeren Akalay (with photos by Banri Namikawa), Islamic Painting: Topkapı Sarayı Collection, Heibonsha, Tokyo, 1978.

Seiichi Masuda and Toh Sugimura eds., National Museums of Syria (Wonders of the World’s Museums, vol. 18), Kodansha, Tokyo, 1979 [in Japanese].

Toh Sugimura (with photos by Banri Namikawa), Persian Pottery in the Iran Bastan Museum, Tehran, Heibonsha, Tokyo, 1980 [in Japanese].

Toh Sugimura, The Encounter of Persia with China: Research into Cultural Contacts Based on Fifteenth Century Persian Pictorial Materials (Senri Ethnological Studies 18), National Museum of Ethnology, Suita, 1986.

Toh Sugimura, “Islamic Pottery in Syria, Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia,” Tsugio Mikami ed. Islamic Pottery (Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 21), Shogakukan, Tokyo, 1986, pp. 138–73 [in Japanese].

Toh Sugimura tr., The Islamic World (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 10), Fukutake Shoten, Tokyo, 1987.

Toh Sugimura, “Westward Development of Taoist Paintings: ‘Four Sleepers’ in Persia,” Histories and Cultures of Asian Peoples: Studies Dedicated to Professor Yoshiro Shiratori on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, Rokko Shuppan, Tokyo, 1990, pp. 205–22 [in Japanese].

Toh Sugimura, “Chinese Influence on Persian Paintings of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” in Tadao Umesao and Toh Sugimura eds., Significance of Silk Roads in the History of Human Civilizations (Senri Ethnological Studies 32), National Museum of Ethnology, Suita, 1992, pp. 135–46.

Toh Sugimura, Woven Flowers of the Silk Roads: An Introduction to the Carpet Heritage of West Asia and Central Asia, Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, 1994 [in Japanese].

Toh Sugimura, “East Meets West,” Minpaku Tsushin 78 (1997), pp. 5–36 [in Japanese].

Toh Sugimura, “Islamic Art,” Toh Sugimura editorial supervision, MIHO MUSEUM South Wing, Miho Museum, Koka, 1997, pp. 287–311, 356–59 [in Japanese].

Toh Sugimura ed., Islam (New History of World Art, vol. 17 of Asian Art), Shogakukan, Tokyo, 1999 [in Japanese].

Toh Sugimura, “Islamic and Chinese Ceramics of Central Asia,” “Central Asian Historical Sites and Ceramics” (with Tatsuo Sasaki), “Ceramics Excavated at Otrar, Kazakhstan” (with Tatsuo Sasaki), “Timurid Architecture and Decorative Tiles in Central Asia,” Islamic and Chinese Ceramics of Central Asia (Silk Roadology 7), Research Center for Silk Roadology, Nara, 1999, pp. 1–18, 46–75 [in Japanese], 151–54 [in English].

Toh Sugimura, “Dogan ve Dogancilik-Sarayi Albumlerinde Kus Resimleri,” Portakal Sanat ve Kultur Evi 23 (2001), pp. 112–23

Toh Sugimura, “Islamic and Chinese Ceramics of Central Asia in the 15th Century,” “Blue of Samarkand,” Proceedings of the International Symposium on Revitalization of Traditional Ceramic Techniques in Central Asia, UNESCO. Tashkent, 2001, pp. 38–46.

Toh Sugimura, “Whence the Birds of Prey in the Imperial Ottoman Albums?,” Portakal Art and Culture Magazine (Spring–Summer 2002, issue 6), pp. 102–113.

Toh Sugimura, “Islamic Ideas of Paradise and Their Representation,” The Exchange of East-West Motifs –Invocation of Paradise– (Silk Roadology 18), Research Center for Silk Roadology, Nara, 2003, pp. 1–41 [in Japanese].

Toh Sugimura, “Ceramics in Islamic Art,” Toyo Toji (Oriental Ceramics) 34 (2004–2005), pp. 5–12 [in Japanese].

Toh Sugimura and Xu Guanghui eds., Roads of Buddha: Cultural Materials of the Silk Roads, Toho Shuppan, Osaka, 2005.

Toh Sugimura, “Introduction,” Toh Sugimura editorial supervision, The Brilliant World of Persian Carpet, Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum, Hiroshima, 2006, pp. 6–30.

Toh Sugimura, “Sanguszko Medallion-Animal Carpet,” Kokka 1363 (2009), pp. 52––55 [in Japanese with English summary].

Toh Sugimura, “Luster Bowl with Figural Design,” Kokka 1368 (2009), pp. 5–14 [in Japanese with English summary].

Toh Sugimura, “Venuses and Goddesses of the Ancient Orient,” “Female Representations in Islamic Art,” in Tadanori Yuba ed., Women and the Silk Roads: History of Artistic Exchange between the East and the West, Heibonsha, Tokyo, 2010, pp. 43–72, 125–52 [in Japanese].