Archive for September 13th, 2022
- September 13, 2022
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.CFP: The Quest for Modern Language between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, University of Chicago, April 2023
Language ideologies were an important component of modern nationalism, and figured prominently in the cultural and political discourses of modernity and modernization in and around what came to be known as “the Middle East” in the 19th and early 20th centuries. We invite submissions for a two day workshop, to be held at the University of Chicago on April 13-14, 2023, which seeks to bring together scholars across humanistic and social scientific disciplines (such as History, Literary theory, Linguistic and Anthropology) to explore the articulation, circulation, and mobilization of ideas about language death and revival, language reform, and language modernization in the contexts of empire, emerging nationalisms, and a modernized / quickly modernizing world.
Invited speakers:
Dima Ayoub, Middlebury College
Johann Strauss, Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg
Some of the topics we hope to see addressed include:
(a) What does / did it mean for a language to be or become a modern language within the relevant discourses?
(b) How does multilingualism and translation figure within projects of language modernization in the relevant geopolitical contexts?
(b) How, if at all, did developments in linguistics, philology, and adjacent disciplines inform and shape ideas about “modern language” and related ideas such as “modern / national literature”?
(c) How do notions of native tongue, language family, vernacular dialect or register interact with concepts such as empire, nation, motherland?
(d) How does the relation between language and the body figure in projects of (re)generation of modern polities and individuals?
1-page abstracts for a 30 minute presentation should be sent to ifrancez@uchicago.edu
Submission deadline: December 15th, 2022
Notification of acceptance: January 2022
2. Call for Papers
Proposal for Special Issue of Critical Comparative Studies, Edinburgh University Press
Iranian Comparative Literature: Between Chaos and Discipline
This special issue is building on two panels organized in the XXIII Congress of International Comparative Literature Association in Tbilisi, Georgia, in July 2022. The issue seeks two aims: a historical and a methodological. First, to study the development of Comparative Literature in institutional settings during the past two decades in order to critically review the current state of the discipline as it is practiced in Persian and other Iranian languages, in Iran and diasporic locations. Second, to investigate the impact of comparative methodologies that have contributed to the formation of modern literary studies – in particular Orientalism and Eurocentric knowledge – and to examine the effects of this (comparative) literary studies as a “local” form of knowledge in Iranian academia.
Historically, the study of modern foreign literatures was part of the curriculum at the first modern Iranian university (i.e. University of Tehran) in the 1920s, but a department of Comparative Literature proper did not – and does not – exist in Iranian academia. During the past two decades, the discipline has been developed as a subfield under the department of national literature, i.e. Persian Language and Literature. It is probably in response to this change that there has been a sharp increase in the number of books on Comparative Literature translated into Persian, as well as in the number of academic journals published in Persian with “comparative” as part of their titles. Outside Iran, the majority of students and scholars who contribute to the field have conventionally been located in Area Studies departments, engaging, and oftentimes extending, the legacies of Orientalism.
On the methodological side, this issue seeks to discuss the disciplinary adjustments needed for the practice of Comparative Literature – or rather comparative literary studies – in the Iranian context. The structures of knowledge formulated during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were based on two fundamental postulates: the centrality of capitalism and secularism as the defining essence of modern culture; the history of European cultural development as the norm against which other cultural histories would be assessed. In this structure, Area Studies was created in Europe for introducing non-European literatures – placed outside capitalism – to European readers.
As a result, the study of modern Iranian literatures in Iran, positioned on the margins of capitalism, via Eurocentric knowledge would encounter deep epistemological and, subsequently, methodological problems: Orientalism places – via cliched images constructed through romanticist interests – the “golden age” of literary creativity in the past, consistently positioning modern Persian as an outsider to modern literary studies; energized by romantic nationalism, it has failed to consider and incorporate the diversity of Iranian literatures beyond Persian in the body of literary knowledge; it assesses a culture that has developed in the periphery of capitalism with the norms suitable to evaluating European literature and, therefore, cannot account for formal innovations and developments, if form is understood as the literary effect of negotiations between multiple cultural forces. In short, it is not clear what methodologies would be suitable to the study of Iranian literary traditions in a comparative setting.
As a result of these concerns, in order to integrate Persian in comparative literary practices, a number of changes are needed to formulate the critical position(s) and priorities of the discipline. First, disentangling the history of Iranian cultural development from the global history of colonialism, particularly European modern history. The normative assumptions of the discipline must be dealt with as fluid frames that essentially fall short of describing the peripherality and diversity of the Iranian condition. This critical perspective must extend to a critical review of Area Studies and the Orientalist knowledge it produces. Second, the problem of a temporal lag in a context that has been on the margins of the modern world, hence a latecomer to both capitalism and disciplinary knowledge, must be tackled, too; this temporal lag is most evident in the way Comparative Literature subfields have been formed, and journals founded, without having developed a linguistic pedagogical program or a clear research method.
Approaching Comparative Literature as a transdisciplinary field, with a Eurocentric and colonial history, this special issue takes into account contemporary questions and lived experiences that engage and promote the causes of comparative literary studies within and beyond Persian – as Iran’s lingua franca. Given the modern history of the nation, and the academic system, can Comparative Literature be practiced at all as a discipline in the Iranian context? What new theoretical interventions are essential to render the discipline not only productive but also critically relevant? This special issue invites researchers to share their thoughts and research on the state of the discipline. Topics of interest are – but not essentially limited to – the following:
– The history of modern (foreign) literary studies at Iranian universities
– The legacies and limits of Area studies and Orientalist knowledge
– “Internal colonialism” and non-Persian Iranian languages and literary traditions
– Being/becoming World Literature: peripherality and universality
– Formulating the condition: Is combined and uneven development sufficient?
– The “literary” and comparatism: discipline building and curriculum development
– Conceptualizations of translation, imitation, and adaptation in a romanticist culture
– Disciplinarity and the question of visual cultures, digital literatures and future research.
Please send a 300-word abstract to both Omid Azadibougar omid.azadi@hunnu.edu.cn and Laetitia Nanquette l.nanquette@unsw.edu.au by 31 January 2023.
Timeline:
Abstract submission deadline: 31 January 2023
Notification of acceptance: 28 February 2023
Paper submission deadline: 31 December 2023
Paper acceptance notification: 30 June 2024
Publication: December 2024
3. ONLINE Turkish, Hebrew, Persian and Arabic Roundtables “Lexicons of Race Projects”, Middle East Studies Association (MESA), 12-15 September 2022, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm EDT
When and where are racial histories and hierarchies embedded in languages of the Middle East and North Africa? How do vocabularies of race, Blackness, and minoritization travel across languages? What are the intellectual and political benefits of centering Blackness in Middle East Studies?
Information and registration: https://mailchi.mp/mesana/lexicons-of-race-virtual-roundtables-in-arabic-hebrew-persian-and-turkish?e=6c5710e83c
4. HYBRID Third JaNeT Workshop “Janissaries in Ottoman Port-Cities: Muslim Financial and Political Networks in the Early Modern Mediterranean”, Istanbul Medeniyet University, 14-15 September 2022
JaNet investigates the economic and sociopolitical role of the Janissaries in the 18th and early 19th centuries through their examination as a complex of interconnected networks in the Mediterranean. By studying the Janissary corps, the project brings forward a radically new historical analysis concerning the role of Muslims in the Ottoman and wider Mediterranean commercial economy.
Information and registration: https://networks.h-net.org/node/11419/discussions/10812519/third-ja-net-workshop-14-15-september-2022-istanbul
5. HYBRID Third JaNeT Workshop “Janissaries in Ottoman Port-Cities: Muslim Financial and Political Networks in the Early Modern Mediterranean”, Istanbul Medeniyet University, 14-15 September 2022
JaNet investigates the economic and sociopolitical role of the Janissaries in the 18th and early 19th centuries through their examination as a complex of interconnected networks in the Mediterranean. By studying the Janissary corps, the project brings forward a radically new historical analysis concerning the role of Muslims in the Ottoman and wider Mediterranean commercial economy.
