Archive for 2024
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
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- April 10, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.‘Shiraz on the Adriatic
Persian Literary Culture, Φαρσί Speakers and Multilingual Locals
between Cairo, the Balkans and Venice (ca. 1600–1900)’
Stefano Pellò
Iran and the Caucasus, 28 (2024).
https://brill.com/view/journals/ic/28/1/article-p42_4.xml
David Durand-Guédy, Emad al-Din Sheykh al-Hokamaee
JEHSO, 2024 (67).
3. ONLINE Colloquium “Reform Unbound: Afghanistan’s Sirāj-ul Aḳhbār (1911-19) and its Global Publics” by Sumaira Nawaz, University of Cambridge, 10 April 2024, 16:00 – 17:30 BST
This paper explores the “global” outlook of Afghanistan’s foremost Persian-language newspaper, Sirāj-ul Aḳhbār, as it negotiated new political futures for the region. Launched by Mahmud Tarzi, an emigre activist with firm networks within Ottoman and Indian reformist milieu, Sirāj was an attempt to project Afghanistan as a “Muslim utopia” (Green 2011) to readers spread across Persianate geographies.
Information: www.interfaith.cam.ac.uk/south-asia-24 . Registration: https://forms.office.com/e/Z4kN3ahf1i
4. ONLINE Colloquium “Persianate Hinduism in Colonial India: Revisiting Rammohun Roy’s Tuhfat al-muwahhidin” by Supriya Gandhi, University of Cambridge, 12 April 2024, 16:00 – 17:30 BST
Rammohun Roy (d. 1833) is a pivotal figure in the global history of Unitarianism, liberalism, and modern religious reform. Although his early years remain shrouded in obscurity, he eventually soared to fame during his lifetime and gained the status of a legend after his death. By the twentieth century, the epithet “Father of modern India” was routinely appended to his name.
Information: www.interfaith.cam.ac.uk/south-asia-24 . Registration: https://forms.office.com/e/Z4kN3ahf1i
5. HYBRID Seminar “The King`s Song: Poet Kings in the Islamic East” by Professor Ali Karjoo-Ravary, Columbia University, 18 April 2024, 5:00 EST
This talk looks at the political importance of poetic production by kings in the Islamic east in the late medieval period by considering what kings aimed to accomplish through the production of their own divans. Focusing on the Turkic poetry of Burhan al-Din of Sivas (d. 1398), it contextualizes his divan in the convergence of Sufism and political power that marked the post-Mongol Islamic east.
Deadline for registration: 11 April 2024.
Information: https://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/islamicbooks/religionwriting/
6. ONLINE Book Presentation “Lives in the Margins: Ethnic and Religious Minorities in the Middle East” by Dr. Güneş Murat Tezcür (Arizona State University), Middle East Librarians Asso-ciation (MELA), George Washington University, 19 April 2024, 9:00 pm CET
Why do some religious minorities, lacking any significant power and presenting no imminent threat, provoke the ire of popular groups and become targets of violent attacks? This talk focuses on the experience of Yezidis, a paradigmatic liminal minority, who were targets of genocidal attacks in the hands of the self-styled Islamic State in 2014.
Information and registration:
https://northwestern.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcpd-CuqjwtHdR7qoBkhjNmxgSkUJ0zjaGo#/registration
7. HYBRID Book Launch “Welfare as Gift: Local Charity, Politics of Redistribution, and Religion in Turkey” by Hilal Alkan, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, 30 April 2024, 5:00 pm
Based on an ethnography of charitable organizations in contemporary Turkey, this monograph examines the ways in which the redistributive task of poverty alleviation and welfare provision has been taken over by gift networks. It offers an in-depth analysis of the relationships between donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries, as well as an exploration of the historical institutional framework and religious imaginary that inform these orga-nizations.
Information and registration:
8. Panel on “Iran after Woman Life Freedom: Domestic and International Politics”, 16th Congress of the Italian Society for Middle East Studies (SeSaMO), Unversity of Cagliari, Sardinia, 3-5 October 2024
The panel seeks submissions that speak to the questions of state-society relations; diaspora politics; political activism and social movements; Iran’s diplomatic, security and international politics; the domestic and transnational gender politics in and of Iran; cultural production and counter-hegemonic cultural expressions; ethnicity and race politics in Iran and the Persianate world.
Deadline for abstracts: 7 May 2024. Information: https://www.sesamoitalia.it/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/31.-Rivetti-Ghaffari-Zakeri-Open-panel.pdf;
contact paola.rivetti@dcu.ie
9. Two Research Assistants (Doctoral Researchers, 75 %, 3 Years), Center for Conflict Studies, University of Marburg
Profile: MSc-degree or equivalent in social sciences; interest in quantiative methods in social sciences; experience with data collection and analysis; familiarity with Afghanistan; knowledge of at least one local language (e.g. Dari or Pashto); interest in research on protest movements and rebel governance. Disposition to own scientific qualification (e.g. a doctorate project in social sciences) is expected.
Deadline for applications: 12 May 2024. Information:
https://stellenangebote.uni-marburg.de/jobposting/9c90be611c968a3cbb8185ad64a7e19823d571480
10. Doctoral Fellowships, Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB)
The fellowships are lasting 7-10 months beginning on 1 September 2024 or shortly thereafter, specifically designed for doctoral candidates engaged in outstanding research projects in the humanities and social sciences. We invite applications across disciplines, time periods, and geographic coverage outlined in our mission statement.
Deadline for applications: 1 May 2024.
Information: https://www.orient-institut.org/support/fellowships/doctoralfellowships.html
11. Postdoctoral Fellowships, Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB)
The OIB is offering visiting fellowships normally lasting 7-10 months beginning on 1 September 2024 or shortly thereafter, to junior scholars in the early stages of the postdoctoral research, in support of excellent projects in the humanities and social sciences.
Deadline for applications: 1 May 2024.
Information: https://www.orient-institut.org/support/fellowships/postdoctoralfellowships.html
12. Visiting Assistant Professor (1 Year) in Middle Eastern Studies, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia
Qualification: PhD in History, Religious Studies, or a closely related field; College-level teaching experience, including the ability to teach courses on history of the Middle East and Islam; A strong research agenda in a related field.
Deadline for applications: 30 April 2024. Information: https://careers.pageuppeople.com/968/cw/en-us/job/529204/visiting-assistant-professor-in-middle-eastern-studies
13. Spring School of the European Network for Islamic Studies (ENIS): “Peripheral Islam: Muslims on the Geographical, Normative, Political and Religious Margins”, Université de Lausanne, 4-7 June 2024
This Spring School focusses on these results of Muslims living, working and writing in the periphery and welcomes papers that show how, where and why peripheral Muslims – varying from marginalised areas and controversial scholars to ostracised politicians and heterodox sects – have shaped this periphery and have been shaped by this periphery.
Deadline for registration: 1 May 2024.
Information: https://nisis.sites.uu.nl/2024/02/09/call-for-papers-enis-spring-school-2024/
14. Joint English-language M.A. Program in Ottoman History (2 Years), Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete/Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH
Students are required to complete: Five history courses (four in Ottoman History, and one in Medieval or Modern History); Four Turkish language courses; Four Ottoman language and palaeography courses. Furthermore, students are required to write an original M.A. thesis based on the critical analysis of Ottoman archival, epigraphic or narrative sources.
Deadline for applications: 20 May 2024. Information: https://www.history-archaeology.uoc.gr/en/graduate-studies/programs-of-post-graduate-studies/joint-english-language-m-a-program-in-ottoman/?lang=en
15. 7 Awards and Prizes by the “Ottoman and Turkish Studies (OTSA)”
Deadline for applications: 15 May 2024. Information:
https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20029790/otsa-call-submissions-2024-awards-and-prizes
16. Newsletter Promoting the Field of Middle Eastern Christianity in the Homelands and the Diaspora (from approx. 1800 until the Present)
This newsletter seeks to connect scholars working on these topics. It appears three times a year and features upcoming events, peer-reviewed publications, open positions and funding opportunities, ongoing projects.
Next deadline to submit content: 15 April 2024. Information: https://etfst.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/team/anna-hager or to join the network, please contact Anna Hager, University of Vienna, anna-hager@univie.ac.at
17. LACIM 2024 International Conference: Grammaticalization in Anatolia-Caucasus-Iran-Mesopotamia area (LACIM2024)
Dec. 4, 2024 – Dec. 5, 2024
The second international conference organized by the European network on linguistics and languages of the Anatolia-Caucasus-Iran-Mesopotamia area (LACIM) will be held in Paris from 4 to 5 December, 2024. It will be dedicated to grammaticalization in Anatolia-Caucasus-Iran-Mesopotamia area.
LACIM is a European network of linguists engaged in research on the languages of Anatolia, the Caucasus, Iran and Mesopotamia. We are primarily interested in the interplay of contact and heritage that has shaped the region’s current linguistic ecology, through millennia of interaction. As such, our research program transcends the boundaries of the different language families that are present in the region and pursues an interdisciplinary approach.
Grammaticalization is often defined as “ … a process which turns lexemes into grammatical formatives and makes grammatical formatives still more grammatical…”. (Lehmann 2002 [1985]:ix). While grammaticalization is commonly viewed as a type of language change, its extent can vary across different studies and theoretical frameworks. Over the past four decades, research on grammaticalization has expanded to include various cross-linguistic theoretical perspectives (Lehmann 1985 [2015], Traugott and Heine 1991, Heine & Hünnemeyer 1991, Bybee et al. 1994, Newmeyer 1998, Haspelmath 1998, 1999, Bisang et al. 2004, Narrog & Heine 2011, Heiko & Heine 2018, Kuteva et al. 2019), as well as to deepen its language-specific description and analysis (Narrog & Heine 2018, Bisang & Malchukov 2020).
The primary aim of the current conference is to thoroughly explore the grammaticalization clines and sources in the languages of Anatolia-Caucasus-Iran-Mesopotamia from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives, with a particular emphasis on capturing the areal dimension as comprehensively as possible. Potential discussion topics may include, but are not limited to, the evolution of:
- Adpositions into cases,
• Verbs transforming into auxiliary verbs,
• Information structure in regard with grammaticalization,
• Differential object/subject marking,
• Preverbs,
• Determiners and pronouns,
• Periphrastic constructions,
• Relative clauses,
• Subordinate clauses, etc.
Furthermore, proposals are encouraged on broader topics within the current study of grammaticalization that offer relevant empirical/analytical insights. These might include the inferences from frequency in the realm of the empirical turn in linguistics, or the delimitation between grammaticalization and other types of language change (e.g. reanalysis, metaphoric transfer, metonymic transfer etc.).
Timelines
Submission deadline: June 10, 2024
Notification of acceptance: July 10, 2024
Conference: December 4-5, 2024
Submission instructions:
Proposals must:
• contain at most 1000 words for 30 minute talks, examples included, references excluded,
• be formatted as a PDF,
• include (1) the proposal title and (2) three or four keywords describing the topics of the paper at the top of the proposal,
• be in English or in French,
• submitted via Linguist List at the following link: https://easyabs.linguistlist.org/conference/LACIM2024/
Submissions are limited to 1 individual and 1 joint abstract per author, or 2 joint abstracts per author.
Please direct questions/concerns to lacim.conference2024@gmail.com.
Submissions open: April 2, 2024 – June 10, 2024
Abstract review period: June 11, 2024 – July 10, 2024
18. University of North Dakota – Teaching Assistant Professor, Pre-1600 World History
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=67107
Closing date: April 15, 2024
19. The Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) is offering several opportunities in conjunction with its Seventeenth Annual Conference taking place in Washington, D.C. on November 2 – 4, 2024.
- Research Grant – Grants of up to $2500 will be awarded to support topics in Middle East and African Studies that deserve greater attention (Deadline April 30).
- Travel Grant – Grants of up to $750 will be awarded (Deadline April 30).
- North African Studies Travel Grant Program – Grants of up to $750 will be awarded to those whose research topics are related to the study of North Africa (Deadline April 30).
In addition, we have issued our general Call for Papers and Panels (Deadline May 15) and Call for Poster Proposals.
If you have any further questions about ASMEA, the Annual Conference, or any of our Grant Opportunities, contact info@asmeascholars.org .
URL
https://www.asmeascholars.org/upcoming-conference
20. Hybrid: UCLA Pourdavoud Lecture with Robert Rollinger
The “Persian Wars” An Alternative Perspective?
Wednesday, May 1, 2024 at 4:00pm Pacific
Royce Hall 306
Hybrid Zoom Option Available
21. Embodying Devotion in Indo-Muslim Painting, 1500-1800
Murad Khan Mumtaz
Islamic art is often misrepresented as an iconophobic tradition. As a result of this assumption, the polyvalence of figural artworks made for Hindustan’s Muslim audiences has remained hidden in plain view. By combining an art historical survey with an analysis of primary Indo-Persian literature, this series of seminars shows how figurative painting was intimately linked to a unique Indo-Muslim religious expression that had a wide circulation across South Asia.
DURATION – April 17, 18, 19, 2024
Timing: 6:30 – 8:45 pm IST
For more information and to register: https://www.jp-india.org/programmes/embodying-devotion-in-indomuslim-painting-15001800
URL
https://www.jp-india.org/programmes/embodying-devotion-in-indomuslim-painting-1…
- April 09, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
- April 08, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.The first cycle of the Iran Heritage Foundation’s 2024 grant programme, with the deadline of 30th May, 2024, is now open for receipt of application. With the overall aim of fostering knowledge and appreciation of Iran’s rich cultural heritage research grants in various academic disciplines are awarded. The particular emphasis (in alphabetical order) is on archaeology, arts, history, linguistics, and literature, though applications from other disciplines will also be considered.
Projects to be supported may include the most various academic initiatives, from fieldwork to workshops to building databases and digitising images, and will – as previously – privilege new research such as editions and translations of key texts. In order to support multiple initiatives grants of up-to a maximum of £3,000 will be considered.
The application process and conditions for the grants can be viewed on our website.
To apply please click here.
For Terms and Conditions please click here
2. NEW Deadline:
Translanguaging and Linguistic Diversity in Arabic
Conference | University of Cambridge | 18 April 2024
Registration is open for the 4th Biennial Conference on Arabic Language Teaching and Learning in HE which will be hosted at the University of Cambridge. The conference aims to delve into Translanguaging and Linguistic Diversity in Arabic, and provide a platform for robust discussions and networking opportunities.
The new deadline for registrations is 10 April 2024.
More information
3. What They Ate in Old Baghdad, and How We Know with Charles Perry
Tuesday, April 9, 2024 – 7p PST
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Who were medieval Middle Eastern cookbooks written for? What were they used for? To answer these questions, culinary historian Charles Perry delves into the Kitab al-Tabikh (The Book of Dishes), the earliest surviving Arabic cookery text. This 10th-century manuscript is currently on view in Dining with the Sultan: The Fine Art of Feasting. This event is free and in-person. A recording of the lecture will be available on LACMA’s YouTube and Vimeo channels. For more information on this event, please visit LACMA’s event calendar.
Charles Perry is a Los Angeles-based food historian with deep knowledge of medieval cookbooks, the preparation of the associated cuisines (in both theory and practice), and the Arabic nomenclature of recipes. He has led a long and exceptionally varied career, beginning as a journalist for Rolling Stone and including a longtime stint as food writer for the Los Angeles Times. He tests historical recipes in his own kitchen, and has become known, admittedly in narrow circles, for hosting from time to time a complete Abbasid-era banquet. His translated cookbooks include Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook (2017) and A Baghdad Cookery Book (2005).
Contact Email
URL
https://www.lacma.org/event/what-they-ate-old-baghdad
4. A Stroll in the Enchanting Sphere of Persian Wisdom, Language, and Culture
A Series of Courses Introducing Masterpieces of Persian Literature
Course 1:
With Sa‘di in the Delightful Gardens of Golestan
Lecturer: Dr Isa Jahangir
Fee: £100
April 16 – July 16
Tuesdays 6-7:30 pm
Venue: The Islamic College 133 High Road London NW102SW
To register please complete this form or contact the Short Course Department by email: shortcourses@islamic-college.ac.uk
5. CfP: ‘Beyond History: Revisiting the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean Connectivity’
Call for Papers: Journal of Gulf Studies
Special Issue: ‘Beyond History: Revisiting the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean Connectivity’
Guest Editor: Dr Amna Sadiq
View the full call here>>
https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-gulf-studies#call-for-papers
At the geographical convergence of East and West, both regions have been shaped by a dynamically complex system of dependency. The nature of this dependency has transformed over time, moving from early dhows transporting pilgrims and Omani merchants to British oceanic steamship services and, more recently, to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The subsequent advent of the Arabian Gulf region and South Asia as geostrategic and economic powers has shifted the practical means of cooperation across the ocean, from a simple economic corridor to a more sophisticated inter-regional cooperative system.
Today, this inter-regional cooperation plays a significant role in shaping the international system rather than merely being shaped by it. As a result, both regions are involved in a relational and dynamic rather than geographical and static relationship. Tracing the internal dynamics of the connections between the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean has important implications for our understanding of this relationship. By approaching the development of both regions as an evolving process, we can clarify the conditions under which their dependency functions, along with the associated complexities of regional power struggles.
Although the study of the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean has drawn increasing academic interest, scholars have thus far paid scant attention to the changing nature and scope of their system of dependency. Influenced strongly by historical inquiry, the Indian Ocean is frequently conceptualized as a mere container of economic activity, and the Arabian Gulf is seen simply as an economic corridor. This Special Issue of the Journal of Gulf Studies invites scholars and readers to move beyond this tradition and learn about the changing dynamics and contemporary developments in the Arabian Gulf–Indian Ocean relationship.
In this issue, we aim to engage with the latest scholarly trends while also addressing the historical roots of this relationship, offering forward-looking, fresh readings and new approaches to the study of Arabian Gulf–Indian Ocean interactions. We seek to map the rapidly changing patterns of political, economic, and social interactions between both regions as well as clarify the ramifications of these interactions for the international system.
Scholars interested in contributing to this Special Issue are encouraged to pay attention to the timeline identified below:
Abstract submission: Please contact the journal (gulfstudiesj@outlook.com) by 30 April 2024 with a short bio and an abstract of around 300 words. The authors will be informed of their papers’ inclusion into the special issue on a rolling basis.
Delivery of the final paper: 31 September 2024.
For editorial inquiries you can reach the journal at: gulfstudiesj@outlook.com
More information about the journal can be found at: https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/jgs
Kayvan Tahmasebian, Rebecca Ruth Gould
International Journal of Middle East Studies
doi: 10.1017/S0020743824000266, 17 pages. Published Online on 1 April 2024
7. Zoom: The Islamic College Monthly Talk:
‘The Development and Significance of Muslim Chaplaincy’
A Talk by Professor Sophie Gilliat-Ray
Wednesday 24 April 2024
6.00 P.M. – 7.30 P.M. (LONDON TIME)
on Zoom
Meeting ID: 884 0412 9777
Passcode: 821079
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88404129777?pwd=obDh0uVhiKchTaPvAS1B04dKbYhQAp.1
8. The inter-university association Routes de l’Orient, in partnership with the Institut du Monde Arabe and Archaïos, is organizing an international symposium entitled “On the Roads of Arabia: Itineraries by Land and Sea”, to be held at the Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris) on the 12th, 13th and 14th December.
The aim of the symposium is to study the overland and maritime routes of the Arabian Peninsula and the exchanges they made possible, through archaeology, history, philology, religion and life sciences. This topic will be addressed in the longue durée, from the Bronze Age to the Islamic period. The symposium will also examine the networks of exchanges with border regions such as the Indian subcontinent, the Horn of Africa and Egypt, as well as the empires of the Ancient Near East, and the Greek and Roman empires.
This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary and diachronic theme, will be of interest to researchers, lecturers and doctoral students from various international institutions. This symposium is also intended as a meeting place for senior scholars, young researchers and students. It will encourage exchanges between disciplines, in line with current scientific methodologies.
We invite papers from archaeologists, historians, art historians, epigraphists, ceramologists, philologists, ethnologists, anthropologists, biologists, archaeozoologists and others. In this way, we hope to provide a comprehensive overview of the movement of goods and people across the Arabian Peninsula from the Bronze Age to the Islamic period.
During the three days of the symposium, the following themes will be addressed:
• The structures associated with land and sea routes: caravanserais, roads, post houses, trading posts and ports, etc. This theme focuses on the archaeological study of the structures necessary for the movement of goods and people;
• The actors involved in the movement of goods in and around the Arabian Peninsula: traders, buyers, patrons, producers, travelers, camels, etc. From the production of goods to their transport, from the reception of travelers to the financing of expeditions, this theme will explore the identity and function of the actors involved in these commercial, cultural and religious flows;
• Pilgrimage routes: ancient and Islamic pilgrimages. From pre-Islamic sanctuaries to religious practices in the trading outposts of the 1st millennium , from the Darb Zubayda to the Hijaz railway, this theme looks at pilgrimage routes and the practices of pilgrims;
• From coastal shipping to navigation on the high seas: maritime routes, pilots and nautical knowledge. This theme looks at the use of maritime spaces as a means of spreading goods and cultures;
• Circulation of goods, materials and techniques: dissemination and exchange of know-how and raw materials. This theme seeks to better understand the spread of certain craft techniques, chaînes opératoires, raw materials and finished products such as ceramics, metallurgy and glass;
• Leaving one’s imprint, quantifying goods or making a dedication: linguistic and epigraphic diffusion. This theme seeks to understand the linguistic circulation in the Arabian Peninsula.
Conditions for submissions:
Deadline: Friday 17th May 2024
Contributions will take the form of a 20-minute lecture followed by 10 minutes of questions.
An abstract of no more than 300 words should be sent as an attached file (.docx) to surlesroutesdarabie@gmail.com by Friday 17th May 2024. This file must also include the full name, email address, status and affiliation of the author(s), the title of the paper and the chosen topic.
Papers can be submitted in English or French.
The proceedings of this conference will be published digitally in a special issue of our journal Routes de l’Orient.
In line with the objectives and values of Routes de l’Orient, we strongly encourage young researchers (masters, doctoral and post-doctoral students) to submit their contributions.
Contact Information
Sterenn Le Maguer-Gillon
Contact Email
URL
https://www.orient-mediterranee.com/activity/colloque-sur-les-routes-darabie-it…
9. CFP – Arabic Pasts Workshop, October 2024
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.
We are interested in papers that consider the practical and conceptual challenges of working on history writing in Arabic. Papers might elucidate the following sorts of questions:
- How did adherents of different confessional or juristic traditions, men and women, and members of different social classes within societies that became “Islamic” imagine the shape and meaning of their specific societies’ own pasts, and their relation to the universal history of the Islamic community? Which ways of writing, remembering, or commemorating did they develop?
- How can marginalised communities and varieties of Arabic be given due attention?
- How can we broaden our scope beyond just textual historiography?
- In what ways do educational institutions, museums, media organisations and proponents of heritage use history writing to shape loyalties and senses of belonging in society?
- How can works of fiction contribute to our understanding of the past?
- How is the past used in creative arts, re-enactment, games, and augmented reality?
- How can we explore the past algorithmically? Can digital methods enhance our understanding of the past? Can they also limit or even alter it? Which new digital tools are being developed? What seem to be particularly promising approaches? What is lacking?
- How does, or could, artificial intelligence alter historiographical work?
Contributions are invited from scholars at all career levels, addressing any period and any part of the Middle East and North Africa, broadly defined. This year we anticipate running the workshop from the Aga Khan Centre in London and in Lisbon, with the possibility to have an online component featuring participants who are unable to travel to the UK or Portugal.
Arabic Pasts is co-convened by Hugh Kennedy (SOAS), James McDougall (Oxford), Lorenz Nigst (AKU-ISMC), and Sarah Bowen Savant (AKU-ISMC).
Please submit an abstract of 300 words or less in word document by Friday, 17 May 2024 to ArabicPastsConf@aku.edu. Please specify whether you wish to participate in London, Lisbon, or online.
The workshop dates: 3-5 October 2024
Contact Information
Anjum Alam
Contact Email
URL
https://www.aku.edu/ismc/events/pages/event-detail.aspx?EventID=2537&Title=Arab…
10. *Iran by Maps*
*CARAVAN ROUTES IN THE CENTRAL ALBORZ **AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY*
/Caravan routes in central Alborz, //Caravan routes in central Alborz/
http://www.irancarto.cnrs.fr/record.php?q=EA-050309&f=local&l=fr <http://www.irancarto.cnrs.fr/record.php?q=EA-050309&f=local&l=fr>
- April 06, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
- April 05, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment