Archive for April, 2024
Shii News – Academic Items
1.Hybrid: Prof. Nahyan Fancy “What kind of ‘ilm is medicine?”
Mon 13 May 2024 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM
KCL Kings Building K-1.14 (London)
Join the Sowerby Philosophy & Medicine project for our first colloquium in our series ‘Ancient Philosophy of Medicine’.
On the May 13th, Professor Nahyan Fancy will join us from The University of Exeter to speak on “What kind of ‘ilm is medicine? Reflections of the Canon and Epitome Commentators on Avicenna’s Definition of Medicine and its Implications”.
The talk can be attended in person in London ( Kings Building K-1.14, Strand Campus) or online on Zoom (link will be sent on the day of the event).
Abstract: Ibn Sīnā begins the Canon of Medicine by defining medicine as “a science (ʿilm) through which one knows (yataʿarraf minhu) the states of the human body from the perspective of what makes [the body] healthy and [what] makes it leave [the state] of health.” In the course of this opening discussion he also stresses that all of medicine is a theoretical science, including its practical parts. Yet, later in the same lesson, Ibn Sīnā maintains that for some medical matters the physician qua physician may only conceptualize them (taṣawwur) without passing judgment (taṣdīq) on whether they exist. The physician qua physician should accept such judgments from the scholar of natural science (al-ʿilm al-ṭabīʿī). Dimitri Gutas, in his oft-cited chapter from 2003, cited this latter passage as a reason for why physicians in Islamic societies were unable to critique or overthrow Galenic humoral theory since it was deemed off-limits to them. In this presentation, I shall examine the discussions of four Canon commentators and four Epitome commentators on the definition of medicine and what types of investigations fell under the purview of those engaged in medicine (whether as practicing physicians, teachers, or commentators on medical works). We shall see that the thirteenth century commentators had already come to understand the Avicennan definition and passage on what is permissible for physicians qua physicians in a way that did not limit their investigations into medical theory. We will see how this led them to revise humoral theory and even engage in debates over the connection of the soul to the body, and its implications for the number and role of chief organs.
Location
KCL Kings Building K-1.14
to register: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/sowerbyproject/1238399
2. Art of the Book: Persian Miniatures of Shahnameh (1977)
A documentary film by Iraj Gorgin
PERSIAN DUTCH NETWORk
3. The Ottoman Canon and the Construction of Arabic and Turkish Literatures
Ceyhun Arslan
4. ONLINE Muslim Worlds Network Seminar Series: “The Foreignness of Writing Recontextualizing the Anthropology of Islam” by Emilio Spadola (Colgate University), European Association of Social Anthropologists, 8 May 2024, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm CET
Drawing on my current book project, this talk revisits the decade from the Iranian Revolution to the end of the Cold War, a key period of Islamic revival and expanding global commerce and communications, on the one hand, and anthropologists’ theorization of Islam’s modernity and conceptual incorporation of Islamic texts, on the other.
Registration: https://univr.zoom.us/j/89405417840 ; Meeting ID: 894 0541 7840
5. Panel “Vernacularising Law & Order in the Eastern Mediterranean (1791-1849)”, SeSaMO Conference, Cagliari, Italy, 3-5 October 2024
The panel intends to explore those spaces of hybridasation and contamination in the Eastern Mediterranean where law and order were vernacularised in their various forms. In doing so, the panel aims at bringing back into a shared conversation Modern Greek, Ottoman Turkish, Egyptian and Levantine Arabic.
Deadline for abstracts: 7 May 2024.
Information: https://networks.h-net.org/system/files/attachments/sesamo-2024-cfp.pdf
6. HYBRID International Conference “Zakāt: Implementation & Impact in the Contemporary World”, Center for Islam in the Contemporary World, Shenandoah University, 21-23 February 2025
Topics: Qualitative and quantitative studies of the impact of zakāt in a defined region or community. – Does the intention to pay zakāt affect or interrupt consumer spending? – Perceptions and realities of the relationship between zakāt and modern taxation. – Case studies on the spiritual, psychological impact and financial impact on the receivers of zakāt. – Positive and negative social and spiritual impact of various means
of zakāt solicitation. Etc.
Deadline for abstracts: 24 June 2024. Information: https://www.contemporaryislam.org/zakatconference.html
7. Eight Presidential Internships at the Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco
The program provides recent graduates of US-type Liberal Arts colleges and universities with the opportunity to work in a university setting while learning about and experiencing the cultures and languages of Morocco.
Qualified graduates from all nationalities and cultural backgrounds are encouraged to apply.
Deadline for applications: 5 May 2024. Information: https://aui.ma/presidential-internship-program
8. HYBRID Summer 2024 Intensive Program of the “Sijal Institute for Arabic Language and Culture”, Amman
Our summer program moves beyond pure language study by fully incorporating Arab cultures into the curriculum with lectures, film screenings, cultural activities and language partnerships. Our communicative, proficiency-based curriculum integrates Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Levantine dialect to get students
interacting as native speakers do, even from the earliest proficiency levels.
Information: https://www.sijal.org/summer-intensive
9. Articles on “Constructing the ‘European Muslim Crisis’: Discourse, Policy, and Everyday Realities” for a Special Issue of the Journal “Religions”
We are currently in search of scholarly articles that explore the ways in which Muslims residing in Europe navigate their religious identities and engage in religious practices within the context of varying national models of secularism, church-state relations, and multiculturalism.
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024.
Information: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/7R53832XG8
10. Articles on “Gulf Nationalism” for a Special Issue of the “Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (SEN) “, Guest-edited by Dr Betul Dogan Akkas and Dr Hamdullah Baycar
SEN invites scholars to submit their empirical or theoretical pieces for the special issue of Nationalism in the Gulf. This special issue will consider traditional and new studies about Gulfi/Khaliji nationalism and will target being a reference source for scholars studying the region.
Deadline for abstracts: 1 June 2024.
Information: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/17549469/call-for-papers/gulf-nationalism
11. Zahra Institute: Speaker Series: The Kurdish Nobility in the Ottoman Empire: Loyalty, Autonomy, and Privilege
For the final event of the Spring Speaker series, Zahra Institute welcomes Nilay Özok-Gündoğan (Florida State University), a historian of the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East whose research centers on the questions of modern state-making, property regimes, and intercommunal conflict and coexistence in the borderlands of modern empires. In this talk, she will discuss the nature of Kurdish nobles’ dominion over their territories. She will illustrate how the original agreement between the Ottoman state and Kurdish nobles manifested on the ground from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries.
Speaker Series: The Kurdish Nobility in the Ottoman Empire: Loyalty, Autonomy, and Privilege
When: 2:00 pm Eastern (1 p.m. Central), Wednesday, May 1st
Where: https://zoom.us/j/98030942408?pwd=aU1aaGw4V0F6T2hQenI0YnlJeGR2QT09
12. Muslims in the UK and Europe Postgraduate Symposium 24 June, Cambridge UK
We are extending our deadline for submissions to our forthcoming symposium ‘Muslims in the UK and Europe Postgraduate ‘ until the 3rd of May. We are looking for submissions from current Masters and PhD candidates to present their research on issues pertaining to Muslims of the UK and Europe, from any discipline. This postgraduate symposium, taking place on Monday 24th June 2024 at the Moller Centre in Cambridge, will be a platform for students to present and exchange current research on any topic in this field in a dynamic forum. Papers should present, analyse or interpret research findings, data or material. Participants are expected to attend all sessions. Expenses within the Uk will be fully covered by the Centre.
To apply please submit a 500-word abstract, with curriculum vitae outlining current research interests, to cis@cis.cam.ac.uk by 3 May 2024.
Successful candidates will be notified by 10 May 2024 and invited to submit draft papers of no more than 3000 words by 10 June 2024.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Regards
Neil Cunningham
Programmes Manager
Centre of Islamic Studies
University of Cambridge
13. Orsolya Varsányi
Arabic Christian Notions of Human and Divine Free Will: In ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī’s Kitāb al-masāʾil wa-l-ajwiba
Monday Majlis Online on the 6th of May, 17:00-18:30 (UK time)
Register please on this link:
https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwldequqz4iH9bYCtALGH1wZeqjwx_c-ZT8
14. Prochaine séance du séminaire “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien”, jeudi 16 mai 2024, 17h, à l’INALCO
Le CeRMI a le plaisir de vous convier à laprochaine séancedu séminaire “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien”, qui se tiendra le jeudi 16 mai 2024, 17h-19h, en salle 3.15 à l’INaLCO (65 rue des Grands Moulins, Paris XIII, 3e étage).
Nous sommes heureux d’accueillir M. Simon Berger, historien spécialiste de l’Eurasie centrale médiévale et de l’Empire mongol, et chercheur postdoctorant CNRS au CeRMI (Sociétés et cultures de l’Afghanistan), pour une conférence intitulée : « Sources persanes et historiographie mongole: Écrire et réécrire l’histoire des débuts de l’empire gengiskhanide ».