Information and registration: https://networks.h-net.org/node/11419/discussions/10812519/third-ja-net-workshop-14-15-september-2022-istanbul
6. Section « L’islam dann la culture populaire : reconfigurations et nouvelles visibilités » dans le cadre du treizième congrès des francoromanistes, Universität Wien, 21-24 septembre 2022
Information, programme et abstracts: https://frankoromanistentag.univie.ac.at/fr/sections/etudes-culturelles/
7. Conference “The Middle East in Myth and Reality”, 2022 Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies Conference, University of Iceland, 22-24 September 2022
Program: https://conference.hi.is/nsmes2022/files/2022/08/Nordic-Middle-Eastern-Conference-Program-.pdf
8. ONLINE Webinar “Struggling for Reproductive Rights: Perspectives from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East”, Center for Middle East Studies, Brown University, Provi-dence, RI, 30 September 2022, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm ET
Information and registration: https://brown.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0fmbG0nyR7uTXb6hc1vtxA
9. HYBRID Conference “Faith Saving Water: Muslims, Christians and the Environment”, Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, Oxford, 28 November 2022
The conference will focus on Muslim and Christian perspectives on water from environmental, theological and practical points of view. The scope of the conference encompasses all topics and disciplinary approaches relating to the study of Islam and Christianity and their encounter around water as a shared natural resource. The main case study for the conference will be the water crisis in Jordan.
Deadline for abstracts: 7 October 2022. Information: https://www.cmcsoxford.org.uk/cmcs-news/faith-saving-water-conference-28th-november-2022-call-for-papers
10. “3rd Mediterranean Studies Symposium”, Centre for Mediterranean Studies (CMS), Dubrovnik, Croatia, 29 June – 1 July 2023
Interdisciplinary approaches from humanities, social sciences, media studies, and other fields of research are pivotal. Any historical period of reference is welcome, though we would strongly encourage presenters to look at the region’s current complexities.
Deadline for abstracts: 1 November 2022.
11. Doctoral or Post-Doctoral Position (3 Years, TV-L 13, 65%-100%) for Research on “Jews and Christians in Arabia: Between the Qur’an and Early Islam”, University of Tuebingen
Holding at least an MA or a PhD, the successful candidate will possess a very good command of Arabic and detailed knowledge of the early Islamic tradition. In addition, the candidate should have good knowledge of the disciplines of historiography and Qur’anic Studies. They must be able to work with further late antique Jewish and Christian primary sources relevant to the study of early Islam.
Deadline for application: 30 September 2022.
12. Assistant or Associate Professorship of the Arab American Educational Foundation, History Department, Rice University, Houston, TX
The Department seeks a historian of the modern Arab World who has an outstanding record of research, competence in the Arabic language, demonstrated expertise in Arab culture and history, and proven excellence in teaching.
Deadline for applications: 15 November 2022. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/112001
13. Tenure-Track Assistant Professor for Comparative Literature of the Early Global South (1000 – 1600 C.E.), University of California, Los Angeles, CA
The ideal candidate should work in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, or the Americas. Applicants should have a PhD in Comparative Literature or a related field. The candidate will show broad and sophisticated theoretical competence. We seek the potential for exceptional research and excellence in teaching.
Deadline for application: 30 November 2022. Information: https://mailchi.mp/mediterraneanseminar/job-assistant-professor-early-global-south-comparatist-comp-lit-ucla?e=82aeb6c61d
14. Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of International Relations and Global Studies, West Chester University, PA
Qualification: Experience teaching courses in International Relations, Comparative Politics, and/or Global Studies. Experience teaching specialized courses in Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and/or transnational issues.
Deadline for applications: 1 November 2022.
Information: https://mesana.org/resources-and-opportunities/2022/09/08/tenure-track-faculty-position
15. 3 and 10 November 2022 Short Course – Arabic Transliteration for Academics, Publishers and Librarians
AKU- ISMC
More information at:
https://www.aku.edu/ismc/study/Pages/short-courses.aspx
16. CFP – Interiors Reconfigured: Changing Materiality and Craftsmanship in the Decorative Arts of the Middle East and North Africa (18th-20th centuries) – Due October 15
Vitrocentre Romont, November, 3-4, 2023
Organizers: Francine Giese and Sarah Keller (Vitrocentre Romont), Mercedes Volait (CNRS / InVisu)
Keynote Speaker: Stefan Weber (Museum for Islamic Art in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin)
Call for papers
Deadline for submissions: October 15, 2022
Notification of acceptance: November 30, 2022
We are pleased to announce the call for papers for an international conference dedicated to the decorative arts of the Middle East and North Africa with a special focus on material aspects and local practices. The 19th century witnessed an unprecedented disassembly of historical interiors in the cultural centers of the region, be it Cairo, Damascus or Istanbul. Dismounted architectural elements such as wood panels, ceilings, domes, marble incrustations, tiles, stucco glass windows or textiles reached the West via collectors or the art market, leaving behind a fragmented cultural heritage. This trend followed profound changes in the countries of origin since the 18th century, in the course of which local tastes and craftmanship began to mutate under Ottoman and Western influence.
The conference is jointly organized by the Vitrocentre Romont and the CNRS (InVisu research center in Paris), and will address the growing importance of material-based analysis in the field of Middle Eastern and Maghrebi décors. The starting point are the interiors of residences and palaces in the above-mentioned region, which have been extensively documented and described by Western architects, artists, and travelers. Some have undergone substantial restorations in recent times that have erased their most modern layers. Their exploration has so far often been limited to what they can tell about domestic architecture at the time of their building, or more recently with questions dealing with provenance, art market or cultural appropriation, without their original material composition being investigated by means of micro-analyses. When non-invasive analyses are possible, they may help to collect reliable data on the different components of a historical interior, with the aim of virtually reconstructing their furnishings and the changes undergone during their period of existence.
The organizers welcome proposals on the following topics:
- Case studies of the different materials used in interiors of the mentioned period
- Transformation of interiors across time: reuse, substitution and reassembly
- Material characterization and technical analysis of the different components of interiors
- Local versus global manufacturing practices, including all the range of hybridisations
- The potential of virtual 3D reconstructions for art historical research
The presentations should be max. 20 minutes and may be given in French or English. Please submit a proposal of maximum 300 words and a brief curriculum vitae by October 15, 2022 to franziska.niemand@vitrocentre.ch.
Accommodation and meals during the conference will be covered. Participants are expected to pay for their own transportation.
For further information, see www.vitrocentre.ch
17. Webinar – Ditch the Negativity and Transform Your Relationship With Writing – September 28
During her first year as an assistant professor, Jane Jones, developmental editor, academic book coach, and founder of Up In Consulting, found it challenging to navigate her tenure-track responsibilities. She ultimately decided to leave this career path to become a writing coach and developmental editor. Jane decided to make it her mission to help other scholars achieve access to proper support, feedback, and mentorship and, ultimately, restore their faith in their work.
Join us as Jane shares what scholars, like you, can do to best mitigate these challenges in order to positively transform your relationship with writing. You will learn how to:
- Schedule and plan your writing process from the outset
- Overcome the magnitude of the task and find joy in writing
- Identify writing communities that support and hold you accountable
September 28 at 4:30 PM Israel time / 1:30 PM GMT / 9:30 AM EDT on Zoom
The ‘Publication Success Interview Series’ offers unique insights into the publishing world through in-depth conversations with leading editors, publishers, and other influential figures in the industry. Through exploring relevant topics, the interviews address and answer pressing issues in order to make the publishing process more accessible to authors.
- September 13, 2022
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment