Archive for September, 2023

1.Call for Papers: The Oneness of Being (Wahdat al-Wujūd): Interpretation, Reception, and Implications

Al-Mahdi Institute is pleased to announce the call for papers for its upcoming two-day conference on Monday 22nd April to Tuesday 23rd April 2024, titled: ‘The Oneness of Being (Wahdat al-Wujūd): Interpretation, Reception, and Implications’ convened by Dr Zoheir Esmail. The deadline for abstracts is Monday 4th December 2023.

For further information, see

https://www.almahdi.edu/call-for-papers-the-oneness-of-being-wa%E1%B8%A5dat-al-wujud-interpretation-reception-and-implications/

 

 

 

2. Open Access New Publication: “The Future of Islamic Liberation Theology”

The edited volume: “The Future of Islamic Liberation Theology”.is a Special Issue of Religions, and is entirely open-access.

See this link.

 

 

 

3. Webinar on Ibn Abī Usaybi`a, 17 October 2023

Date & Time: Oct 17, 2023 5pm CET

Description:

Scholars have been aware of the complex manuscript and textual tradition of Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa’s Uyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ since August Müller discussed it in the introduction to his edition of the work. I revised Müller’s conclusions in one of the essays accompanying Brill’s new edition and translation, demonstrating that the ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ had circulated in three different versions (Emilie Savage-Smith et al (ed.), A Literary History of Medicine, Brill, 2020, vol. 1). In this paper, I will discuss how the scribes approached the copy of Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa’s work, how they dealt with the textual problems derived from the coexistence of the different versions, and how these collation practices are reflected in the codicological, textual and paratextual features that we find in the extant manuscripts.

Registration link: https://oeaw-ac-at.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jtYw9_Y_TXCkopYHFvdnCw#/registration

 

 

 

 

4. Call for Applications | Newberry Library Short-Term Fellowship Opportunities

The Newberry Library’s long-standing fellowship program provides outstanding scholars with the time, space, and community required to pursue innovative and ground-breaking scholarship.
In addition to the library’s collections, fellows are supported by a collegial interdisciplinary community of researchers, curators, and librarians. An array of scholarly and public programs also contributes to an engaging intellectual environment.

Short-Term Fellowships are available to postdoctoral scholars, PhD candidates, and those who hold other terminal degrees. Short-Term Fellowships are generally awarded for 1 to 2 months; unless otherwise noted the stipend is $3,000 per month. These fellowships support individual scholarly research for those who have a specific need for the Newberry’s collection. The deadline for short-term opportunities is December 15.

 

 

 

5. Eastern Michigan University – Assistant Professor, Middle East History

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=66002

 

 

 

 

6. Roshan Institute for Persian Studies Book Launch with Mojdeh Bahar

Please join us to celebrate Ms Bahar’s new translation book Song of the Ground Jay, Poems by Iranian Women (1960-2023) as she discusses her book with us.

Roshan Institute for Persian Studies

Book Launch with Mojdeh Bahar

Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023

2:30 pm Eastern Time

Zoom link:

https://umd.zoom.us/j/95589857828

 

 

 

7. Sunil Sharma’s talk on October 25 as part of Franklin Lewis Lecture Series 2023-2024

There will be two lectures in the Franklin Lewis Lecture Series this academic year. The first one will be on October 25 by Sunil Sharma, and the second on April 17 by Dominic Brookshaw.

Sunil Sharma’s talk will be in person, but recoded and posted online in https://nelc.uchicago.edu/news-events/franklin-lewis-lecture-series.

Abstract: Amir Khusraw of Delhi (d. 1325) was the first Persian poet to compose a quintet of poems (masnavis) in response to the one by his predecessor Nizami of Ganja (d. 1209). Khusraw’s narrative technique and style shows the influence of both Perso-Islamic and Indic storytelling traditions. I will explore this aspect of his poetry in the Hasht Bihisht (Eight Paradises) where characters use a complex variety of practical skills, logic, and sorcery, to overcome obstacles. I also suggest that the poet sought to theorize these ideas as a body of knowledge, which is often viewed as ‘aja’ib (marvels), in his later work Nuh Sipihr (Nine Spheres of Heaven).

 

 

 

8. CFP: Liquid Worlds: Historical Geographies and Cartographies of the Sea, Journal of Historical Geography

The Journal of Historical Geography is planning a special issue on “Liquid Worlds: Historical Geographies and Cartographies of the Sea.” It is being edited by Frederico Ferretti. The deadline for submissions is 5 January 2024.

The cfp:

… this special issue aims at addressing critical historical geographies of seas, oceans and liquid spaces as well as histories of geography and cartography related to these geographical objects, understood both as metaphors and as material places. We are additionally interested in seeing more on the relationship between historical cases and current debates on seas and oceans that are cognizant of critical geopolitics, the material turn and relational ontologies. We especially value critical contributions that question traditional and colonial understandings of the sea as a vehicle for colonisation and ‘civilisation’. Likewise, we appreciate critical views on the sea understood as a frontier, which can seek dialogues with current scholarship on critical geopolitics, critical map histories, internationalism, anti-racism and decoloniality.

For more information: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-historical-geography/about/call-for-papers#liquid-worlds-historical-geographies-and-cartographies-of-the-sea

Contact Email

federico.ferretti6@unibo.it

 

 

 

9. Drugs in the Medieval Mediterranean: Transmission and Circulation of Pharmacological Knowledge, ed. P. Bouras-Vallianatos and D. Stathakopoulos, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.

https://www.cambridge.org/gr/universitypress/subjects/history/history-medicine/drugs-medieval-mediterranean-transmission-and-circulation-pharmacological-knowledge?format=HB&isbn=9781009389754#contentsTabAnchor

 

 

 

 

10. Television and the Afghan culture wars brought to you by foreigners, warlords, and activists

Wazhmah Osman

Univ of Illinois Press, 2020

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p085451

 

 

 

11. Online events at Centre for the Study of Islam (CSI, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter) this term

Monday 9 October, 17:00-18:30 (UK time): Monday Majlis, Parvaneh Pourshariati, Sharing Wives and Drinking Wine: The Mazdakites, the Ayyārs, and the Mithraists: Accusations & Realities

Please register in advance at https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUpdu-sqDsoG9VhwMHgx_xbOUzGFJJdh2dc

Wednesday 11 October, 17:30-19:00, Visiting Speaker Lecture (Monday Majlis Format), Hafsa Kanjwal, Colonizing Kashmir: State-building under Indian occupation

Please register in advance at https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMtdOqtrj4qGdDGXD4PmKN9tSJmGS5vLAX9

 Monday 16 October, 17:00-18:30 (UK time), Monday Majlis, Youshaa Patel, How to think about Muslim difference?

Please register in advance at https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0pfu2grTIpGtZzfCt5L23MhLjcdcGRXVbj

Monday 30 October, 17:00-18:30 (UK time), Monday Majlis, Carl Ernst and Mbaye Lo, Islam, Arabic, and slavery in Omar ibn Said’s America

Please register in advance at https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcuf-uoqz8rGdUDlVeU95vA0fC3rOlCAuZ1

Monday 13 November, 17:00-18:30 (UK time), Monday Majlis, Olga Merck Davidson, Ferdowsi’s ecumenism in the Shahnama

Please register in advance at https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYvfu6tqjIuGtFJdwdSjkbT6KWiTPCSwaA-

Monday 20 17:00-18:30 (UK time) November, Monday Majlis, Francesca Bellino, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen and Luca Patrizi, The adventures of Adab

Please register in advance at https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIkf-yprDouGNPYoljbVMrGJWOd4Wkl0qmV

Monday 27 November, 17:00-18:30 (UK time), Monday Majlis, Usaama al-Azami, Islamist Sufism: How Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s spirituality resembles mainstream Neotraditionalism

Please register in advance at https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJElfu-hrj0iEtRaSX2jX-ZjibxkJXR0dfa2

Monday 4 December, 17:00-18:30 (UK time), Monday Majlis, Michael Bednar, Amir Khusrau and the narrative of history

Please register in advance at https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIkdOqqrzspGdO3jM02oOblvPhiyEhUVdxH

Monday 11 December, 17:00-18:30 (UK time), Ferenc Csikés, Turkic martyrologies in Safavid Iran

Please register in advance at https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMtf-uvrDkrHtacUFSU2H0H-uSWicJIAz9J

 

 

 

12. Transnational Culture in the Iranian Armenian Diaspora

Claudia Yaghoobi

Edinburgh, 2023
Find out more: https://ddlnk.net/CEQ-8F59P-MWI2D5-59OACQ-0/c.aspx

 

 

 

13. Nükhet Varlık, “Plague in the Mediterranean and Islamicate World,” Isis 114, Issue S1: Bibliographic Essays on the History of Pandemics: An IsisCB Special Issue (September 2023), pp. S313–S362.

Abstract:

This essay surveys the evolution of historical scholarship on epidemic diseases in the Mediterranean/Islamicate world with a particular focus on plague. Temporally, it covers the scholarship on plague epidemics during the last 1,500 years, surveyed in three major pandemics: first, second, and third pandemics of plague. Geographically, it addresses the Mediterranean basin and its hinterland, including the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the Anatolian peninsula, the Balkans, and occasionally drawing on adjacent areas such as the Black Sea region and the Persian plateau. It outlines major trends and turning points in the modern historiography; reviews prevailing paradigms, contested issues, and emergent consensuses; and identifies methodologies, sources, and approaches. Whenever possible, it highlights contributions from paleogenetic and other scientific studies, with special reference to the diversity of opinions, actors, and materials in this highly controversial but vigorous field of study. The major goal of this essay is to reunite the divided historiographies of the Mediterranean world, which are typically studied separately in the case of Europe and the Islamicate world, with a view to underscoring their shared epidemiological experiences.

 

 

 

14. ONLINE Book Talk “Heroes to Hostages, America and Iran 1800-1988” by Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet (University of Pennsylvania), Center for Middle East Studies, Brown University, 2 October 2023, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm ET

This book narrates the history of America and Iran, and its diplomacy, by shifting attention to social and cultural concerns. As Iranians observed global crises such as apartheid and race riots unfold in South Africa and the United States, they sharpened their understanding of racial politics. At the same time, Iran tried to assume a prominent role in these debates by hosting the UN Human Rights Conference in 1968 at a time when the US was mired in an unpopular war in Vietnam.

Information and registration:

https://watson.brown.edu/cmes/events/2023/firoozeh-kashani-sabet-heroes-hostages

 

 

 

 

15. HYBRID International Conference “Scriptural Readings and Reasonings. Philology and Religious Encounter in Medieval and Early Modern Times”, NYUAD Humanities Research Fellow-ship for the Study of the Arab World, University of Copenhagen”, 9-11 October 2023

The premise of this conference is that philological practices, as essentially comparative, inform complicated identities, and are an important tool of religious differentiation. Embedded in philological practices we find shared origins, methods, and values that cross religious divides.

Information, program, and registration:

https://teol.ku.dk/arrangementer/arrangementer-2023/scriptural-readings-and-reasonings/#:~:text=%27Scri

 

 

 

 

16. Minoritaires en Iran. Perspectives académiques et luttes politiques

par Ifpo · Publié 28/09/2023 · Mis à jour 22/09/2023

12 octobre 2023 | 9h – 18h

https://www.ifporient.org/minoritaires-en-iran/

 

 

 

 

17. Assistant Professor of Modern Languages & Literatures (Arabic Studies), College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia

Successful applicants must possess the skills to teach compelling courses in both Arabic language courses (all levels) and other lecture and seminar-style courses in English.

Deadline for applications:15 October 2023. Information: https://mesana.org/resources-and-opportunities/2023/09/28/assistant-professor-of-modern-languages-literatures-arabic-studies

 

 

 

 

18. ESCWA “Digital Arabic Content (DAC) Award for Sustainable Development” in Collaboration with the World Summit Awards (WSA)

Applications are open to institutions and young entrepreneurs from Arab countries who have created digital Arabic content applications or products with a clear impact on society. Eligible institutions can either be public, private, academic or non-governmental, and young entrepreneurs can be start-up founders, teams of young people or individuals where at least one of the founders and the majority of the team are younger than 35 years old.

Deadline for submissions: 15 October 2023.

Information: https://mailchi.mp/un/escwa-weekly-news-218en?e=e439a54ec4

 

 

 

 

19. Articles on “Iran’s Women Life Freedom Protests” for a Special Issue of the “Digest for Middle East Studies”

Issues: The role of regional /ethnic movements, especially in Kurdistan and in Baluchistan. – The role of the labor movement in the Women Life Freedom protests. – Consequences of the protests for Iran’s regional alliances and geopolitical standing. – Security services’ response to the protests (in terms of internal restruc-turing, procurement, training, recruitment, repressive techniques). Etc.

Deadline for abstracts: 15 October 2023. Information: https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20006627/cfp-special-issue-digest-middle-east-studies-woman-life-freedom

Transfer Student Scheme

1.Online Monday Majlis of the Centre for the Study of Islam, Exeter, opening the series in the new academic year.

Monday Majlis on the 2^nd of October, 17:00-18:30 (UK time)

Shawkat M. Toorawa, What, Where, and Whither Waqwaq?

Registration is required. Register please on this link:

https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIkf-ytqTIoE9S7n5hE43ZiLJY585vvKKG-

 

 

 

 

2. The Life of John Haskell Shedd

By William A. Shedd

Mazda: Bibliotheca Iranica: Americans in Persia/Iran Collection, No. 4

MORE: http://www.mazdapublishers.com/book/the-life-of-john-haskell-shedd

 

 

 

3. Dance in the Persianate World: History Aesthetics, Performance

Edited by Anthony Shay

Mazda: Bibliotheca Iranica: Performing Arts Series, No. 14

MORE: http://www.mazdapublishers.com/book/dance-in-the-persianate-world

 

 

 

 

4. HYBRID “Fifth Annual Islamic Philosophy Conference”, American Society of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Harvard University, 1-3 December 2023

We are particularly interested in proposals that relate to the theme: “After Mustafa Sabri: What Does a Robust Kalam Engagement with Contemporary Philosophy and Theology Look Like Today?” This year’s conference aims to continue to explore the interface between Islamic Philosophy and Theology and contemporary issues.

Deadline for abstracts: 1 October 2023. Information: https://asipt.org/conferences/conference-paper/

 

 

 

 

5. Assistant Professor of Arabic, Faculty of Religion and Theology (FRT), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

We are looking for candidates with proper experience in the field of teaching Arabic on an academic level, with a relevant and competent research profile, in the context of Islamic theology and religious studies.

Deadline for applications: 9 October 2023. Information: Prof. Dr. Mirjam van Veen m.g.k.van.veen@vu.nl

 

 

 

 

6. Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Islamic Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

Applicants should possess a strong foundation in the formative or classical traditions and literatures of Islam, with appropriate language proficiency such as Arabic and/or Persian, and an understanding of later and contemporary developments within Islamic societies. The geographical area of specialization is open, though the successful candidate will also teach within the Middle East Studies program.

Deadline for applications: 31 October 2023. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/131848

 

 

 

 

7. Junior Research Fellowship 2024–2025, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

The fellowship is open to all disciplines – particularly politics, economics, history, religion, sociology and anthropology. The fellowship’s goal is to allow untenured early career scholars the flexibility and means to advance a specific research project related to the contemporary Middle East and North Africa. The Fellowship is open to both recent PhDs (as a postdoctoral position) and untenured assistant professors in Middle East-related fields.

Deadline for applications: 31 October 2023. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/132002

 

 

 

 

8. Tenure-track Assistant Professor of International Studies, Global Economy, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA

We invite candidates whose research and teaching interests address issues relevant to the political economy of Africa, Asia, Latin America, or the Global South more generally. A completed or nearly completed PhD in Economics, International Studies, Political Science, Economic History, Public Administration, or a related field is required; in all cases, a strong foundation in international economics is expected.

Deadline for applications: 2 October 2023. Information: https://jobs.dickinson.edu/postings/7081

 

 

 

 

9. Tenure-track Assistant Professor of the Ancient Mediterranean, Classics Program, University of California, Davis

Applicants’ research interests should focus on Ancient Mediterranean culture(s) outside of Europe (e.g., An-cient Egypt, North Africa, the Levant). We are particularly interested in candidates whose research and teach-ing reorient traditional disciplinary boundaries, for instance by engaging with cross-cultural encounters within the Ancient Mediterranean world.

Deadline for applications: 1 November 2023. Information: https://recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF06016

 

 

 

 

10. Non-tenure-track Assistant Teaching Professor of Persian Language and Culture, Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

The successful candidate will have in hand a Master’s degree (or foreign equivalent) in a relevant field such as Persian language, Persian culture, language pedagogy, or applied linguistics, and will have superior pro-ficiency in Persian, as demonstrated by teaching reviews. A PhD (or foreign equivalent) in these fields is also acceptable.

Deadline for applications: 16 October 2023. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/131108

 

 

 

11. CFP: Special issue of Digest of Middle East Studies on the Woman, Life, Freedom protests

Issues: The role of regional /ethnic movements, especially in Kurdistan and in Baluchistan. – The role of the labor movement in the Women Life Freedom protests. – Consequences of the protests for Iran’s regional alliances and geopolitical standing. – Security services’ response to the protests (in terms of internal restruc-turing, procurement, training, recruitment, repressive techniques). Etc.

Deadline for abstracts: 15 October 2023. Information: https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20006627/cfp-special-issue-digest-middle-east-studies-woman-life-freedom

 

 

 

 

12. Open Access: Jesuits and Islam in Europe

Emanuele Colombo and Paul Shore

Brill, 2023

Open Access:

https://brill.com/display/title/60120

 

 

 

 

13. Louis Massignon et la mystique musulmane

Analyse d’une contribution à l’islamologie

Florence Ollivry

Brill, 2023

https://brill.com/display/title/65026

 

 

 

 

14. CFP: Paper Abstracts for a Conference Session at EAUH 2024 (Ostrava, Czechia) and Chapters for an Edited Volume in Preparation

Architecture, Villages, and their Entangled Histories: Rural-urban Encounters in the Islamic World

Co-chairs: Mohammad Gharipour, Prof., University of Maryland, mohammad@gatech.edu; Kivanç Kilinç, Assoc. Prof., Izmir Institute of Technology, kivanckilinc@iyte.edu.tr

Extended submission deadline: 20 October 2023

We invite paper abstracts around 300 words to be considered for a conference session (EAUH 2024 in Ostrava, Czechia) and for an edited volume in preparation that will feature selected papers accepted to this session as well as additional contributions. The extended deadline for submitting abstracts for both venues is October 20, 2023. Submission requirements for the conference can be found at: https://eauh2024ostrava.osu.eu/guidelines-for-participants-and-authors/. For the edited volume, please submit your abstract via email.

Panel Description: The historiography of architecture and urbanism in the Islamic world has mostly focused on cities and urban communities, leaving many societies settled outside urban areas largely unnoticed or marginalized. Villages are on the radar of scholarship so far as they are a site of heritage conservation or postwar reconstruction, or when presented as a fresh approach to modern vernacular architectural practices, such as in Hassan Fathy’s New Gourna in Egypt. However, there is much to learn from these hitherto neglected sites. Travelers’ accounts as well as chronicles refer to urban centers but also to dynamic lifeways in rural areas across the Islamic world. Due to their distance from political centers, some villages remained less affected by major decisions made by central governments, and their development was primarily the result of local forms of governance and internal dynamics. In other instances, villages that were located on global trade routes played an active role in the spread of goods, artworks, and material culture similar to urban centers. Expanded over time, or developed by city planners, such as in colonial or “model” settlements, villages also reflect some of the most potent applications of architecture to the articulation of cultural identity.

This panel invites papers which examine the making of villages in the Islamic world from the medieval era to the second half of the twentieth century. Our goal is to provide a platform to discuss a much neglected aspect in urban historiography – rural forms of governance over space and how these forms have interacted with imperial or transregional edicts concerning use of resources. Papers may focus on a single village, planning or design of a building complex in a particular village, or any other topic relevant to rural-urban architectural interactions in the Balkans, Middle East and parts of Africa and Asia. Submitted papers could clarify the impact of cultural, political, economic, and physical context on the development and transformation of villages; the spatial dynamics of local societies and their interrelations with the larger world; intricate methods for governing land and water use, marital patterns, and sociomoral codes and their impact on rural development; the perception of rural life as contrasted with urban life found in travelers’ accounts and chronicles; how architecture responded to traditions and the changes within the economic or social context of villages, and how reformist ideas of urban and rural modernization reshaped existing rural settlements; and the spatial transformation of villages in frontier regions where Islamic societies encountered with non-Muslim settlers and traders. We welcome papers that employ archival materials or deploy new methodological approaches to the (comparative) analysis of villages and urban centers in the historic and contemporary geographies of Islam.

Mohammad Gharipour, Kıvanç Kılınç

 

 

 

15. Yale University – Assistant/Associate/Full Professor, South Asian Art and Architecture

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=66010

Review of applications will begin November 4th, 2023.

 

 

 

16. The Art of Iran in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries Tracing the Modern and the Contemporary, ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY 2023 LECTURE SERIES – October 5

ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY

2023 LECTURE SERIES

Dr Hamid Keshmirshekan

The Art of Iran in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries

Tracing the Modern and the Contemporary

Thursday 5th October at 6.30pm

https://royalasiaticsociety.org/…/dr-hamid…/

The event will also be available on Zoom:

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83898178878…

Meeting ID: 838 9817 8878

Passcode: 090813

Contact Email

hkeshmir1@yahoo.com

URL

https://royalasiaticsociety.org/…/dr-hamid…/

 

 

 

 

 

17. CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: SoFCB JUNIOR FELLOWS PROGRAM 

Rare Book School’s Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (SoFCB) invites applications for its 2024–26 cohort of Junior Fellows. The deadline is Friday, 17 November 2023. 

This scholarly society works to advance the study of texts, images, and artifacts as material objects through capacious, interdisciplinary scholarship—and to enrich humanistic inquiry and education by identifying, mentoring, and training promising early-career scholars. Junior Fellows will be encouraged and supported in integrating the methods of critical bibliography into their teaching and research, fostering collegial conversations about historical and emerging media across disciplines and institutions, and sharing their knowledge with broader publics.

The fellowship includes tuition waivers for two Rare Book School courses, as well as funding for Junior Fellows to participate in the Society’s annual meeting and orientation. Additional funds are available for fellows to organize symposia at their home institutions, and fellows will have the option of attending a bibliographical field school to visit libraries, archives, and collections in a major metropolitan area. After completing two years in good standing as Junior Fellows, program participants will have the option to become Senior Fellows in the Society.

The Society is committed to supporting diversity and to advancing the scholarship of outstanding persons of every race, gender, sexual orientation, creed, and socioeconomic background, and to enhancing the diversity of the professions and academic disciplines it represents, including those of the professoriate, museums, libraries, archives, public humanities, and digital humanities. We warmly encourage prospective applicants from a wide range of disciplines, institutions, and areas of expertise.

For more information and to apply, please visit: http://rarebookschool.org/admissions-awards/fellowships/sofcb/.

For more information about diversity and the SoFCB, please read the SoFCB Diversity & Outreach Committee’s Welcome Letter.

Inquiries about the SoFCB Junior Fellows Program can be directed to SoFCB Administrative Director Kathryn Higinbotham at sofcb_staff@virginia.edu.

 

 

 

18. Forthcoming book discussion event on Women Imams and Women Mosques at King’s College London 11 Oct 2023

Women’s Mosques, Female Imams, and Muslim Debates: Discussing New Books

Wednesday 11 October 2023 from 17:00-19:00

Nash Lecture Theatre (K2.31), Strand Campus, King’s College London

Booking essential: https://buytickets.at/kingscollegelondon4/1012574

Contact: Dr Taushif Kara (taushif.kara@kcl.ac.uk )/ Dr Karen O’Brien-Kop (karen.obrien-kop@kcl.ac.uk )

 

 

 

19. WEBINAR | The Archival Remnants of Art; or an Intimate Lunch with Abu Turab Ghaffari, 28.9.23, 5pm UK time

https://invisibleeast.web.ox.ac.uk/event/archival-remnants-of-art

Tracing the production of some of the most prolific of Qajar painters requires a detour into print archives of the last half of 19th century where Sanī al-Mulk Ghaffārī Kāshānī, Abu Torāb Ghaffari kāshānī and later Mirzā Mehdī Khan Dzulfaqārī created an enviable visual repository of the life around the capital. For these talented, well-trained and innovative painters, official newspapers of the late 19th century provided a canvas for seemingly unlimited expressions of creativity. The primacy of print as the creative media of choice in the last decades of the 19th century, afforded a multiplicity of themes and designs and content that was fuelled the public’s interest in images. But the lithographic print technology that afforded these intricate designs’ widespread public reach maintained an intimate link to paper via its first drafts that connected the printed design with its more private predecessors of watercolour painting and painting on paper in general. With ‘paper’ at the heart of this presentation, we will together peruse through multiple lives of the same image across various kinds of technologies on paper to reflect upon the variety of viewerships they created and sustained.

1.Le CeRMI a le plaisir de vous convier aux deux premières séances du séminaire “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien” qui auront lieu les 5 et 10 octobre 2023.

 

• Pour la première séance (jeudi 5 octobre 2023, salle 5.21, 17h-19h), nous sommes heureux d’accueillir Camille Rhoné-Quer(Maîtresse de conférences en Histoire du monde islamique médiéval, Université Aix-Marseille, IREMAM, en délégation au CeRMI, pour une conférence intitulée : « Histoire environnementale du monde turco-iranien médiéval : état des lieux, perspectives et étude de cas (bassin versant de l’Amou Darya) »

Résumé

L’histoire environnementale, qui analyse les rapports des sociétés à l’environnement, est née aux États-Unis dans les années 1970 et connaît un important renouveau depuis les années 2000. Toutefois, cette approche a encore été peu adoptée par les historiens des espaces turco-iraniens médiévaux. Les facteurs de ce « retard », multiples, incluent notamment la persistance d’un cloisonnement disciplinaire et épistémologique. Or, depuis quelques années, l’essor des études sur le paléoenvironnement de l’Iran oriental et de l’Asie centrale (archéobotanique, archéozoologie, etc.) permet de renouveler nos connaissances et de pallier en partie les lacunes des textes.

Lors de cette conférence, seront abordés les apports des études paléoenvironnementales des vingt dernières années sur les espaces turco-iraniens (thématiques et zones étudiées ; disciplines impliquées), ainsi qu’une réflexion sur la place qu’occupe l’époque islamique médiévale dans ces travaux, souvent consacrés à la longue durée. Nous nous intéresserons aussi aux limites scientifiques et épistémologiques de ce champ.

Enfin, après avoir abordé rapidement, en guise d’exemple, le débat historiographique sur les facteurs des migrations turkmènes et des conquêtes seldjoukides, nous proposerons une étude de cas sur l’Amou Darya : quels rapports les sociétés des premiers siècles de l’Islam entretiennent-elles avec ce fleuve ? De quel type de données (sources textuelles, archives « naturelles ») dispose-t-on pour proposer une histoire environnementale de l’Amou Darya ?

Bibliographie indicative

• Azad, Arezou. “The Ecology and Economy of Khurasan in the 7th-8th Century” in A. Marsham (ed.). The Umayyad World. Londres: Routledge, 2020, p. 332-354.
• Blanc, Guillaume. Demeulenaere Élise, Feuerhahn Wolf (dir.). Humanités environnementales. Enquêtes et contre-enquêtes. Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, Série histoire environnementale, 2017.
• Bulliet, Richard. Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran : A Moment in World History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.

———————

• Pour la deuxième séance (mardi 10 octobre 2023, salle 3.15, 17h-19h), nous sommes heureux d’accueillir le professeur Touraj Daryaee (Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies and Culture, Directeur du Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture, University of California, Irvine), pour une conférence intitulée : « From the Achaemenid Empire to Medieval Persia: ‘Earth & Water’ in the Iranian Conceptual World»

Résumé

According to Greek sources the Achaemenid Persians accepted the submission of lands/city-states through receiving of a handful of land and water. The Greeks gathered the symbolic meaning of such an act, but what the Persians really thought of this ritual has not give a proper answer. One may be able to understand Persian actions against some of the Greek city-states, but also in later history vis-à-vis Armenia by looking at the Persian literature throughout history. The key to understanding the Persian idea of this concept is to delve into time in the Middle Persian literature of late antiquity and that of Classical Persian literature in the medieval period. This talk attempts to answer why was ‟earth & water” so important to the Iranian imaginary and its symbolic significance which pervaded till the twentieth century.

Bibliographie indicative 

• Balcer, Jack Martin. “The Persian Wars Against Greece: A Reassessment”, Historia 38 (1989), p. 127-143.
• Klinkott, Hilmar. „Dem König Erde und Wasser bringen“ – Persisches Unterwerfungsritual oder hero­do­teisches Konstrukt? in A. Luther, H. Börm (ed.). Untersuchungen zu Geschichte und Kultur des Nahen Ostens und des östlichen Mittelmeerraums im Altertum (Festschrift für Josef Wiesehöfer). Duisburg, 2016, p. 133-182.
• Kuhrt Amélie. “Earth and water” in A. Kuhrt, H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg (ed.). Achaemenid History III. Leiden, 1988, p. 87-99.
• Momigliano Arnoldo. “Terra marique,” Journal of Roman Studies 32, 1942, p. 53-64.
• Rung Eduard. “The Language of the Achaemenid Imperial Diplomacy towards the Greeks: The Meaning of Earth and Water,” Klio 97(2), 2015, p. 503–515.

Au plaisir de vous retrouver à l’occasion de ces séances, qui se dérouleront en présentiel sur le site de l’INaLCO (65 rue des Grands Moulins, Paris).

Ci-joint le programme 2023/2024 du séminaire mensuel de recherche “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien” en format pdf.

Retrouvez également les détails sur le site web du CeRMI : https://cermi.cnrs.fr/seminaires-de-recherche/societes-politiques-et-cultures-du-monde-iranien-2023-2024/

 

 

 

2. CALL FOR PAPERS: Milestones & Turning Points (Woolf Institute, Cambridge, 7-8 February 2024)

Following last year’s successful event, and to celebrate 25 years of the Woolf Institute, we are hosting our second two-day, in-person conference. Our title this year is ‘Milestones and Turning Points’. We welcome abstracts for papers that explore how these themes (taken individually or collectively) contribute to the understanding, interpretation, or application of religious practices in historical and contemporary contexts.

We especially welcome proposals from postgraduate students and early career researchers, as well as from practitioners working with faith communities.

Please send proposals including title, abstract (300 words), and biography (100 words), to Dr Danielle Padley (dlp29@cam.ac.uk) by 1 November 2023.

Further details: https://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/whats-on/events/call-for-papers-milestones-turning-points

 

 

 

3. Webinar – British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS)

‘The Reunification of Iran and the Reign of Aqa Muhammad Shah Qajar’

with Maziar Behrooz

18 October, 2023, 5pm UK time

For full information and to register:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/9316879475313/WN_PofzQbNcSnWslMt2yKhkRA#/registration

 

 

 

4. From Jordan Language Academy

We are pleased to announce that our winter session and second semester Arabic language courses are now open for enrollment. We also offer monthly Arabic language programs for those who are looking for a more flexible learning schedule.

Winter course: 17 Dec 2023 – 11 Jan 2024

Semester II 2023/2024: 14 Jan – 18 April 2024
Our courses are designed for students of all levels, from beginner to advanced. Our experienced and qualified instructors use a variety of teaching methods to help students develop their Arabic in all language skills.
In addition to our regular Arabic language courses, we also offer a variety of specialized and tailor-made courses to meet the specific needs of our students.
If you are interested in studying Arabic at Jordan Language Academy, please visit our website or contact us at info@jordanla.com for more information.
We look forward to helping you on your journey to learning Arabic!
The Jordan Language Academy Team

Jordan Language Academy

Mobile: +962 779502220

Tel: +962-6-5820985
info@jordanla.com
www.jordanla.com
twitter: www.twitter.com/jlaarabic

facebook: www.facebook.com/jlaarabic

 

 

 

5. Arab World English Journals, Vol. 2 No. 5, Sept. 15, 2023

Arab World English Journal for
Translation and Literary Studies (AWEJ-tls)

tls@awej.org
https://awej-tls.org/

 

 

 

6. Intellect is pleased to announce that Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research 16.2 is out now.

For more information about the journal and issue click here>>

https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-arab-muslim-media-research

Aims & Scope

The Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research is a peer-reviewed academic publication dedicated to the study of communication, culture and society in the Arab and Muslim world. It aims to lead the debate about the rapid changes in media and society in that part of the world. This journal is also interested in diasporic media like satellite TV, radio and new media especially in Europe and North America.

This title is indexed with Scopus.

Issue 16.2

Articles

Understanding the use of information sources during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of Kuwait

CRISTINA NAVARRO, YASSER ABUALI, FATEMAH YOUSEF AND RANIA ALSABBAGH

Arab fansubbers’ intervention in movie scripts through adding humorous notes: Reactions and functions

HUSSEIN ABU-RAYYASH, LINDA S. AL-ABBAS AND AHMAD S. HAIDER

What it takes to be religious: Religion online vs. online religion

FILIZ ÇÖMEZ-POLAT AND GÖKLEM TEKDEMIR

A Middle Eastern style of mediatization of politics and conflicts: Were regional-domestic intersections considered?

HUSSEIN ALAHMAD

Multimodal Islamophobia: Gendered stereotypes in memes

CARMEN AGUILERA-CARNERERO AND MEGARA TEGAL

The representations of journalists in Naguib Mahfouz’s novellas: How are they reflected in today’s journalism in Egypt?

MOHAMED HOSSAM ISMAIL

Producing podcasts in the UAE: Exploring storytelling structures

SABIR HAQUE AND SUZANA DZAMTOSKA ZDRAVKOVSK

Judith Schofield | Marketing Executive (she / her)
A: Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Rd, Fishponds, Bristol BS16 3JG, UK
T: +44 (0)117 9589910
W: www.intellectbooks.com

 

 

 

 

7. Call for Papers – Identities in Motion
Conference | SEPAD | Lancaster University, 14-15 December 2023

Project SEPAD’s (Sectarianism, Proxies, and Desectarianization) annual conference invites participating scholars to examine how identity migrates, moves, and transforms through time, space, and structures/systems. The conference aims to highlight the notion of ethnoconfessional identity as a fluid construct. The conference will be hybrid, allowing for online participation and attendance.

Deadline | 30 September 2023

More information

 

 

 

 

8. Call for Papers – Identities in Motion
Conference | SEPAD | Lancaster University, 14-15 December 2023

Project SEPAD’s (Sectarianism, Proxies, and Desectarianization) annual conference invites participating scholars to examine how identity migrates, moves, and transforms through time, space, and structures/systems. The conference aims to highlight the notion of ethnoconfessional identity as a fluid construct. The conference will be hybrid, allowing for online participation and attendance.

Deadline | 30 September 2023

More information

 

 

 

 

9. Call for Papers – Middle East Migration Studies: Taking Stock, Plotting New Paths

Workshop & Publication | Mashriq & Mahjar | North Carolina State University | 16-18 May 2024

Mashriq & Mahjar invite papers that offer critical reflection on the core debates and methodologies of MENA migration studies, that sketch out new agendas, and that open up new avenues for research. The organisers will cover all the costs of housing and meals for participants during the conference, and provide some support toward travel. Selected papers will be solicited for a multi-author collection that will offer a critical introduction to MENA migration studies.

Deadline | 15 October 2023

More information

 

 

 

 

10. Nine Quarters Of Jerusalem: A New Biography of the Old City (Hybrid)
Book Talk | University of Edinburgh | 5 October 2023

Join the BBC’s Matthew Teller to explore the countless tales of Jerusalem through the voices of its residents. Organised by The Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World (University of Edinburgh).
More information

 

 

 

 

11. Arabic Pasts: Histories and Historiographies
Workshop | AKU-ISMC | 5-6 October 2023

This annual exploratory and informal workshop offers the opportunity to reflect on methodologies, research agendas, and case studies for investigating history writing in Arabic in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond in any period from the seventh century to the present.
More information

 

 

 

12. Liquid Frontiers and Entangled Worlds 

12. Two Thousand Years of Visual and Material Culture between
    the Mediterranean and East Asia

Curated by Nicoletta Fazio, Veronica Prestini, Elisabetta Raffo and Laura Vigo

 5 October 2023 – 1 September 2024
MAO Museo d’Arte Orientale, Turin 

Download the press kit https://bit.ly/Tradu_izionidEurasia

The third chapter of the series of exhibition Liquid Frontiers and Entangled Worlds, Trad u/I zionid’Eurasia is part of a composite research programme taking place at MAO between 2023 and 2024 which seeks to analyse the artistic trajectories and cultural dynamics that have characterised exchange between Asia and Europe over the centuries.
Trad u/I zioni d’Eurasia highlights the critical role of Asia and the Mediterranean as a fulcrum of cross-cultural interaction and as site of connection, negotiation and constant re-emergence.

The Exhibition Trad u/I zioni d’Eurasia explores the concepts of cultural translation, transposition and interpretation through a selection of objects from West, Central and East Asia. These objects raise questions about material and immaterial circulation, ways of transforming meaning and use between Asia and Europe across two thousand years of history.

Investigating the migration of ideas, forms, techniques and symbols in an open, inclusive dialogue, the show highlights the osmotic reciprocity between continents and seas, and creates new narratives for visual and material culture that are specific and relative rather than universalising and generic.

The scientific approach also reflects the sensory perception of materiality: the way these objects were perceived and desired for their visual allure and unique chromatic effects – gold and blue in particular – or for their reflecting, gleaming or transparent surfaces.

Far from wanting to be exhaustive, the objects selected that offer alternatives to the euro-centric paradigm of artistic excellence- They reassert the critical role played by Central Asia in the global transmission of ideas and creation. The Mediterranean Sea played a pivotal role in this cross-cultural phenomenon, as an intermediate space and creator of boundaries but also as a phenomenal catalyst of exploration and contact: a liquid frontier where continents converge and artistic expressions and cultural phenomena are constantly reinvented.

The exhibition is divided into thematic sections with a special focus on colour – blue, red and gold – and materiality – ceramics, fabrics, metalworkd, paper and pigments.
Visitors will admire splendid silks from the ancient region of Sogdiana, in Central Asia, blue and white ceramics produced between the Persian Gulf and China, a refined selection of Tartar Clothes made of silk and gold in the thirteenth century during the Mongol period between Iran and China, that were prized by the European mediaeval aristocracy and the clergy, rare examples of tiraz (Egypt, tenth century), textiles embroidered with inscriptions highlighting the importance of calligraphy in the Islamic world, and a series of zoomorphic metal incense burners (Iran, ninth–thirteenth centuries), reaffirming the centrality of essences in Mediaeval Islamic societies.

The project draws on numerous loans from major Italian collections and institutions, reflecting the presence in Italy of a shared multicultural history: alongside objects from Central Asia in the MAO collection there will be rarely seen textiles, ceramics and miniatures from the Fondazione Bruschettini per l’Arte Islamica e Asiatica, Khorassan metalwork from the Aron Collectionand important loans from the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza, the church of San Domenico, Perugia, the Museo delle Civiltà di Roma, the Galleria Sabauda – Musei Reali and the Palazzo Madama, Turin.

Understood as an organic platform for study and research, the exhibition will gradually transform over one year through the rotation of some of the works on display and the introduction of new themes and sensorial stimuli, such as new commissions and installations by contemporary artists. It will also be enriched by a series of talks and a public program of music and performances.

In addition, as has become customary at MAO and widely appreciated by the public, a booklet with in-depth articles on the main subjects of the exhibition will be distributed free of charge.With texts by the curatorial team and contributions from Yuka Kadoi, Maria Ludovica Rosati and Mohammad Salemy, this publication is an indispensable tool to better understand the content of the exhibition.

As with MAO’s previous exhibitions, Trad u/I zioni d’Eurasia privileges the dialogue between ancient objects and contemporary works.
Transnational artist Yto Barrada (Franco-Moroccan, born in Paris in 1971) will be ‘subverting’ the traditional museum approach. Her site-specific installation will gradually develop over the course of a year, offering new reflections on the colour and materiality of the works on view, inspired by the volume Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color by Emily Noyes Vanderpoel (1842—1939). Published in the early twentieth century, the book delves into the relationship of colours combinations derived from objects like Assyrian tiles, Persian rugs, an Egyptian mummy case and even a teacup and saucer.
Yto Barrada’s project is a joint-collaboration with the Fondazione Merz, where the artist will hold a solo exhibition in the autumn of 2024.
Yto Barrada is the winner of the Fourth Mario Merz Prize, a biennial award instituted in 2013 with the aim of identifying and supporting individuals in the fields of international contemporary art and music.

The exhibition will also include the works MOSADEGH (2023) by the Iranian artist Shadi Harouni, who uses the written word to connect the history of her country with the universal experience of loss, repression, healing and social activism, and the immersive installation Shimmering Mirage (Black)(2018) by renowed artis Anila Quayyum Agha.

The exhibition ends with a section curated by the Reading Room, a Milan independent space devoted to the circulation and understanding of contemporary magazines, with a selection of publications, zines and artist books offering a closer look at some of the themes explored in the exhibition, like transparency, colour and craftsmanship. 

Thanks to a partnership with the Istituto dei Sordi, Turin, the exhibition content will be available in LIS Lingua dei Segni italiana (Italian Sign Language) and in audio version.

Trad u/I zioni d’Eurasia is the third chapter in the exhibition series Liquid Frontiers and Entangled Worlds, which opens MAO’s Islamic Art Gallery and permanent collection to new interpretive directions through other collections and curatorial influences, both local and international. Since 2023, the following exhibitions have been organised: Lustre and Luxury from Islamic Spain, curated by Filiz Çakır Phillip and in collaboration with the Fondazione Bruschettini per l’Arte Islamica e Asiatica – from 19 January to 4 June – and Sovereign Metals. Festivities, the Hunt and the Firmament in Medieval Islam, curated by Veronica Prestini and in collaboration with The Aron Collection – from 14 June to 12 November 2023.

MAO Museo d’Arte Orientale
Via San Domenico, 11, Turin – Italy

INFO
Tuesday – Sunday: 10 AM – 6 PM. Monday closed
The ticket desk closes one hour earlier. Last entry 5 PM

 

 

 

13. Operation Tabula Rasa: The rapid demolition of Cairo’s heritage

Friday, September 29, 2023 at 10:00am to 11:30am

Virtual Event

Panelists

Nasser Rabbat
Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, Department of Architecture, MIT

Mohamed el-Shahed
Fellow, Institute for Ideas & Imagination, Columbia University in Paris

Moderator

Esra Akcan
Michael A. McCarthy Professor of Architectural Theory, Architecture, Cornell University

Dial-In Information

Please register through the following link: https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TaSqw6KtS1GBEeBJWPakHA

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Streaming site:

https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TaSqw6KtS1GBEeBJWPakHA

 

 

 

 

14. Symposium to Celebrate History of Art and Architecture Professor Walter Denny’s Scholarship in Islamic Art on Oct. 21

The Department of History of Art and Architecture will host a symposium to honor University Distinguished Professor of the History of Art and Architecture Walter Denny on Saturday, Oct. 21, from 2 to 6 p.m. in the Old Chapel, University of Massachusetts Amherst. All are welcome to join.

The event will celebrate Denny’s scholarship in Islamic art and his 53 years of teaching at the university. It includes a lineup of speakers:

• Yael Rice, associate professor, Islamic Art, Amherst College, “The Museum that Once Was: Mughal Art in the Age of Hindu Nationalism”
• Laura Weinstein, curator of South Asian and Islamic Art, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, “All Songs Alike Refer to God: Islamic Art at the MFA, Boston under Ananda K. Coomaraswamy”
• Aimée Froom, curator of Arts of the Islamic World, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, “New Beginnings: The Hossein Afshar Galleries for Art of the Islamic Worlds at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.”
• Amanda Phillips, associate professor, Islamic Art and Material Culture, University of Virginia, “Silk and Wool in the Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey: Memory Palaces and Museums”
• Margaret Squires, PhD candidate, The Courtauld Institute of Art, “Frayed Edges: Approaching the Carpet Fragment in the Museum.”
• Sumru Krody, senior curator, The Textile Museum, Washington D.C., “Fiber of Being: Discovering the World of Textiles.”

Denny earned his BA in art history at Oberlin College in 1964 and his MA and PhD from Harvard University in 1965 and 1971. His primary field of teaching and research is the art and architecture of the Islamic world, in particular the artistic traditions of the Ottoman Turks, Islamic carpets and textiles, and issues of economics and patronage in Islamic art. In addition to specialized upper-level courses in the history of decorative art, orientalism, and the history of the oriental carpet, he has also taught a graduate seminar in art museum studies for almost four decades. In fall 2022, Denny taught the course Art History 115 for the forty-eighth time, which means that over the years he has introduced more than 10,000 students to the basics of the visual arts, as well as training master’s degree students as teaching assistants.

In addition to curatorships at the Harvard University (1970-2000) and Smith College (2000- 2005) art museums, in September of 2002, he was named Charles Grant Ellis Research Associate in Oriental Carpets at The Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. From 2013-14 he was the first Nasser David Khalili Visiting Professor of Islamic Art at Queens College, City University of New York. He served as Senior Scholar in Residence in the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2007-13, and again from 2014-17, and currently chairs the Visiting Committee for the Met’s Department of Textile Conservation.

Throughout his career, Denny has curated numerous exhibitions and catalogues, delivered lectures across the world, and earned significant awards and recognition for his work. At the University of Massachusetts, Denny received the Distinguished Outreach Award, the Distinguished Teaching Award, and the award for Distinguished Accomplishments in Creativity and Research. He also won a Samuel Conti Faculty Fellowship in the 2012-13 academic year and is the recipient of the University of Massachusetts Chancellor’s Medal and the Medal of the Arthur Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies.

For questions about the symposium, please contact Timothy Rohan, chair of the department (tmrohan@umass.edu ), or Regina Bortone de Sa, department administrator (regina@arthist.umass.edu ).

 

 

 

 

15. Museum für Islamische Kunst Acquires Silk Tapestry from the Estate of Alfred Cassirer

12.09.2023

Pergamonmuseum

On September 12, the Museum für Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, presented a spectacular new acquisition: A silk tapestry, considered to belong to one of the world‘s most precious carpet groups, was acquired from the estate of the art collector Alfred Cassirer with the generous support of the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung and the Kulturstiftung der Länder. This 16th century masterpiece, in excellent condition, originates from the workshops of the Iranian city of Kashan. The tapestry will remain on public display in our permanent exhibition and can be admired in our carpet rooms until the museum closes on October 23.

Iranian textiles and carpets enjoy world fame and have been traded across continents over the centuries. The very fine silk tapestries, to which our new acquisition belongs, arrived in Europe from the courts of the Iranian shahs in the 16th and early 17th centuries, often as commissions or gifts for foreign rulers. Over 50 Iranian silks of this type are still known today, with dozens of object biographies linked to European nobility. Produced from silk yarns refined with gold and silver threads, this group of silk tapestries is comparable in production technique to European wool tapestries, but appears many times finer in terms of material and visual effect.

German-Jewish industrialist and art collector Alfred Cassirer (1875-1932) acquired this rare piece in the 1920s on the advice of the Museum für Islamische Kunst. One objective implied in the acquisition was to close medium-term gaps in the Berlin collection. Cassirer had left numerous objects to the museum before his death, but never formally donated them, as in this case. His collection, owned by his daughter Eva from 1932 onwards, was partially destroyed by the Nazis in 1934. In 2012, the surviving 14 classical carpets were restituted to the Eva Cassirer community of co-heirs, who later offered them to the Museum für Islamische Kunst for acquisition. With the help of the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung and the Kulturstiftung der Länder, the masterpiece has now been acquired and will once again enrich the collection. With approximately 500 historical knotted carpets and flatweaves, predominantly from the 14th to 18th centuries, the museum possesses one of the most important collections worldwide. Furthermore, through early published studies and books on the subject, the museum functioned as the birthplace of scientifically based carpet studies.

The role of Jewish collectors, donors and scholars is of outstanding importance for Islamic art in the 19th and early 20th centuries. By means of decisive contributions to the founding of the corresponding scientific disciplines as well as through numerous donations, these individuals were directly and significantly involved in the establishment of Berlin‘s collection, the oldest museum of its kind in Europe and the Americas. The objects in the Pergamonmuseum also bear testament to Jewish traditions across geographies influenced by Islam: For centuries, religious minorities were active in cultural production between North Africa and Central Asia. In addition to exhibition-accompanying films in the museum’s media center, this thematic field will be explored in greater depth in the new permanent exhibition of the Museum für Islamische Kunst in the Pergamonmuseum‘s renovated north wing from 2027 onwards.

The acquisition is accompanied by a donation of seven ceramic objects and eight carpets. Since 2020, in cooperation with the Alfred und Eva Cassirer Stiftung, the Museum für Islamische Kunst has been conducting a provenance research project on the dispersal of Alfred Cassirer’s art collection between 1933 and 1945.

Stefan Weber, Director of the Museum für Islamische Kunst:

“The silk tapestry is of exceptional quality and colorfulness, a very special piece. Moreover, it holds high emotional value for us as a museum. Not only does it underscore Alfred Cassirer’s close connection to our collection, but it also bears witness to a pluralistic society that has endured for centuries, and makes visible historic links between Europe and the Middle East. My thanks for this spectacular acquisition go to the Alfred und Eva Cassirer Stiftung, the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, and the Kulturstiftung der Länder.”

In the context of the special presentation CulturalxCollabs. Weaving The Future, the museum’s concluding project before the Pergamonmuseum closes for renovation, the newly acquired silk tapestry is now on view for visitors.

Museum für Islamische Kunst – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Link to the acquisition https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/museum-fuer-islamische-kunst/about-us/whats-new/detail/museum-fuer-islamische-kunst-acquires-silk-tapestry-from-the-estate-of-alfred-cassirer/

For more information, see here.

For further details, see here.

1.HYBRID Lecture on “Conflicting Perceptions: A Journey through Modern (Mis-)Readings of the Qurʾān” by Stefan Weidner (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin), 20 September 2023, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm CEST

Drawing on literary history and personal experiences German writer and Arabist Stefan Weidner illuminates some of the more striking examples of the Qurʾān’s colonial and postcolonial perceptions in both East and West. These examples range from its comparison to the Upanishads in Mughal India to its transformation into an anti-modern manifesto in 20th-century German poetry.

Information and registration: https://blog.sbb.berlin/termin/collegium-coranicum-at-the-staatsbibliothek/

 

 

 

 

2. ONLINE Webinar “MENA Jewry After the ‘Middle Eastern Turn’: Modernity and Its Shadows” with the Authors of a Special Issue of the Journal “Jewish Social Studies”, Penn State University and University of Chicago, 18 September 2023, 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm EST

Speakers: Orit Bashkin (University of Chicago), Michelle Campos (Penn State University), Shay Hazkani (University of Maryland-College Park), Abigail Jacobson (Hebrew University), Jessica Marglin (USC), Moshe Naor (University of Haifa), Molly Oringer (UCLA), Achim Rohde (University of Hamburg), Lior Sternfeld (Penn State University), Alon Tam (Ben Gurion University).

Information and registration: https://mesana.org/resources-and-opportunities/2023/08/31/mena-jewry-after-the-middle-eastern-turn-modernity-and-its-shadows-special-issue-of-jss

 

 

 

 

3. ONLINE Lecture “Byzantium as an Indian Ocean Society” by Rebecca Darley (University of Leeds), Mary Jaharis (Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, Brookline, MA), 28 September 2023, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm ET

This paper examines Byzantium not as a player in an Indian Ocean defined by mercantile networks, but as one of many societies around the Indian Ocean littoral, shaped by common forces. Between the fourth and the ninth centuries, understanding Byzantium as an Indian Ocean society provides a new insight into the development of governmental structures, state religion and economic practices that all affected the lives of millions.

Information and registration: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/byzantium-as-an-indian-ocean-society

 

 

 

 

4. HYBRID Double Book Lunch on “States of Cultivation: Imperial Transition and Scientific Agriculture in the Eastern Mediterranean” and “Bedouin Bureaucrats: Mobility and Property in the Ottoman Empire”, Kevorkian Center, New York University, 28 September 2023, 5:30 pm ET

Information and registration: https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20004285/double-book-launch-nora-barakat-and-elizabeth-williams-conversation

 

 

 

 

5. ONLINE Workshop „Creative Ethnographic Methods in the Middle East”, Center for Middle East Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI, 20 October 2023, 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm

Hosting four panelists working with different communities of the Middle East, this webinar will unravel diverse uses of creative and experimental methods in anthropology beyond the conventional modes of academic writing – such as poetry, graphic novel and documentary. The webinar will explicate how using such methods facilitate and complicate ethnographic knowledge production. It will also provide insights to people interested in utilizing creative methods in their analytical thinking.

Information and registration:

https://watson.brown.edu/cmes/events/2023/panel-creative-ethnographic-methods

 

 

 

 

 

6. Conference “Rural Worlds and Social Classes in Egypt”, Egyclass Network, Cairo, 19-20 No-vember 2023

The objective is to rethink social stratification and class relations in the context of diverse ruralities in Egypt. How can we grasp and trace the dynamics of changing social life in rural and semi-rural areas? This conference seeks to bring together researchers working on various topics, here with a particular emphasis on the continued relevance of class in rural settings.

Deadline for abstracts: 2 October 2023.

Information: https://mcusercontent.com/040dd9c347e0c6bff052dae8b/files/26f9862d-8597-50e4-24e7-863570d4661b/Call_for_proposals_Rural_Worlds_and_Social_Classes.pdf

 

 

 

7. ONLINE 17th Annual Conference of the Muslim Studies Program on “Researching Muslim America: Intersecting Identities, Methodological Advances, and Lingering Challenges”, Michigan State University, 8-9 February 2024

This call for papers is meant to invite scholars in a diverse array of fields, including sociology, religious stud-ies, political science, communication, psychology, geography, and more.

Deadline for abstracts: 15 October 2023. Information: https://muslimstudies.isp.msu.edu/about/conference/

 

 

 

 

8. Second Biannual Conference of the Persian Manuscripts Association on “Timurid and Safavid Music in Manuscripts”, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, 24-24 February 2024

This conference aims to bring together scholars from various fields, working on music, philosophy, theology, mysticism, history, literature and art history, as reflected in Persian and Arabic manuscripts. We would love to hear about your studies and discoveries about music, musicians, instruments, court repertories, perfor-mance practices, musical patronage, music circles etc., during the Timurid and Safavid periods in Greater Iran, Central Asia, South Asia and the Ottoman world.

Deadline for abstracts: 15 October 2023. Information: https://persianmanuscripts.org/news/

 

 

 

9. Instructional Professor in Northwest Semitics, University of Chicago

We invite applications for appointment as Instructional Professor (open rank) in Northwest Semitics, particularly Aramaic, Biblical Hebrew, Syriac, and related dialects/languages.

Deadline for application: 1 November 2023. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/131663

 

 

 

 

10. Postdoctoral and Visiting Fellowship Program in Regional Political Economy, Princeton University

The program was created with the goal of developing a new generation of scholars able to analyze and make policy recommendations about the regional political economy in the Middle East, East, South or Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

– Postdoctoral Fellowship Program https://www.princeton.edu/acad-positions/position/30944

– Visiting Fellowship Program: https://www.princeton.edu/acad-positions/position/31262

Deadline for applications: 5 December 2023.

 

 

 

11. Nominations for the “Women Historians of the Middle East (WHOME) Mentorship Award”

The nominees must be woman-identifying PhD holders whose scholarship and/or teaching focuses on Middle East history. They may be at any type of institution (community college, teaching-intensive, research-fo-cused), may be at any stage of their careers, and may hold any type of faculty position (part-time, adjunct, T/T).

Deadline for nominations: 10 October 2023. Information: https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20005991/2023-whome-women-historians-middle-east-mentorship-award-call

 

 

 

12. Articles for Journal “Anatolica”, Netherlands Institute in Turkey

Submissions are welcome on the archaeology and history of Anatolia and neighboring regions from prehis-tory to the Ottoman era. Original scholarly papers from the disciplines of archaeology, history, history of archaeology, history of art, anthropology, epigraphy, history of architecture, archaeometry, geographical in-formation systems (GIS), numismatic, maritime archaeology, cultural heritage management, digital humani-ties, museum studies are in the scope of the journal.

Deadline for submissions: 1 February 2024. Information: https://www.nit-istanbul.org/publication/anatolica

 

 

 

13. CFP ACLA Seminar: Textual Geographies and Technologies Decentralization: World Literature Through the Spectrum of Digital Humanities

Textual Geographies and Technologies Decentralization: World Literature Through the Spectrum of Digital Humanities | American Comparative Literature Association

Digitizing literature and textualizing the digital has been the key feature of today’s humane world that puts severe emphasis on the way to artificialize texts, literatures, figures and knowledge at large. With such case of emerging call for intelligence, one can only be more sceptical about the drastic change the digital sphere brought into the meaning and the geography of the texts, authors and readers as it manipulates the truth turning it into something phantomatic. And yet, digital humanities tools proved to be somehow efficient when used to read literatures of the world by using distant reading strategy when searching for networks and scopes of texts than the close ones. Either way, the question remains whether digitalization of texts and its annexes can help worldling literatures or minoring them in different directions, in the sense that literatures circulate well outside their home making it reachable and domesticable than before. In addition, pandemics and online communities have disrupted the ordinarily physical human contact towards which significant efforts have been made to keep it digitized as possible, the fact that shapes our understanding and perception of virtualized literatures and its incorporated spaces, themes, and effects.
The main concept behind this seminar is that rich data can provide a unique way of knowledge access about social and cultural change through the lens of literary production. It can provide us with much more insight than any other traditional method of storage. The main problem in digital archives is that, while it is relatively easy to collect large amounts of data, making use of the data is a completely different story. While we can easily store thousands of literary works, it is the analysis of these works that can be of benefit to knowledge synthesis and accumulation.This seminar is open for researchers with projects that explore digitized printed texts printed in the 19th century till present, including literary books, periodicals, and printed ephemera.
Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• How can digital humanities shape our humane experiences of literature?
• Does it suggests/offers other avenues of interpretation?
• Can AI add more tenor to the way we read and taste literature?
• Technical challenges of DH with non-anglophone and non-Latin material
• Postcolonial DH and World Literature
• Critique of DH in Literary Studies
• Evaluating digital scholarship in World Literature.
• Can we still maintain the same meaning and demarcations of geography of texts in how they affects their horizones.
• Does the digital sphere revisits the crossing, circulation and translation of literary texts?
• What are the new channels of worldlifying minor and marginalized literatures through the prism of digitalization and vertualualization of literatures?

 

 

 

 

14. Shopping with Allah, Muslim pilgrimage, gender and consumption in a globalized world

UCL Press, 2023
Viola Thimm. Free download: https://bit.ly/3L2r1QW

 

 

 

15. PhD in Cluster of Excellence “Understanding Written Artefacts”, University of Hamburg

Call for applications: Doctoral scholarships for internationals

The Graduate School of the Cluster of Excellence “Understanding Written Artefacts” at CSMC invites applications for doctoral scholarships within the Graduate School Scholarship Programme (GSSP) of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), for a 3-year period of doctoral studies starting from 1 April 2024 onwards.

Awardees will receive a full scholarship (1200 EUR/month) plus health insurance and additional allowances (for details, see here). An extension to four years is possible in well-grounded cases. We are looking for highly qualified and very motivated international candidates (non-German citizens) with excellent English skills and holding a Master’s, Diploma or equivalent degree in any discipline concerned with the study of manuscript cultures and written artefacts. In particular, we welcome applications from candidates from developing and emerging countries. About CSMC as a research environment CSMC has created a cross-disciplinary and international research environment for the holistic study of handwritten artefacts and the rich diversity of global manuscript cultures beyond traditionally held boundaries of academic discipline, time, and space. Today, around 150 researchers from over 40 academic disciplines are working on more than 60research projects, many of which combine the humanities with the natural sciences and computer sciences.

Application deadline and further information Applications for GSSP doctoral scholarships are to be submitted by 31 October 2023 to the Coordinator of the Graduate School by e-mail. The full text of the call and details about the requirements can be found here: https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/study-at-csmc/dr-phil/scholarships.html.

Contact Dr Merryl Rebello, Coordinator of the Graduate School E-mail: merryl.rebello@uni-hamburg.de

 

 

 

16. Bard College – Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) – History of the Middle East and North Africa

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=65945

 

 

 

17. University of California – Irvine – Assistant Professor, Jews in the Muslim World

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=65968

 

 

 

 

 

18. Brill: Just published: Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kabīr, a new online version of Ibn Saʿd’s Compendium of the Lives of the First Generations of Muslims. Ibn Saʿd’s Compendium is the earliest extant biographical dictionary on the life of the Prophet and the early generations of Muslims. It is one of the most important historical works about the first centuries of Muslim society in Arabic. This classic Brill edition was first supervised by Eduard Sachau and was originally titled Biographien Muhammeds, seiner Gefährten und der späteren Träger des Islams bis zum Jahre 230 der Flucht. Find out more.

This new online version is published on Scholarly Editions, Brill’s bespoke platform for the study of texts and text editions. Scholarly Editions offers many useful and unique features such as customizable panes for side-by-side reading of texts, easy features for citing and exporting, customizable text scaling and more.

 

 

 

 

19. Associate Professor/Full Professor – Women Gender & Sexuality

University of Virginia: UVA Provost’s Office: College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences: Women, Gender & Sexuality

Location

Charlottesville, VA

Open Date

Sep 13, 2023 

Description

The Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality at the University of Virginia invites applications for a tenure track appointment as Associate or Full Professor working in gender and sexuality studies of the Global South. We especially welcome humanities scholars whose work extends the existing strengths of the department.

For priority consideration, applications must be received by November 1; however, the position will remain open until filled. The appointment begins with the fall term of 2024, with an anticipated start date of August 25, 2024.

Visit http://apply.interfolio.com/129310 to apply with the following:

• A cover letter, which includes a brief description of the candidate’s teaching, research, and/or service, including how their skills and experiences could advance the University’s ambition to cultivate the most vibrant community in higher education in order to prepare students to be citizen-leaders in a diverse and globally connected world
• Curriculum vitae
• Teaching philosophy and experience
• A writing sample
• The names of three references (References may be contacted for a written letter of recommendation at a later point in the application process, and will be given a deadline by which to submit their recommendations)

For questions about the position, please contact Professor Farzaneh Milani at wgsuva@virginia.edu. For questions about the application process, please contract Melanie Sponaugle, Academic Recruiter, at unw5dq@virginia.edu.

 

 

 

20.  1st International Conference on Visual Culture. Periphery and Interdisciplinarity in Visual Studies

Call for oral presentations in person

Over the last few decades, the fields of knowledge of art history, philosophy, literary theory, cultural industries –and many others– have given way to an interdisciplinary encounter conceptualized as visual studies. This field has focused on the image in any medium, medium, or time. Images have the capacity to influence our perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors and, in turn, are nourished by the cultural conditioning factors of each time and place.

The study of visual culture is not limited to dominant discourses and practices, but must prominently include marginalized, subversive, or alternative perspectives and voices, which have been displaced in some cases from the more visible cultural spotlight. By paying attention to approaches from the periphery, the conference seeks to open up spaces for the critical analysis of images and representations linked to secondary spaces, outside the ‘canon’ and mainstream trends, that are overlooked or not directly supported by the dominant cultural policies of the time.

As Keith Moxey, Norman Bryson, and Michael Ann Holly have pointed out, visual studies have not come to banish traditional art historical studies, but to provide new tools for the analysis of both past and present historical culture. For this reason, this congress will give a special place to proposals focused on the past whenever they discuss the applications of the concepts of periphery or interdisciplinarity, especially from visual evidence prior to our present time.

In this current era of disciplinary hyper-specialization, subjected to the commercialism of increasingly commercial science, to speak of visual culture as an interdisciplinary field does not imply leaving visual phenomena on the margins of traditional areas of study, but rather integrating them discursively with very different methodologies to provide novel readings of devices, artifacts, and visual or audiovisual media. This way of understanding the visual also affects museums and all the institutions that make up the cultural industries, from criticism to the art market, sectors to which this congress is also oriented.

Keynote speakers

Mieke Bal (University of Amsterdam)
Keith Moxey (Columbia University)
Matthew Rampley (Masaryk University)
Michele Bacci (University of Fribourg)
Juan Martín Prada (University of Cádiz)
Ana García Varas (University of Zaragoza)
Sergio Martínez Luna (UNED)
Paula Barreiro López (Université Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurès/Laboratoire FRAMESOA)

Preferred thematic lines

The communication proposals can be framed along one of the following lines:

• Visual Studies and Art History as Epistemologies in the 21st Century.
• Visual Studies as an Interdisciplinary Field of Study.
• Cultural Tensions Between Visual “Centres” and “Peripheries” Throughout History
• The Globalisation of Visuality and Spatial and Temporal Borders
• Digital Humanities and Visual Studies
• The Visuality of the Past from the Present: New Approaches to the Visual ‘Canon’.
• Interdisciplinarity and Periphery in Cultural Institutions: Museums, Criticism and Art Market
• Other Projects and Practices un Visual Studies and Art History

Submission of abstracts for evaluation

Researchers interested in participating with an oral communication in-person in the conference, should send their abstracts through this webpage‘s application before September 22, 2023. If you have any questions or doubts, do not hesitate to contact us at congreso.culturavisual@urjc.es.

Publications derived from the Conference

After the event has taken place, at least one scientific monograph will be published with a selection of chapters written by the speakers and presenters who wish to do so, with an independent evaluation process that will supervise the final texts of the interventions to guarantee their scientific quality. The book will be published by an impact publisher indexed in Q1 of the Scholarly Publishers Indicators (SPI) or a Q1 journal in Scopus. Interested persons may purchase the book in advance as a complement to their registration for the conference, bearing in mind that the publication will be delayed for at least one year after the date of the conference.

Summary of Deadlines

• Deadline for submission of paper proposals: 22 September 2023
• Notification of acceptance of abstracts: 25 September 2023
• Deadline for early registration for the conference: 02 October 2023*.

* It will be compulsory for at least one of the authors of the paper to register for the conference, following the corresponding modality. Certificates and conference documentation will only be issued to those who have successfully registered for the conference.

Contact Information

1st International Conference on Visual Culture. Periphery and Interdisciplinarity in Visual Studies.

https://eventos.urjc.es/go/visualculture

Department of Historical and Social Studies

Rey Juan Carlos University

congreso.culturavisual@urjc.es

Contact Email

congreso.culturavisual@urjc.es

URL

https://eventos.urjc.es/go/visualculture

 

21. Exhibition – The Intersection between Texts and Textiles across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia: a display and talk at the Library of Congress, 29.9.23

The Library of Congress is an ideal location to analyze the overlap between textiles and texts.

This one-day display includes cloth manuscript wraps and covers from Southeast Asia and the Middle East, Hmong embroidered cloth story maps, fabric swatch books from Japan, and manuscripts depicting the labor of textile production.

Join us 1:00 for a fascinating talk and Q&A about the intersection between texts and textiles by Sylvia Houghteling, Associate Professor of the History of Art at Bryn Mawr College.

This talk will also be live on Zoom. Register for the talk through this link

Contact Information

Charlotte Giles, South Asia reference librarian

Contact Email

chgi@loc.gov

URL

https://www.loc.gov/item/event-410703/the-intersection-between-texts-and-textil…

 

22. The Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University is seeking outstanding scholars of the contemporary Middle East and North Africa for a residential fellowship to begin September 1, 2024. The fellowship is for a maximum of two years upon the successful completion of fellowship requirements in the first year. The fellowship is open to all disciplines—particularly politics, economics, history, religion, sociology and anthropology. The fellowship’s goal is to allow untenured early career scholars the flexibility and means to advance a specific research project related to the contemporary Middle East and North Africa.
*ELIGIBILITY *
The 2024–2025 Junior Research Fellowship is open to both recent PhDs (as a postdoctoral position) and untenured assistant professors in Middle East-related fields. Applicants must have received their PhD within the last six years. A PhD must be in hand by September 1, 2024.
*TERMS*
This fellowship is a one-year appointment beginning September 1, 2024, and ending August 31, 2025, or August 31, 2026 if conditions for renewal are met. The financial package includes an annual salary of $70,000, an annual research budget of $4,000, funding for conferences, and a one-time relocation reimbursement up to $1,500. Fringe benefits will be available during the appointment period.
Fellows are required to be in residence at the Crown Center during the tenure of the fellowship and not hold any teaching or service responsibilities outside of the Center. During their residence, fellows produce one public-facing Crown Center publication per year and participate in all Crown Center events, including seminars, lunches, workshops, meetings, and retreats.
*APPLICATION MATERIALS*
1. Cover letter, including names and emails for three referees
2. Curriculum Vitae
3. A two-page research statement describing your current and future research projects, as well as any recent accomplishments in your work
4. A research writing sample no more than 20 pages in length
*APPLICATION DEADLINE *
October 27, 2023
*NOTIFICATION *
February 1, 2024
*INQUIRIES*
You may direct inquiries to Kristina Cherniahivsky at crowncenter@brandeis.edu or call 781-736-5322.