Résumé
Le récent travail de critique des sources de l’histoire de l’Empire mongol a mis en lumière, par-delà les cloisonnements artificiels en corpus linguistiques, l’existence d’un substrat historiographique en langue mongole, plus ancien. Contrairement à l’idée reçue, la célèbre Histoire Secrète des Mongols n’aurait donc pas été le seul texte historique rédigé en mongol, par des Mongols. D’autres sources mongoles ont existé et ont été employées par les chroniqueurs, tant persans que chinois, pour rédiger leurs œuvres dans leurs langues respectives, bien souvent sur commande des élites gengiskhanides. La comparaison de deux textes écrits en persan, le Tārīkh-i Jahāngushā de ‘Alā’ ad-Dīn ‘Aṭā Malik Juvaynī et le Majma‘ al-ansāb de Muḥammad Shabānkāra’ī, permet d’accéder indirectement à l’une de ces sources. Celle-ci donne à voir de la fondation de l’Empire mongol et de Chinggis Khan une image bien différente de celle forgée par l’historiographie impériale officielle à partir des années 1250 et passée ensuite dans les travaux des historiennes et des historiens.
Orientations bibliographiques
- Christopher P. ATWOOD, « How the Secret History of the Mongols Was Written », Mongolica 49, 2016, p. 22-53.
- Christopher P. ATWOOD, « The Indictment of Ong Qa’an: The Earliest Reconstructable Mongolian Source on the Rise of Chinggis Khan », Historical and Philological Studies on China’s Western Regions 9, 2017, p. 272-306.
- Christopher P. ATWOOD, « Rashīd al-Dīn’s Ghazanid Chronicle and Its Mongolian Sources », in May, D. Bayarsaikhan et C. P. Atwood (dir.), New Approaches to Ilkhanid History. Leyde : Brill, 2020, p. 53-121.
- Jean AUBIN, « Un chroniqueur méconnu : Šabankara’i’ », Studia Iranica10, no 2, 1981, p. 213-224 ; reéimpr. in Jean AUBIN, Études sur l’Iran médiéval. Géographie historique et société (éd. Denise Aigle). Paris : Association pour l’avancement des études iraniennes, 2018, p. 143-154.
- Stefan KAMOLA, « Chapter 3: Mongol Dynastic History, 1302-1304 », in Idem, Making Mongol History. Rashid al-Din and the Jami‘ al-Tawarikh. Édimbourg : Edinburgh University Press, 2019, p. 59-90.
- Charles MELVILLE, « Jahāngošā-ye Jovayni », Encyclopædia Iranica XIV, fasc. 4 (2008), p. 378-382 ; disponible en ligne : http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/jahangosa-ye-jovayni
Pour rappel, vous retrouverez le programme 2023-2024 du séminaire mensuel de recherche “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien” sur le site du CeRMI :
15. Lecture – “The Garden of Laylī-u-Majnūn’s Phantasma: Temporal Architectonics in the Illustrations of a Bodleian Copy of the Khamsa of Niẓāmī,” Mahroo Moosavi, VIAHSS – May 3
The next VIAHSS lecture will take place on Friday, May 3, 2024, at 12:00 New York/17:00 London/18:00 Firenze and Berlin/19:00 Istanbul/19:30 Tehran.
Mahroo Moosavi (Max-Planck Institute, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz; Museum of Islamic Art, Pergamon Museum, Berlin) will present “The Garden of Laylī-u-Majnūn’s Phantasma: Temporal Architectonics in the Illustrations of a Bodleian Copy of the Khamsa of Niẓāmī.”
To attend, please make sure to register in advance here: https://wellesley.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAtd-6rqDMqG9No4bWPS-Fmnkd8cdrY2MPM__;!!HXCxUKc!zIaa0WL-QcmUel9nIt2aQpAfaKmUKyAIJWLsLoYnJAUteHVshmzxGVDrMS3_L6CW_0qyCaPsg01jMKyp$. Upon registration, you’ll receive the link to access the lecture.
16. The International Journal of Islamic Architectureand its Award Jury are pleased to announce the 2024 winners of the Professor Hasan-Uddin Khan Article Award:
Award Winner
Roberto Fabbri, ‘The Contextual Linkage: Visual Metaphors and Analogies in Recent Gulf Museums’ Architecture’, The Journal of Architecture 27: 2-3, 2022, pp. 372–97.
Honourable Mention
Sami Zerari, Vincenzo Pace, and Leila Sriti, ‘Towards an Understanding of the Local Interpretations of the Arab Mosque Model in the Saharan Regions. Re-exploration of the Ziban in South-Eastern Algeria’, ArcHistoR 10, 2023, pp. 97–129.
In honour of Professor Hasan-Uddin Khan’s contributions to the field of Islamic architecture, the International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA) is pleased to offer this award in recognition of ground-breaking scholarship on the subject published in peer-reviewed journals. The Award winner will receive a cash prize of $1000 and a 2-year subscription to IJIA, and the honourable mention winner will receive a 2-year subscription to IJIA. We are extremely grateful to the members of the 2024 jury, Professors Kishwar Rizvi, Leïla el-Wakil, and James L. Wescoat Jr., for their time and expertise in judging submissions for this year’s award, and to the chair of the Award Committee, Dr Mehreen Chida-Razvi.
The Professor Hasan-Uddin Khan Article Award will be offered every two years. Papers published in English in a peer reviewed journal in 2024 or 2025 will be eligible for the 2026 award. For the criteria by which papers will be judged and the submission process, see our website.
Contact Information
Mehreen Chida-Razvi
Chair, Professor Hasan-Uddin Khan Article Award
International Journal of Islamic Architecture
Contact Email
URL
https://www.intellectbooks.com/international-journal-of-islamic-architecture
17. The American University in Cairo – Assistant, Associate or Full Professor in History of Islamic Art and Architecture
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=67153
Closing date: July 22, 2024
18. Kenyon College – Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=67163
Incl Islamic Art
Closing date: July 24, 2024
- April 30, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Online: ‘Rethinking the Global History of Sunni-Shii Relations and Confessionalisation in Islam’ – T Matthiesen (Cambridge, UK, 2.5.24, 5pm)
- April 29, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1. ‘Climate Change and the Built Environment in the Islamic World’, International Journal of Islamic Architecture13.2 (Special Issue)
This special issue of IJIA focuses on the impact of the current climate crisis on built environments in the Islamic world. Covering a diverse number of chronological and geographical contexts, the articles herein consider the effects of climate change on structured landscapes through the lenses of material, design, and architectural practice.
For more information about the journal and issue click here>>
https://www.intellectbooks.com/international-journal-of-islamic-architecture
and
https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/ijia
2. ‘Muqāranah: The Art of Comparison in Premodern Arabo-Islamic Poetics’
PMLA , Volume 139 , Issue 1 , January 2024 , pp. 172 – 183
Hany Rashwan
3. ‘Consubstantial dualism: a Zoroastrian perspective on the soul’
Ted Good
Religious Studies, Volume 60 / Issue S1, May 2024, pp S60 – S73
doi: 10.1017/S0034412523000641 Published Online on 2 August 2023
4. 2024 Sir William Luce lecture at Durham University (and online), 12 June 12:00 BST
“Aid from Gulf donors in conflict zones” Dr Altea Pericoli
You are warmly invited by Durham University’s Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies to attend the 2024 Sir William Luce public lecture at 12.00pm on Wednesday 12 June at the Al-Qasimi Building on Elvet Hill Rd, Durham DH1 3TU. The lecture will also be streamed on Zoom (links below).
Dr Altea Pericoli will deliver a lecture on “Aid from Gulf donors in conflict zones”. If you do intend to attend in person RSVP by 3 June.
Aid from Gulf donors in conflict zones
Summary: Dr Altea Pericoli’s research has the overall objective to provide a broader understanding of humanitarian aid in conflict zones as implemented by Gulf actors and to improve the dialogue between Western and Gulf donors. The research examines foreign aid interventions of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and their implementation in Yemen, Sudan, and Syria (including the Syrian refugee issue) in the period 2015-2022. The study combines international relations theories and the anthropological approach to humanitarian aid analysis, embedding a top-down and bottom-up observation of aid interventions.
Dr Pericoli is currently a Postdoctoral research fellow in geopolitics and regional cooperation at the Center for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Sweden. She was previously an academic visitor at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies and a visiting research fellow at the European University Institute, Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies. She obtained her Ph.D. in Institutions and Policies (2019-2023) at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, and she conducted many visiting periods at Vienna University, Durham University, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, and Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway. In July 2023, she obtained the BRISMES Award “Early Career Development Scholarship” to elaborate her first monograph with a university press. Her research interests include Islamic philanthropy and aid interventions implemented by Islamic actors and the Gulf States in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.
To attend online via Zoom (you will be asked to register as an attendee): https://durhamuniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nYjAYQinR168Ctlftr9Icg
5. Lecturer in Political Geographies of the Middle East
Newcastle University
We welcome applicants whose work advances one or more of the following areas through a focus on the Middle East and its shifting political geographies: conflict and displacement; resource colonialism; mobility politics; war and terrorism; human rights; security; borders and boundaries.
Deadline | 12 May 2024
More information
6. Roundtable Call for Submissions | Iranian Studies
The journal of Iranian Studies invites submissions for roundtables. Topics may include any subject in the social sciences related to Iran, the Persianate world, minoritized communities, and transnational diasporas. If interested, please submit your proposal to Dr Paola Rivetti, the journal’s associate editor for the social sciences (paola.rivetti@dcu.ie).
Deadline | 17 June 2024
7. Call for Applications | BIAA-University of Oxford Martin Harrison Memorial Fellowship
With funds donated in memory of the late Professor Martin Harrison, the University of Oxford has instituted a scheme of short-term Fellowships to enable Turkish scholars to come to the United Kingdom and Oxford for a period of research. The Fellowships are open to Turkish citizens resident in Türkiye who are working in any area of the material and visual culture of Anatolia, from the Prehistoric to the Ottoman period.
Deadline | 31 May 2024
8. Middle East Studies Senior Editor needed for Cogent Social Sciences
Fully Open Access (OA) journal Cogent Social Sciences is currently recruiting for a Senior Editor within its Area Studies section, to take the lead on a new strand focusing on Middle East Studies (North Africa, the Levant, the Gulf, and the Arabian Peninsula). This role reports to the Editor-in-Chief, and you will be joining the Senior Editors for African Studies, Asian Studies, and Central Asian, Russian and East European Studies.
Deadline | 31 May 2024
9. Call for Applications | BIAA Postdoctoral Fellowship
The British Institute at Ankara welcomes applications for a Postdoctoral Fellowship relating to research that fits within one of its Strategic Research Initiatives. The Fellowship will be tenable for 12 months from September 2024. The Fellow will be based at the Institute in Ankara and will be required to spend at least two-thirds of the period of their Fellowship at the Institute. The remaining one-third can be spent outside Ankara for research purposes, in consultation with the Institute’s Director.
Deadline | 30 April 2024
10. Bahram Beyzaie: A Mosaic of Metaphors (Bahman Maghsoudlou Film Festival)
Film Screening | SOAS Centre for Iranian Studies | 3 May 2024
“A Mosaic of Metaphors” delves into the life and artistic journey of renowned master of Iranian theatre and cinema, Bahram Beyzaie.
11. Alternative Imaginaries: Feminist Transformative Politics in the Global South
Conference | UCL Institute for Global Prosperity | 18 May 2024
This conference is organized to examine the ways in which feminist imagination is changing the face of the Global South by challenging gendered political structures, legal systems, and development trajectories in the Global South.
More information
12. Upcoming Events at St Antony’s College Middle East Centre, Oxford
Upcoming events include:
- Reflections on Tunisian Women’s Continued Fight for Respect, Dignity and Rights | 7 May 2024
- The transformation of the Ottoman-Iranian boundaries at the “Idea of Iran” symposium | 13 May 2024
- Economic Diversification and Climate Change in the Middle East | 28 May 2024
13. The Religious/Secular Divide in Turkish Television Drama: Three Media Platforms
Hybrid Event | British Institute at Ankara | 8 May 2024
After briefly explaining the embedding of the re-emergence of religiosity in Türkiye’s socio-political history, the lecture will supply a short overview of the development towards the presentation of religiosity in television drama. Then, it will zoom in on three case studies, analysing how conservative/religious lifestyles and modern/secular lifestyles are presented.
More information
14. ASPIRANTUM’s 2024 Persian Language Summer School in Yerevan, Armenia.
Deadline to apply: May 15, 2024.
To apply, please visit: https://aspirantum.com/courses/persian-language-summer-school
Students may select a 4-10 weeks (80 – 200 hours) program starting from June 23, June 30, or July 7, 2024 (please mention the preferred start date in your application form).
10 weeks – 200 contact hours (1 hour = 60 minutes)
9 weeks – 180 contact hours
8 weeks – 160 contact hours
7 weeks – 140 contact hours
6 weeks – 120 contact hours
Registration for the 4-week and 5-week course is now closed.
5 weeks – 100 contact hours
4 weeks – 80 contact hours
The Persian Summer School 2024 will have two groups (upper elementary and intermediate).
The intermediate syllabus covers various topics, including Economic Persian, Military Persian, Legal Persian, Cultural Persian, Technological Persian, Medical Persian, and more. You can find the daily topics in the syllabus: https://aspirantum.com/curriculum/persian-intermediate-syllabus
During our summer school, we have planned exciting trips to some of Armenia’s most renowned cultural heritage sites. These include the Quba Mere Diwane Yezidi Temple, the Garni Pagan Temple, the Geghard Monastery, the Mausoleum of Kara Koyunlu Emirs, the Amberd Fortress, and the picturesque Lake Sevan. We will also visit Martuni, Ayrivank on Lake Sevan, Ejmiatsin, Tsaghkadzor, Bjni, Khor Virap, Noravank, and more.
These tours offer students a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in local culture. They will have the chance to milk and shear a sheep, savor cheese under a shepherd’s tent, and sample the finest Armenian cuisine in traditional restaurants. Additionally, they can enjoy a refreshing swim in Sevan Lake, which is 1900 meters above sea level, and Kari Lake, which is at an elevation of 3185 meters.
To get a glimpse of what these tours entail, you can watch a recap of our previous excursions here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3PmyCWDsvg and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R4JlteBOxw
The deadline to apply to the 4-10 weeks 2024 Persian language summer school is May 15, 2024.
The participation fee is:
$6390 – 10 weeks
$5890 – 9 weeks
$5490 – 8 weeks
$4990 – 7 weeks
$4490 – 6 weeks
Registration for the 4-week and 5-week course is now closed.
$3990 – 5 weeks
$3490 – 4 weeks
To apply for summer school, please visit: https://aspirantum.com/courses/persian-language-summer-school
15. Professor Richard Bulliet speaking about Caravans on 10 May 2024 (in person )
‘Thinking about Caravans’
Friday, 10 May 2024, 5:30PM GMT
Leonard Wolfson Auditorium, Wolfson College, Oxford
16. Links for Recordings of the Exeter Monday Majlises of the spring term from the 15 of January to the 18th of March:
Monday Majlis Online Series, Recordings of the Majlises of the Spring Term
Centre for the Study of Islam, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter
(We don’t record the Q&A in order to keep the discussion free)
15th of January. Zoltán Szombathy, Islamic Discourses in a Local Context: A Traditional Ritual in Eastern Sulawesi, Indonesia
22nd of January. Neguin Yavari, Sufis Movements and Contestable Periodization Schemes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDT1bb-R8_s&list=PL8YRkUahFj_81oJzCSDLTx4kVQQgeHLc-&index=9&pp=iAQB
29th of January. Stefan Kamola, Everything under Heaven, and the Heavens Too: Universal History and Astrology in Mongol Iran
5th of February. Dženita Karić, Bosnian Hajj Literature: Multiple Paths to the Holy (conversation about the book and beyond)
12th of February. Dalal S al-Baroud with Sayed Ismail al-Behbehani, Rewilding Arabic Literature
19th of February. Andrew F. March, On Muslim Democracy: A Book Talk
26th of February. Austin O’Malley, The Hoopoe on the Pulpit: Narrative Structure and Imagined Performance in ʿAṭṭār’s Manṭeq al-ṭayr
4th of March. Yusuf Ünal, ‘Our State in the End Times:’ The Safavid Rule and a Shi’i Theory of Sovereignty
11th of March. Yaron Klein The Poetry of the One Thousand and One Nights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYBJaG4kqQI&list=PL8YRkUahFj_81oJzCSDLTx4kVQQgeHLc-&index=2&pp=iAQB
18th of March. Phillip Bruckmayr, Islamic Reform as a Family Affair: The Tariq Shah Wali Ullah in Modern Malaysia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1peidWXyAoE&list=PL8YRkUahFj_81oJzCSDLTx4kVQQgeHLc-&index=1&pp=iAQB
In the spirit of the label ‘Majlis’ and to make the talks even more interesting, our speakers present the topic discussed as embedded in their own journey. You can watch the previous Majlises here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8YRkUahFj_81oJzCSDLTx4kVQQgeHLc-, but we don’t record the Q&A in order to keep the discussion free. If you’d like to be included in the CSI (Centre for the Study of Islam (Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter) mailing list, please contact the CSI Manager: Sarah Wood (s.a.wood2@exeter.ac.uk).
17. Understanding Carpets and Rug Weaving is a four-day workshop organized and hosted by The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum. It will be held from October 21 through October 24 at the museum’s Avenir Foundation Conservation and Collections Resource Center, the workshop will be led by Walter B. Denny (The Textile Museum Research Associate, The University of Massachusetts Amherst) and Sumru Belger Krody (Senior Curator, The Textile Museum Collection) with support from the museum’s curatorial staff. The workshop will address professional concerns of museum curators and academic scholars from all levels of experience including those currently undertaking graduate study.
The program will include a mixture of formats: illustrated lectures giving an overview of the history and development of rug and carpet weaving; group discussions; and practical exercises in the analysis of weave structures, including an up-close study of a selection of rugs and other textiles from The Textile Museum Collection. Participants will come away with an understanding of basic weave structures in the context of various carpet cultures (Anatolia, Iran, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia), weaving traditions (nomadic and settled), eras (from Early Modern times to the 19th century) and economic spheres (court and commercial production), as well as methods for analyzing and documenting rugs and carpets. We will also discuss the storage, conservation, and display of carpets in a museum context.
The museum will provide lunch and coffee, as well as all materials necessary for the workshop. Participants will be responsible for their own travel, accommodation, and dinner expenses. Registration for the workshop closes on September 1, 2024 and is limited to 10 participants. To register, please complete this form. The Museum will provide a syllabus, some basic documentary materials to be read in advance, and detailed accommodation recommendations upon registration.
SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS
The museum is happy to provide a scholarship covering accommodation and dinner allowance to one graduate student for the workshop. Graduate students who are in good standing and currently enrolled in a U.S. higher-education institution are eligible to apply. We welcome applicants from graduate programs in art history, archaeology, history, classics, religious studies, and other fields who might benefit from close engagement with our collection and training in material-culture approaches.
To apply, please submit a CV and cover letter with a summary of your research interests, plans for future research, and an explanation of how the workshop would benefit your intellectual and professional development. All materials should be submitted as a single PDF document to museumcuratorial@gwu.edu. Applications are due by July 1, 2024.
Applicants are also encouraged to explore other sources of funding support within their own institutions, and from various professional organizations that support research in the area of carpets, textiles, and the history of Islamic art.
Contact: MuseumCuratorial@gwu.edu
Contact Information
Sumru Belger Krody or Ella Jones
Contact Email
URL
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSft9Pf4919gd1XlhTAXq3LL-fgb327YtbXxbrP…
18. HYBRID Lecture “The Mystical Appeal of a Revolution: Classified Documents, Islamic Third Worldism, and Iran in 1983” by Simon Wolfgang Fuchs (Hebrew University Jerusalem), University of Erfurt, 29 April 2024, 16:15 CET
For a moment in 1979 and 1980, post-revolutionary Iran emerged as the torch bearer of Third Worldism. This talk draws on several hundreds of pages of top-secret Persian documents, gathered during fieldwork in Iran in 2019, to shine light on how elements within the Iranian regime tried to test the waters in 1983. Despite logistical mishaps and poor intelligence, the Iranian message of anti-imperialism and Muslim solidarity still found eager takers in the early 1980s.
Participation via Webex:
https://uni-erfurt.webex.com/uni-erfurt/j.php?MTID=mcb96a5b35fd94adaac08049ee2aac48f ;
Meeting-Code: 2730 634 2262, Meeting-Password: X8Ty5TFQ6ZJ
- April 27, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
- April 26, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.HYBRIDE Seminaire “De poète de la tribu à poète de la rue – les transformations de statut et de conditions de vie des poètes arabophones à l’époque prémoderne” avec Hakan Özkan (IREMAM, Aix-Marseille Université), MMSH/IREMAM, Aix-en-Provence, 25 April 2024, 14h00 heure de Paris
Nous accorderons une attention particulière à la notion de mobilité sociale des poètes, c’est-à-dire à la capacité de ces auteurs à s’élever au-delà de leur statut socio-économique initial, à travers leurs carriers en tant que poètes mais également dans d’autres domaines professionnels. Nous explorerons en outre la thématique de la précarité, qu’elle soit d’ordre économique ou physique.
Information et inscription : https://www.iremam.cnrs.fr/en/node/101905
2. HYBRID Lecture “The Politics of Anti-Judaism: Religious Co-production and Sectarian Polemics in the Fatimid Caliphate” by Mohamed Ballan (Stony Brook University), Kevorkian Center, New York University, 25 April 2024, 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm EST
The shared histories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were integral to the shaping of all three traditions during the medieval period. This lecture seeks to shed new light on how such religious co-production illustrates the ways in which the figures of Judaism (and, to a lesser degree, Christianity) played a key role in how medieval Muslims articulated their own theological and religious claims.
Information and registration: https://as.nyu.edu/research-centers/neareaststudies/events/the-politics-of-anti-judaism–religious-co-production-and-sectar.html
3. Six Positions for Doctoral Research Associates (3 Years, TV-L13, 2/3 FTE) for Project “Byzantium and the Euro-Mediterranean Cultures of War. Exchange, Differentiation and Reception”, University of Mainz, Germany
Participating in this Research Training Group are the disciplines of Ancient History, Ancient Church History/Theology, Byzantine Studies, Medieval History, Eastern European History, History of Islam, Classical Archaeology, Christian Archaeology and Byzantine Art History, Early and Prehistorical Archaeology (with a focus on Medieval Archaeology) and Musicology.
Deadline for applications: 22 May 2024. Information: https://grk-byzanz-wars.uni-mainz.de/
4. NEW DATE
Valparaiso University – Visiting Assistant Professor in History
https://apply.interfolio.com/144147
Incl Middle Eastern History
Closing date: May 1, 2024
5. PhD Studentship (4 Years) on “Islamist Movements in Exile”, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University
We are seeking candidates for this position. The project will assess the evolution of activism of moderate Islamist social movements in exile in Europe since the so-called “Arab Spring”. Outstanding PhD candidates will be offered fee waiver and a tax-free scholarship of €22,000 per annum for four years.
Deadline for applications: 7 May 2024.
Information: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DHE136/phd-studentship-on-islamist-movements-in-exile
6. Conference – ‘From Sicily to Sumatra’, Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford – May 17-18
From Sicily to Sumatra
Conference in Honour of Professor Jeremy Johns
Friday 17 – Saturday 18 May 2024 at Wolfson College, University of Oxford (Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD).
We are delighted to announce that ‘From Sicily to Sumatra: Conference in Honour of Professor Jeremy Johns’ hosted by Khalili Research Centre (KRC) will take place on Friday 17 – Saturday 18 May 2024 at Wolfson College, University of Oxford (Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD). This in-person two-day conference will start at 10:00am.
Over the last four decades, Professor Jeremy Johns has been a leading researcher on the history of the Islamic Mediterranean, particularly Sicily, and a pillar of the advanced study of Islamic art and archaeology at Oxford. This conference, organised to mark his retirement, brings together speakers from among his former students and closest colleagues to celebrate his career. The topics, ranging from Europe to Southeast Asia and from early Islam to the modern era, reflect the breadth of his interests and his impact on the field. We hope the event will be a fitting testament to a scholar – to quote Malaterra’s words about Roger I of Sicily – “most eloquent in speech and cool in counsel”.
For further details and to purchase tickets, please see the attached poster or visit the registration page. Tickets include lunch and refreshments on both days. There is an early bird offer which ends on Sunday, 25th April.
7. UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series
“Heroes to Hostages: US—Iran Diplomacy through Race Relations and Human Rights”
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet
Sunday, May 19, 2024 at 11:30am
Zoom Registration:
https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aieHlTjSSJa2-tL__Bf22g
This presentation appraises US-Iranian diplomacy through race relations and human rights. Intellectuals of the post-Mosaddeq era gave voice to an anti-colonial rhetoric that burst wide open during the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Many writers, some with socialist leanings, watched with interest political happenings in formerly colonized states. These conflicts were often rooted in experiences of racial discrimination and social inequality. At the same time, the Iranian state also engaged with some of these themes and expanded its diplomatic relations with a range of countries in the Global South. Although state-to-state ties between Iran and America were strengthened during the two decades preceding the 1979 revolution, social dissent also grew strident. The debate on human rights gave voice to these concerns as Iran’s politicians and writers reflected on the legacy of human rights and reassessed the country’s ties to the United States and the West. Race relations provided an unanticipated and often missed opportunity for collaboration.
8. Imago Mundi journal at the International Conference on the History of Cartography, July 2024
The editors of Imago Mundi are looking forward to attending ICHC 2024 in Lyon, France. Imago Mundi turns 90 years old in 2025 and ICHC 2024 offers us a chance to reflect on and connect with our community. They are eager to speak with researchers about prospective submissions, as well as to discuss the journal’s scope and reach.
The editors will lead a workshop on Wednesday, 3 July. Attendees will tackle questions that include how, in the next decade, Imago Mundi might:
- foster debate on methodological and conceptual questions, advance pedagogy, increase public impact?
- ensure a full range of maps and mapmaking practices are presented?
- contribute to connecting researchers, collectors, librarians and archivists?
In short, we invite the map history community’s thoughts on what a flagship journal should strive for as it looks towards a second century.
Additionally, the editors will be available for discussions and one-on-ones during the lunch session each day during the conference. Please feel free to approach Jordana Dym or Katie Parker at the ICHC to chat about possible article topics, how to write an article, special issues, or other matters. Alternatively, reach out ahead of time to plan a time.
Questions? Please contact editor.imagomundi@gmail.com. We will see you in Lyon and remember, early bird registration ends April 20! Learn more at https://ichc2024.univ-lyon3.fr/registration
Contact Information
Katie Parker and Jordana Dym, editors
Contact Email
9. Sami De Giosa, Text and Stone: A history of Christian Symbols in Mamluk Architecture in Cairo (1250-1517AD). Monday Majlis online, the 29th of April, 17: 00-18:30 (UK time)
Monday Majlis of the Centre for the Study of Islam, Exeter, opening the summer term:
Sami De Giosa, Text and Stone: A history of Christian Symbols in Mamluk Architecture in Cairo (1250-1517AD)
Monday Majlis Online on the on the 29th of April, 17:00-18:30 (UK time)
Centre for the Study of Islam, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter.
Register please on this link:
https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYoceqoqDktE9DWrSxb4MX7x-9Ctqy68Sz6
- April 23, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.Iran Heritage Foundation:
Book Talk: ‘Rethinking The Contemporary Art of Iran’
Wednesday 24 April 2024
17:00 – 18:30
Room: Alumni Lecture Theatre (SALT),
Paul Webley Wing (PWW), Senate House, SOAS
Speakers
Professor Hamid Dabashi (contributor)
Dr Venetia Porter (discussant)
Ghazaleh Avarzamani (artist) and
Dr Hamid Keshmirshekan (editor/author)
Chaired by Dr Seyed Ali Alavi (co-director, SOAS Centre for Iranian Studies)
Register:
https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/book-talk-rethinking-contemporary-art-iran
2. ‘Arabic Poetry as a Weapon of Jihad’
Dr Elisabeth Kendall, the Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge
6.00pm, Thursday, 25th April, 2024
Auditorium, Pembroke College, Cambridge
The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in the foyer of the Auditorium
To register to attend the lecture:
https://forms.gle/7oNwLres4LiR8GQq7
3. Hybrid Book launch: Women, Households and the Hereafter in the Qur’an (1 May 2024)
You are warmly invited to join authors Dr Karen Bauer and Professor Feras Hamza as they introduce their latest publication, “Women, Households and the Hereafter in the Qur’an: A Patronage of Piety“, in conversation with Dr Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Dr Omar `Ali-de-Unzaga.The event will include a discussion followed by questions and answers with the audience. Light refreshments will be available in the atrium after the event.
The book offers a fresh perspective on the highly contested topic of women’s status in the Qur’an. Using a historical-critical approach, the authors argue that women were integral to the early community of believers, and that households were a major locus of Qur’anic morality, piety, and law. This compelling and original work proposes new paradigms for understanding the Qur’an’s social milieu and its salvific vision for that world.
Time: 5.00pm – 6.30pm BST
Date: 1 May 2024
Venue: The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS), Aga Khan Centre, London and Online (Zoom)
Register to attend in-person or online via the IIS website.
Other upcoming events at The Institute of Ismaili Studies
26 April – Morality and Religion: Perspectives from Literature, Sociology and Philosophy (Ahmad Sadri, Lake Forest College)
2 May – Understanding Generative AI and Prompting (Mohammad Keyhani, University of Calgary)
9 May – Between Zulaykha and Joseph: Shi’i Allegoresis of Surat Yusuf (David Hollenberg, University of Oregon)
11 June – Spirituality: The Inner and Outer Landscape (Seyyed Hossein Nasr, George Washington University)
4. ‘Hadith as Oral Literature through Early Islamic Literary Criticism’
Hany Rashwan
Studia Islamica 119, 2024
https://brill.com/view/journals/si/119/1/article-p34_2.xml?ebody=abstract%2Fexcerpt
Kayvan Tahmasebian, Rebecca Ruth Gould
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Volume 56 / Issue 1, February 2024, pp 38 – 54
6. The Persian Gulf Award (short story) and The Damavand Award (poem)
The University of Texas at Austin is holding two literary contests for all college students outside Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan who can write in Persian (this includes non-heritage Persian learners too).
The Persian Gulf Award for the best short story written in Persian and The Damavand Award for the best poem written in Persian.
There will be $2,000 monetary awards in total for the top three submissions in each category, and an English translation of the winning submissions will be published in our literary journal Y’alla: A Texan Journal of Middle Eastern Literature.
To see the submissions guidelines and deadlines, please visit https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/mes/languages/persian/persian-literature-contests.html
Submission Deadline: October 15, 2024
7. CFP: “Urban history of mobility in the MENA region: migrations, ecologies, spaces, temporalities (XIX-XXI)” – XVI SeSaMO Conference – Deadline 7 May 2024
XVI Convegno SeSaMO – XVI SeSaMO Conference
Crossings and contaminations. Practices, languages and politics in transit in the Middle East and North Africa
Department of Political and Social Sciences, Department of Literature, Languages and Cultural Heritage, University of Cagliari, Italy, 3-5 October 2024
7 May 2024: deadline for the submission of papers
Gabriele Montalbano and Lucia Carminati have organized the open panel:
Urban history of mobility in the MENA region: migrations, ecologies, spaces, temporalities (XIX-XXI):
Despite the obvious importance of migration in the urban contexts of North Africa and the Middle East in the modern age, urban history and the history of mobility and migration have not always spoken to each other. An interest in the impact of colonial regimes in urban planning and social geography has often prevailed (Wright 1991; Piaton 2016; McLaren 2018; Dumasy 2022), in part neglecting the question of urban contexts as revealers and producers of both social and spatial mobility (Foucault 1984). Moreover, studies in the North African and Middle Eastern contexts have rarely been conceived within an unifying framework, in spite of pleas to do so (Clancy-Smith 2011; Arsan, Karam, and Khater 2013). A new historiographical interest, in which this panel fits, aims to propose a history of mobility by investigating the connection between migratory phenomena, urban spaces, ecologies, and regimes of historicity (Tabak 2008; Lafi 2023). From the 19th century onwards, urban areas in the MENA region have witnessed major changes related to mobility and also to the presence of economic, social, and colonial marginalities (Biancani 2018; Fuhrmann 2020; Paonessa 2021; Montalbano 2023; Carminati 2023). The chosen chronology encompasses the era of political reforms (like Tanzimat in Ottoman areas), the implementation of colonial hierarchies in most of the MENA region up to the decolonization processes and the postcolonial political regimes. Through a perspective on mobility within the urban scale it is possible to analyze the different regimes, passages and changes that do not coincide necessarily with the classical chronology of the political and diplomatic history.
The interest is to investigate cities as nodes of national as well as transnational and global networks. It is in city neighbourhoods that communities, minorities and economic and social divisions take concrete shape. At the same time, it is within urban spaces where national, class, gender and racial categories can be subverted, criticised, reconfigured. The methodological approach of this panel is to avoid considering the relation of these categories as a simple interaction of undiscussed blocks but, on the contrary, it focuses on the mutual hybridization of the concepts of time, space, and (social, racial, gender) identities. Urban spaces are not here understood as a mere setting of historical and social events but as an active part of a complexity in which all the different elements are related and built together (Rau, Roger 2020). The analysis of marginality and daily-life is intended as a privileged perspective to underline the spatialized social practices of urban MENA contexts. Even though our main academic interest concerns history, this panel aims to be an open space of discussions and exchanges among scholars from different social sciences such as (but not exclusively): historians, anthropologists, geographers, sociologists. We welcome papers (in Italian, English or French) that cover, study or deal with the following themes:
- Forms of urban marginality
- Relationship between urban neighbourhoods and the urban, national, global context
- (re)production of spatial and social boundaries and divisions
- impact of infrastructure and exploitation in urban social geography
- sites of hybridisation, conflict and subversion
- production of alternative urban geographies to institutional ones
- ecologies of urban spaces
- relationship between urban spaces and public health ideas or practices
- proposals or practices of urban modernisation
- regimes of historicity and temporality across urban contexts
Consider joining & spreading the word!
Reach out to Gabriele Montalbano gabriele.montalbano2@unibo.it and Lucia Carminati lucia.carminati@iakh.uio.no if interested.
8. Afghanistan, vol 7/1 is now out and available online.
9. ‘Plague and the Mongol conquest of Baghdad (1258)? A reevaluation of the sources’
Jonathan Brack, Michal Biran, Reuven Amitai
Medical History
doi: 10.1017/mdh.2023.38, 19 pages. Published Online on 8 April 2024
10. Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Medicine
60-80 %
The History of Medicine Group within the Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine and the Center for Medical Humanities at the University of Zurich, led by Professor Flurin Condrau, seeks to appoint a postdoctoral fellow (60-80 % FTE, competitive salary based on experience). The appointment is for three years with potential for extension by another three years. Applicants must have defended their doctoral degree within the last ten years. Closing date for applications is 31 May 2024.
11. ONLINE Yemeni Studies Lecture Series: “Blessed Aristocracies: Charismatic Authority, Rural Elites, and Historiography in Medieval Yemen” by Dr. Zacharie Mochtari de Pierrepont and Prof. Dr. Vincent J. Cornell, Leiden University, 22 April 2024, 16:00 – 17:30 CET
In Yemen, the multiplication of pious visitations to tombs (ziyārāt) between the end of the 6th/12th century and the 9th/15th century, as elsewhere in the Muslim worlds, went along with the emergence of many blessed characters and lineages associated with sainthood (walāya). The contemporary Yemeni corpus gave them a major space in the historiographical production of the Rasūlid (r. 626-858/1229-1454) and Ṭāhirid (r. 858-923/1454-1517) sultanates.
Information and registration:
- April 20, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Registration Open for Ninth Annual International Conference on Shi‘i Studies (The Islamic College, London, 11.5.24)
The Annual Conference on Shi‘i Studies offers an extensive platform for academics and scholars engaged in the study of Shi‘i Islam to present their latest research. This event encourages a dynamic exchange of ideas, facilitating in-depth discussions on Shi‘i thought, practices, and cultural heritage. By bringing together diverse perspectives, the conference aims to advance the academic discourse on Shi’i Studies.
Open to scholars, students, and all interested in Shi‘i Studies, the conference is public but requires prior registration for attendance.
- April 17, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.HYBRID Book Discussion: “Studying Islam in the Arab World: The Rupture Between Religion and the Social Sciences” by Sari Hanafi, American University of Beirut, 18 April 2024, 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm
The author provides critical insight on case studies in Lebanon Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait Qatar, and Malaysia: What is the purpose of religious education? Does it aim to create people who specialize solely in religious affairs? What is the nature of the relationship between the social sciences and the Shariah sciences?
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87280843976
2. Colloque on the Occasion of the 15th Anniversary of the Yearbook of Muslims in Europe: “Diasporification of Islam: Transborder Relations of Muslims in Europe. Established Muslim Communities and New Arrivals”, Department of Turkish Studies, University of Strasbourg, 18-19 April 2024
Information and program: https://dres.unistra.fr/websites/misha/dres/2._Pluralisme_et_religions/evenemen ts/DET_Brochure_Colloque.pdf
3. ONLINE Book Talk: “Arabic-Type Books Printed in Wallachia, Istanbul, and Beyond. First Volume of Collected Works of the TYPARABIC Project”, Edited by Radu Dipratu and Samuel Noble, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, 25 April 2024, 19:00 h, Bucharest Time
This first volume focuses on the history of printing during the 18th century in the Ottoman Empire and the Romanian Principalities among diverse linguistic and confessional communities. Although “most roads lead to Istanbul,” the many pathways of early modern Ottoman printing also connected authors, readers and printers from Central and South-Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the Levant.
Information: http://typarabic.ro/wordpress.
Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82919338366?pwd=uTW430ve3w8oayU3Iug1lbk1j5mruJ.1
4. International Conference “From Solidus to Stavraton: Coinage and Money in the Byzantine World”, Princeton University, 26-28 April 2024
This conference will be the first ever devoted solely to Byzantine numismatics, and it will reunite renowned scholars and specialists from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the U.S.
Information, program and registration: https://library.princeton.edu/event/solidus-stavraton
5. Workshop “Intersections of Youth, Gender, and Religion under Digital Media in the MENA Region”, Leipzig University, 26-27 September 2024
Themes: Expressions and performances of religious identities. – Governance strategies and policies targe-ting the youth, gender, and sexuality. – New age religions and spiritualities. – Social media influencer econo-mies. – Youth cultures. – Feminist and LGBTQ politics and collective movements. – Anti-gender politics and ideologies. – Negotiation of the religious-secular divide. Etc.
Deadline for abstracts: 3 May 2024. Information: https://www.gkr.uni-leipzig.de/newsdetail-3/artikel/call-for-papers-intersections-of-youth-gender-and-religion-under-digital-media-in-the-mena-region-2024-04-05
6. Postdoctoral Fellowship (1 Year) in Islamic Studies, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
We seek candidates who study Muslim societies and cultures in their global context, with interdisciplinary and critical perspectives and methods, including digital humanities.
Deadline for applications: 10 May 2024. Information: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/27480
7. “Early Scholars Publication Grants”, Offered by the UNESCO Chair in Translating Cultures; King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)
The grants are intended to facilitate and support the publication and dissemination of outstanding graduate-level research in a peer-reviewed academic publication. They aim to support innovative research in translating Arab cultures by facilitating collaborations between scholars in translation studies, cultural studies, intangible heritage, and the humanities at the local, regional, and international levels.
Deadline for applications: 15 May 2024. Information: https://kfcris.com/en/unesco/grant
8. Courses of the Arabic Language Institute in Fez (ALIF), Morocco, 21 May – 6 July 2024
ALIF is a globally-oriented center that aims to educate and engage students from around the world in Arabic, North African culture, cross-cultural communication, research, and community service.
Deadline for applications: 23 April 2024. Information: https://alif-fes.com/
9. New Journal: “Rivista di Studi storici del Mediterraneo” – International Review of Mediterranean Historical Studies
This journal promotes a global perspective on the historical dynamics of the Mediterranean, transcending geographical boundaries. Contributions are invited about topics that transcend any conventional periodization in order to investigate the complex network of relations and influences relating to different Mediterranean contexts and foster historical knowledge of the Mediterranean.
Information: https://rivistastoricadelmediterraneo.it/en/the-mediterranean-world/#more-117
10. Articles for the “Indonesian Journal of Religion, Spirituality and Humanity”, State Islamic University (UIN) Salatiga, Indonesia
IJORESH is committed to the scholarly study of the dynamic interplays among religion, spirituality and humanity. It particularly focuses on the works which deal with anthropology of religion, sociology of religion, and philosophy of religion.
Deadline for submissions: 30 May 2023.
Information: https://ejournal.uinsalatiga.ac.id/index.php/ijoresh/index
11. Journey of Love: Nizami’s “Layla and Majnun”, An evening of Sufi Music, Poetry and Sama, Toronto & Vancouver
Immerse yourself in the “Journey of Love” program featuring the MTO Zendeh Delan Ensemble. Hosted by Canadian Friends of Sufi Arts, Culture and Knowledge (CFSACK), this transformative experience, reimagining Nizami’s timeless classic “Layla & Majnun” through Sufi music, invites attendees on a spiritual odyssey, blending spirituality and art. Experience Sufism through music, dhikr, and the traditional practice of sama, in this live performance.
The program also has an almost sold-out Vancouver run on April 19, 20, and 21 at the Cultch Historic Theatre.
This live program is repeated on April 25, 26 and 27 in Toronto at the Meridian Arts Center Greenwin Theatre in North York.
MTO Zendeh Delan is known for revitalizing contemporary Sufi music by integrating traditional melodies with global influences. Their diverse repertoire combines Sufi tunes with Western elements, further enriched by the poetry of revered Sufi Masters, and incorporates the sacred sama practice.
CFSACK is a not-for-profit charity dedicated to increasing knowledge and appreciation of Sufi history, art, and culture.
Further information can be found at cfsack.org
Contact Information
For further information and access to discounted tickets, contact Shahed Ejadi, Director of Canadian Friends of Sufi Arts, Culture and Knowledge.
Contact Email
URL
https://tolive.com/Event-Details-Page/reference/Journey-of-Love-2024
12. Exhibition – Conoscenza e Libertà. Arte Islamica al Museo Civico Medievale di Bologna – April 20–September 15
Curated by Anna Contadini (SOAS University of London)
http://informa.comune.bologna.it/iperbole/media/files/arte_islamica.pdf
The wonderful objects in this exhibition are designed to display the Museum’s outstanding collection of Islamic objects, which includes some undisputed masterpieces. They are the fruit of targeted collecting which includes that of Bolognese collectors and scholars Ferdinando Cospi in the XVII, Luigi Ferdinando Marsili in the XVIII and Pelagio Palagi in the XIX century. Knowledge of them allows us to comprehend the contribution made by the cultures that produced them to European art and thought, and frees us from prejudices and stereotypes. The themes of the exhibition, in fact, reveal the transmission of scientific knowledge, of techniques of manufacturing and decoration and of the appropriation of ornamental repertoires that will become part of a global artistic vocabulary. The objects on display come from a wide swathe of the Islamic world, extending from Iraq to Spain, and cover a broad chronological span, from the beginning of the 13th to the 18th century. They are representative of the artistic production of the Abbasid, Zangid, Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Ottoman dynasties, and include Spanish examples of Islamic inspiration from the 15th and 16th centuries. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue of the same title.
Conferences
8 maggio, h. 17
Anna Contadini (SOAS, Università di Londra)
Trasmissione e ricezione: arte islamica a Bologna
15 maggio, h. 17
Lucia Raggetti (Università di Bologna)
Scienza come arte. Tecnica, natura e cultura nel Medioevo arabo-islamico
29 maggio, h. 17
Frédéric Bauden (Università di Liegi)
Quando gli oggetti parlano: citazioni poetiche nell’arte islamica
5 giugno, h. 17
Mattia Guidetti (Università di Bologna)
Il collezionismo di arte islamica a Bologna
13. Extended deadline
Call for Submissions | Second Symposium on Middle Eastern, North African and Central Asian Dances, Music and Performing Arts
Symposium, Pomona College (Claremont, CA), 3-6 October 2024
Submissions are invited for the second scholarly symposium on MENA and Central Asian dances. This year’s topics include music and performing arts from the same regions. The goal is to gather as many scholars as possible in one academic environment to present their most recent research. All submissions must be accompanied by an abstract (150-250 words).
New Deadline | 19 April 2024
14. Valparaiso University – Visiting Assistant Professor in History
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=67138
Incl Middle Eastern History
Closing date: 11.7.24
- April 16, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1. “Male, Female, and In-Between Singers in Medieval Iberia and the Broader Islamic World”
Dwight F. Reynolds, Distinguished Professor of Arabic language & literature, University of California, Santa Barbara
16 May, Edinburgh College of Art, Hunter Building, Hunter Lecture Theatre, 4pm, followed by refreshments
This lecture begins by exploring the entirely different understanding of gender that was common in the medieval Islamic world, and then explores the role of gender in the performance of music in the medieval Mediterranean and Iberia. Particular attention is given to the special class of female slaves trained in music and other art forms (Arabic qiyān) who were bought and sold, given as gifts, and occasionally managed to be set free, and the musicians who were mukhannathūn, sometimes translated as “effeminates,” who crossed back and forth between male and female social domains.
2. EUP are pleased to announce the publication of our new edited volume, Hagia Sophia in the Long Nineteenth Century, published in the Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire series by Edinburgh University Press. The book includes 9 essays that examine Hagia Sophia from multiple perspectives during the long nineteenth century, when this monument’s status as an icon of world heritage was beginning to take shape.
Contributing Authors: Ünver Rüstem, Tülay Artan, Emily Neumeier, Benjamin Anderson, Sotirios Dimitriadis, Robert S. Nelson, Asli Menevse, Ayşe Hilâl Uğurlu, and Robert Ousterhout
A table of contents can be found on the press website: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-hagia-sophia-in-the-long-nineteenth-century.html (Use the code NEW30 for 30% off the listed purchase price.)
3. Le CeRMI a le plaisir de vous convier à laprochaine séancedu séminaire “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien”, qui se tiendra le jeudi 25 avril 2024, 17h-19h, en salle 3.15 à l’INaLCO (65 rue des Grands Moulins, Paris XIII, 3e étage).
Nous sommes heureux d’accueillir M. Ahmad Sadri, James P. Gorter Professor of Islamic World Studies et Professeur et Professeur de sociologie et d’anthropologie au Lake Forest College (Illinois), auteur d’une nouvelle traduction intégrale du Shahnameh à paraître chez Norton Classics en 2025, pour une conférence intitulée : « The Progressive Arch of Shahnameh’s Tragedies ».
Résumé
In the four tragedies of Shahnameh (Rostam vs. Sohrab, Froud vs. Tous, Siavosh vs. Kay Kavous, and Esfandiar vs. Rostam), human agency gradually takes center stage. The story of Rostam and Sohrab is overdetermined by fate and its instruments: naïveté, inattention, freak accidents, and unintended consequences. In the following two tragedies of Forud and Siavosh, common passions and human frailties of selfishness, greed, and pride stream into the narrative. Yet, it is only in the poem’s last and grandest tragedy that fate, accidents, and supernatural events play no role. Prince Esfandiar’s obsession with becoming king is the prime mover of the tragedy. Thus, ascribed qualities (being of the seed of kings and divine charisma) wane in favor of those achieved by daring courage and practical reason. The epic period lasts a millennium and it ends as a consequence of the battle of Rostam and Esfandiar. In the historical period, we witness the hyper-real tragedy of Bahram-e Chubine vs. King Khosrow Parviz.
Orientations bibliographiques
- Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, Jalal Khaleghi-Motlagh(ed.), Tehran, Center of the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia, 2011.
- Ferdowsi, Al-Shahnama, Fath b. ‘Ali al-Bundari al-Isfahani (trans.), ‘Abd al-Wahhab ‘Azzam (ed.), Cairo, Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyah, 1932, 2 vols.
- Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, Ahmad Sadri (trans.), London, Norton Classics, (forthcoming in 2025).
- Hamid Dabashi, The Shahnameh: The Persian Epic and World Literature, New York, Columbia University Press, 2019.
- Dick Davis, Epic and Sedition: The Case of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, Fayetteville, University of Arkansas Press, 1992.
Pour rappel, vous retrouverez le programme 2023-2024 du séminaire mensuel de recherche “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien” sur le site du CeRMI :
Contact: justine.landau@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr
4. Ghand-e Parsi: Gateway to Academic Persian Language and Literature
https://sites.google.com/view/ghandeparsi
5. CFP: Brill’s Journal of Religious Minorities under Muslim Rule
The Journal of Religious Minorities under Muslim Rule provides a primary venue for scholarly studies that examine religious minorities (such as Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and other minoritarian Muslim groups) under majoritarian Muslim rule. The journal covers a large temporal period, spanning from 7th century Arabia to 1922 (the end of Ottoman rule), in addition to a large geographic area from North Africa and al-Andalus in the West to Iran, some Central Asian lands, well into Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia in the East. The focus includes minority-minority, minority-majority, and minority-state relations. In addition to its broad temporal and geographic reach, this is an interdisciplinary journal that will appeal to those working in specific disciplines, including history, religious studies, literature, legal studies, and archaeology.
JRMMR welcomes original papers and review essays that focus on any temporal and geographic areas. We are particularly interested in, but not limited to, papers that,
- reinterpret the minority-majority interaction/s
- critique the Muslim vs. non-Muslim discourse/s
- problematize dichotomized perceptions on minorities
- re-examine the minority Other in and under Muslim rule
- read primary sources anew using state-of-the-art technologies
- analyze minority relations as dynamic, fluid, and ever-changing
- move beyond cliché concepts and categories that frame minorities
- bring to light both well-known and lesser-known minority traditions
- contextualize minority communities in wider socio-historical contexts
SUBMIT YOUR PAPER
We would like to invite all authors to submit their manuscripts via the journal’s online platform: https://www.editorialmanager.com/rmmr/default.aspx. We receive manuscripts on a rolling basis, and we publish two issues per year.
If you have any questions before submitting or are interested in discussing a special issue, please contact the editors, Abbas Aghdassi (aghdassi@um.ac.ir) and Aaron W. Hughes (aaron.hughes@rochester.edu). For more information, please visit: https://brill.com/rmmr/.
6. British Institute of Persian Studies – Junior Assistant Role
Position Junior Assistant
Salary £25,000 per annum, pro rata
Contract Fixed term
Working pattern Part-time, 3 days per week (0.6 FTE)
Workplace Hybrid
Employer The British Institute of Persian Studies, London (www.bips.ac.uk)
Closing date 22 May 2024, 5PM
The British Institute of Persian Studies is currently seeking a part-time, 3 days per week, Junior Assistant to support its work in promoting scholarship and research excellence on all aspects of Iran and the wider Persianate world. The role suits a well organised and methodical person, with an interest in the development of processes. The ideal candidate will be able to work both under supervision and semi-independently when required, will be proactive and enthusiastic and ideally interested in the promotion of the Persianate world, its history and culture.
BIPS is a UK charity and company limited by guarantee. It is also a self-governing membership organisation, in which members are elected to serve on its Governing Council as trustees of the charity and directors of the company. Most Council members are academics in the field of Persianate studies.
_______________________________________________________________
Duties of the Junior Assistant
The Junior Assistant will work under the supervision of the BIPS General Manager who will act as their line manager. They will provide support in the following areas: Communication, Outreach, and Administration. It is expected that from time to time the Junior Assistant will be asked to undertake tasks other than those specified above, under the supervision of their line manager.
Communicaition
Under the supervision of the General Manager and in line with BIPS policies, the Junior
Assistant will be responsible for the management of the BIPS social media pages and profiles, for the creation of social media contents and graphics, BIPS newsletters, BIPS Student Newsletter and BIRI newsletters.
The Junior Assistant will occasionally interact with the members of BIPS in order to provide assistance with basic queries about membership renewals and subscription to the IRAN journal.
Outreach
In this area, the Junior Assistant will work under the supervision of the General Manager and of the BIPS Outreach Director. The General Manager will be the Assistant’s first point of contact.
The Junior Assistant will be responsible for keeping the BIPS website updated. Content for the website will normally be provided, however, on occasion the Junior Assistant will be required to produce content for the webpages.
The Junior Assistant will also provide technical support for the organisation and delivery of the BIPS online events and the subsequent editing and circulation of video and audio
recordings and other outputs to the public. Some degree of interaction with speakers invited by BIPS will be required.
The Junior Assistant will be responsible for the promotion of online and in person events
mainly through social media and the BIPS website.
Administration and projects
The Junior Assistant will be requested to collect statistical data on event attendance, social media and website reach and impact. They will keep the data updated and will assist with the data collection for reporting to the British Academy.
The Junior Assistant may be required to provide support with the Archive Digitisation projects undertaken by BIPS. This can include data cleaning and preparation for uploading to the BIPS Digitisation Platform.
Required Skills
Essential:
Proficiency with MS Office 365, specifically Excel and PowerPoint;
Previous experience of running and streaming webinars;
Familiarity with Adobe software, in particular Premier Pro, InDesign and Photoshop;
Ability to work independently with email marketing platforms (such as Mailchimp) and social media management platforms;
Desirable:
Previous experience of working at the backend of WordPress websites;
Interest in archives
Familiarity with Xero or similar accounting software
An understanding of the charity and the UK higher education sectors;
Knowledge of the Persianate world.
_______________________________________________________________
How to apply
Please send your CV and covering letter to bips@thebritishacademy.ac.uk .
7. Hybrid: UCLA’s Pourdavoud Lecture Series with Wu Xin
‘Regal Metamorphosis: A Transcultural Journey of the Achaemenid Royal Women to the East’
Wednesday, May 8, 2024 at 4:00pm Pacific
Royce Hall 306
Hybrid Zoom Option Available
8. Tangible and Intangible Heritage in the Age of Globalisation, edited by Lilia Makhloufi
This book offers a rich collection of perspectives on the complex interplay between tangible and intangible heritage.
Offering a close and critical examination of heritage preservation in countries including Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile, Egypt, Iran, Japan, Morocco, Oman, Syria and Tunisia, these essays illustrate the need to redefine heritage as an interdisciplinary and intercultural concept. They interrogate heritage paradigms while also providing concrete recommendations to promote the preservation of physical heritage spaces, and the cultural practices and social relationships that depend on them.
Rich in detail and broad in relevance, this book emphasises specific cultural realities while also reflecting on the impact of global historical, social, economic and political trends to heritage conservation, scrutinising the conditions of the past to adapt them to the needs of the present and future. It will be of great relevance to all those interested in the preservation and management of heritage sites, including architects, urban planners, landscape architects, historians, sociologists and archaeologists, as well as heritage marketing, museum and cultural tourism professionals.
Access this Title
Read and Download for Free: We are pleased to inform you that Tangible and Intangible Heritage in the Age of Globalisation is freely available to read and download in both PDF and HTML formats. Access the full text here and explore the wealth of knowledge this publication has to offer.
Secure Your Copy: For those who prefer a tangible edition or who are interested in acquiring the book in ePub format, you can do so at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0388
Benefits for Library Members: Members of our library program enjoy discounts on physical copies and can access all digital editions for free. This is your opportunity to enrich your institutional library with cutting-edge insights!
9. CFP – ‘Iran and China: Common heritage and contemporary relations’, University of Groningen
Date: 27-28 September 2024
Location: University of Groningen
Deadline: 15 May 2024
Convenors: William Figueroa (University of Groningen) & Peyman Eshaghi (Free University of Berlin)
Since ancient times, connections between Iran and China have flourished through trade and literature. This has resulted in significant mutual influence on the artistic, cultural, and political development and histories of various peoples residing in the Iranian plateau, China, and Central Asia. Today a large amount of extant tangible and intangible cultural heritage exists in both Iran and China attesting to this shared history. Both forms of heritage are often referenced, put on display, and mobilized in support of a range of political and personal projects. Given its historical significance and contemporary relevance, the goal of this conference is to bring together scholars considering these common ties of cultural heritage, as well as how they are situated in contemporary academic, political, or cultural debates.
We invite papers on any aspect of the common heritage of Iran and China, including but not limited to the following issues:
- Books, manuscripts, art works and first hand materials about Iran and China produced in either countries.
- Literary products of any kind that consider the relationship between the two.
- The presence or influence of Iranian or Chinese culture in the literature, folklore, and artistic traditions of the other.
- Travelogues, diaries, and cultures of travel.
- Accounts of historical political relations between Iran and China, including delegates and envoys.
- The historical position of Iran on the Silk Road and its connection to China.
- Material life, imported objects, and the objectification of imagination between the two countries.
- Religious life, missionary groups, and promotion of Islam, Nestorianism and Manichaeism in Iran and China.
- Emigration and immigration of Iranian and Chinese communities across Central Asia.
- Contemporary mobilization of these themes in international relations, public discourse, and academic debates.
The workshop will be held in hybrid format, in person at University of Groningen for those who are able to attend, and online for colleagues who are unable to attend in person. The conference will be sponsored by the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (Instituut voor Cultuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek Groningen: ICOG) and the Centre for Religion and Heritage (CRH).
Keynote Speakers:
Arang Keshavarzian, NYU
Khodadad Rezakhani, Leiden Institute for Area Studies
We invite interested scholars to send an abstract (300 words max.) and a one-page CV to: w.a.figueroa@rug.nl
SUBMISSION DEADLINE for abstracts: 15 May 2024
Notification of the accepted abstracts: 30 May 2024
Deadline for submission of the first draft of presentations: 30 Aug 2024
Conference Date: Sept 27-28, 2024
Contact Email
URL
https://www.rug.nl/research/icog/news/2024/0408-cfp-iran-and-china
10. CFP – “Historicizing the Muslim Sensorium: Toward a Sensory History of Islam in the Early Modern World”, Utrecht University
Utrecht University, October 17-18, 2024
Convened by the SENSIS research project at Utrecht University, this conference seeks to bring together a multi-disciplinary group of scholars to advance the history of the senses in the Islamic world. Inspired by the “sensory turn” (Howes 2003) that has enriched numerous areas of the humanities and social sciences in recent years, we will explore how Muslims across different historical, geographical, social, and intellectual contexts experienced sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.
Why write the senses into the history of Islam? While sensory history is a rapidly growing field, to date the majority of works on the history of the senses has been framed around distinct geographies that emphasize Western European and North American contexts (Classen 2014, Smith 2021). Only recently have scholars of Islamic history and culture begun to devote sustained attention to the senses (Elias 2012, Bonnéric 2016, Fahmy 2020, Lange 2022). Similarly, path-breaking work has emerged in the related field of the history of emotions, especially in the context of early modern and modern South Asia, Safavid Iran, and the Ottoman empire (Rizvi 2017, Pernau 2019, Schofield 2021, Tekgül 2022). However, much remains to be done before Islamic sensory history becomes a well-established field of inquiry.
How, then, can we conceive of the Muslim sensorium over the course of history? Is there really such a thing as a Muslim sensorium? What are the ways in which we could write the history of the senses in the Islamic world? What does Islamic sensory history teach us about, say, the Ottomans, the Safavids, or the Mughals that conventional or “sense-less” history does not? How is sensory history connected to or distinct from the history of emotions? And what are the methods, interpretive stakes, and archival challenges in doing Islamic sensory history? These are some of the key questions this conference aims to address.
As historians of the senses, we are interested in understanding how the senses are historically and culturally constructed. This also obliges us to interrogate the historical formation of our own investigative categories, such as Islam, modernity, empire, or the nation-state (Smith 2007). Geographically and temporally, this conference loosely focuses on the three early modern empires of the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals (c. 1500-1900). We are particularly interested in contributions that approach the senses from a transregional and transnational focus. Moreover, we invite scholars to think about ways in which Islamic sensory history relates to questions of class, gender, sexuality, emotions, religious identity, migration, kingship, the state, imperialism, and colonialism.
Papers are welcome on topics such as the following:
• Sensory approaches to Ottoman, Safavid/Qajar, or Mughal history
• Islamic mysticism and the senses
• Islamic law and the senses
• Devotional practices and the senses
• The senses in multilingual, multi-ethnic, and religiously diverse contexts
• Cross-cultural encounters and the senses
• Intersensoriality and synesthesia
• The senses in times of war and conflict
• Courtly culture and the senses
• Identity and the senses
• Colonial modernity, Orientalism, and the senses
• Emotions and the senses
• Material culture and sensory history
• Art, music, poetry, and aesthetics in sensory history
• The senses in economic, intellectual, cultural, and social history
• Sources, archives, and research language
It is our pleasure to announce Professor David Howes (Concordia University) and Professor Nil Tekgül (Bilkent University) as keynote speakers for the conference.
Paper proposals:
Please send your proposals to g.sievers@uu.nl , including paper title, abstract (max 250 words), name, and institution, by June 1, 2024. We welcome scholars regardless of geographical location and particularly encourage graduate students and early-career scholars to submit paper proposals. We have limited funds available to supplement travel costs of presenters. Please indicate in your email if you would like to be considered for a travel grant and/or whether you can secure travel funding from your home institution. No registration fee is required for participation. Confirmed presenters will be asked to submit final draft of their papers to respondents no later than October 10, 2024.
Note that this will be the first of three conferences planned by the SENSIS research group. The other two are scheduled to take place in 2025 and will focus on sensory history approaches to transregional conflict and material culture. For more information, please visit our website: https://sensis.wp.hum.uu.nl.
Contact Information
Gianni Sievers, Utrecht University
Contact Email
URL
https://sensis.wp.hum.uu.nl/2024/04/cfp-sensis-conference-2024/
11. ‘Resurgence of the “Islamic City” in the 20th and 21st Centuries’, NYU (in person and online) – April 30
Organized and Moderated by: Zohreh Soltani
Panelists: Burak Erdim, Berin Golonu, Emily Neumeier, Jennifer Pruitt, Ipek Türeli
Tuesday, April 30, 5:00pm EST (Reception to follow)
In Person & on Zoom: Kevorkian Library, 255 Sullivan Street, NYU
Hosted by: Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative at NYU
Co-Sponsored by: Iranian Studies Initiative at NYU and the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies
The “Islamic city” as a monolithic concept and formation has been framed as a dead-end historical subject of study invented in the European imagination since the 19th century. Yet, critiques of Orientalism have not quelled an expectation that the resurgence of Islamic beliefs and politics would usher in a new phase of Islamic urbanism, particularly in Muslim theocracies such as Iran, but also Turkey and the Gulf. While urban historians critique and deconstruct the historical notion of the Islamic city as an orientalist creation, emerging Islamic states see the Islamic city in much more concrete terms, and, in fact, long for its recreation within the modern reality of Muslim majority cities. However, while those spatial strategies and architectural references are legible and dissectible to architectural historians, they might not always be as identifiable to the users of such spaces. In this roundtable, architectural and urban historians of the contemporary Middle East will discuss the complexities, challenges, successes or failures of such attempts at a revived and instrumentalized notion of Islamic urbanism over the past fifty years coinciding with the rise of political Islam in the region.
Register here to attend in-person | Register here to attend online
For more information: https://www.otsnyu.com/event/roundtable-resurgence-of-the-islamic-city-in-the-20th-and-21st-centuries/
12. Zoom: The Visual Order of the Promenade: The Chaharbagh of Safavid Isfahan and its Sensory Experiences
Speaker: Farshid Emami
23 Apr 2024 17:00 – 18:30
Free, booking essential
Zoom
This event takes place online, details of the Zoom webinar will be sent out to ticket holders.
Based on his recently published book, Isfahan: Architecture and Urban Experience in Early Modern Iran (Penn State University Press, 2024), Farshid Emami will offer a fresh account of the architecture, sensory landscape, and visual structure of the Chaharbagh, a four-kilometre-long, tree-lined promenade that served as the primary venue of urban leisure and processional ceremonies in Isfahan, the cosmopolitan capital city of the Safavid Empire in early modern Iran. Drawing on historical visual sources, Persian-language poetic descriptions, European travel narratives, and on-site fieldwork, the talk will recreate the experience of the Chaharbagh from the viewpoint of a moving beholder, reconstructing the now-vanished pavilions, landscape elements, coffeehouses, and Sufi convents that engendered a carefully choreographed sequence of aesthetic, social, and sensual pleasures along the promenade. Striking a delicate balance between a grand setting for ceremonial processions and an enticing public arena for leisurely strolls, the Chaharbagh created a novel urban setting for individual and collective social experiences.
Farshid Emami (Ph.D., Harvard University, 2017) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History at Rice University. He specialises in the history of architecture, urbanism, and the arts in the Islamic lands, with a focus on the early modern period and Safavid Iran. His scholarly interests include global histories of early modernity, social experiences of architecture and urban spaces, interactions of architecture and literature, and patterns of cross-cultural exchange in the Persianate lands and beyond. In addition to his publications on Safavid art and architecture, he has written on topics such as lithography in nineteenth-century Iran and modernist architecture and urbanism in the Middle East.
This event is organised by Professor Sussan Babaie, Professor in the Arts of Iran and Islam.
For more information and to register:
13. UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies
The Karlowitz Moment: The Ottoman Empire in the Long Eighteenth Century and the Making of the Modern World
Historiography of the Middle East Series
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
3:00 PM
https://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/event/16538
Exploring Manuscript Migrations through the Provenance of the Tiflis Collection
Friday, April 19, 2024
12:00 PM
Kaplan Hall, Rm 193
- April 13, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
- April 12, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment