Archive for 2024

1.ONLINE Second Colloquium “Interreligious Interactions in South Asia”, University of Cambridge, 3-12 April 2024

In this online series of table talks, we seek to bring together scholars from a wide spectrum of perspectives to inquire into the kinds of critical tools that are currently deployed to probe interreligious interactions in South Asia over the last eight hundred years or so.

Information, program, abstracts and registration:

https://www.interfaith.cam.ac.uk/interreligious-interactions-south-asia

 

 

 

 

2. HYBRID Conference “Middle East, Law, and Practice”, NYU Law School’s Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, 9 April 2024, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm EST

The conference is about fostering insightful discussions on legal practice in the MENA region. There will be three panels: Environmental Law in the Middle East. – Islamic Law’s Influence on Legal Practice. –Impact of Terrorism Laws: A Global Perspective.

Information and registration: https://www.eventbrite.sg/e/middle-east-law-practice-tickets-824884199847?aff=ebdsoporgprofile&keep_tld=1

 

 

3. ONLINE Workshop on “Alternative Careers for the Islamic Art History PhD”, Historians of Islamic Art Association, 17 April 2024, 12:00 EST

This workshop offers an introduction to “alt-ac” (alternative-academic) and “alt-cu” (alternative-curatorial) career paths for specialists in the discipline. Topics that will be taken up include: How alt-ac and alt-cu jobs provide meaningful and fulfilling outcomes to a doctoral program; how to develop the connections to work outside of the professoriate and the curatorial sphere; and where to find the material resources to support additional training.

Information and registration: https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20028999/hiaa-online-workshop-alternative-careers-islamic-art-history-phd

 

 

 

 

4. Symposium “The Idea of Iran: Qajar Iran on the Cusp of Modernity”, SOAS, University of London, 11-12 May 2024

The nineteenth century saw the consolidation of the Qajar State and changed relations with the European powers that had been transformed by political, industrial and agricultural revolutions, among them the loss of Britain’s American colonies and the rise of an independent power on the global scene. What does the Idea of Iran mean at this period? What did Iran look like? How does modern scholarship define the distinctive aspects of the period? Etc.

Information and registration: https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/idea-iran-qajar-iran-cusp-modernity

 

 

 

 

5. Conference “The “Excluded Third” in the Co-Production of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” (Project: The “European Quran”), Como Lake, Italy, 10-13 June 2024

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are often understood as an ensemble of three (‘Abrahamic,’ ‘monotheistic,’ scriptural, or prophetic) religious communities and traditions. But often when adherents of two of these “sibling” religions interact, the third is treated as a figure to be marginalized, stigmatized, or instrumentally exploited vis-à-vis the others. Our conference proposes to explore this dynamic of the excluded third.

Deadline for abstracts: 1 June 2024. Information: https://euqu.eu/2024/03/12/call-for-papers-the-excluded-third-in-the-co-production-of-judaism-christianity-and-islam/

 

 

 

 

6. HYBRID International Conference of the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies (CMESS): “Middle East after Abolition of Caliphate”, Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, Kharazmi University, Tehran, 14 November 2024

Topics: Abolition of Caliphate and Islamic Movements – Inheritance of Dissolution / Abolition of Caliphate for Middle East Countries – Impacts of Abolition of Caliphate on Türkiye , Iran and Arab World Policy – The Possibility of Revitalizing Caliphate in the Middle East.

Deadline of abstract: 20 June 2024. Information: nasri@khu.ac.ir; research.imess@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

7. Atelier doctoral “Des musées (post)coloniaux en Méditerranée? Muséographies, recon-figurations politiques et fabrique des identités”, par REM, École des hautes études hispa-niques et ibériques (Madrid), Institut Jacques-Berque (Rabat), IRMC (Tunis) et École française de Rome, Madrid, 25-28 novembre 2024

La perspective interdisciplinaire de l’atelier doctoral, convoquant l’histoire, la géographie, l’anthropologie, la museologie, l’archéologie, la science politique, l’art, etc., permettra de décloisonner des langages et des approches sur le monde muséal et ses reconfigurations spatiales, matérielles, symboliques et sociales à différentes échelles temporelles.

Application au plus tard le 22 avril 2024. Information: https://irmcmaghreb.org/aac-atelier-doctoral-des-musees-postcoloniaux-en-mediterranee-museographies-reconfigurations-politiques-et-fabrique-des-identites/?fbclid=IwAR0n8vPGx3lzdWaN5GIhq8bVgzpCOjWnZVeDz1-kmzrYzFPtBYhb2e9s40w_aem_AR792-PvS1Ni13AF97y5wZFCLS2n1dWvdmaH8HfpP2PSz8LQhnqQo7amjyOPI0_rq0Y

 

 

 

 

8. MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Project “[HORIZON EUROPE] Horizon Insights”, Universiteit Gent, Belgium

Deadliner for applications: 11 September 2024.

Information: https://bozi.ugent.be/nl/bozi/c83B4eMbBdJ53L2tNRm3WJ/

 

 

 

 

9. Visiting Assistant Professor of History and International Studies (1 Year, Focus Middle East), Marymount Manhattan College, NewYork

Qualifications: PhD in History, Political Science, International Relations, or related social science field; Regio-nal expertise complimented by a legal sub focus; Demonstrated teaching excellence as well as an active scholarly agenda.

Review of applications will begin on 1 April 2024, and will continue until the position is filled.

Information: https://www.mmm.edu/offices/human-resources/faculty-positions.php

 

 

 

 

10. International MA Program (4 Semesters): “Mediterranean History”, University of Konstanz, Info Session via zoom: 17 April 2024, 10:00 am – 11:30 a.m. CET

This unique MA study program examines trans-Mediterranean dynamics and entanglements over a period of 3,000 years: from antiquity to the 21st century. It provides bachelor graduates in history and cultural studies with a cross-period knowledge of the history, cultures and languages of Mediterranean societies, which is equally important for academic careers and non-academic professions. You will acquire practical skills and regional expertise about a key region of the world,

Deadline for applications: 30 April 2024. Information: https://www.geschichte.uni-konstanz.de/en/study/ma-mediterranean-history/prospective-student/prospective-students/

 

 

 

 

11. ONLINE Seminar “Mediterranean Art History: An Introduction” by the Mediterranean Seminar, 17-20 June 2024, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm MDT

This seminar provides participants with an overview of key concepts and methodologies in the study of Mediterranean art history. The course will address the themes of mobility, connectivity, and encounter in relation to the visual culture of peoples and territories across the sea. Participants will acquire an art historical tool kit to assist them in conducting their own research on the visual culture and artistic production of the medieval Mediterranean

Deadline for applications: 15 April 2024.

Information: https://www.mediterraneanseminar.org/overview-mediterranean-art-2024

 

 

 

 

12. Summer School “Comparative Habsburg-Ottoman Paleography” of the Turkology Department (University of Vienna) and Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Vienna, 1-12 July 2024

Participants will join morning lessons taught by experienced teachers and listen to lectures given by recog-nized experts in the afternoons. Included are also visit to the imperial archives (HHStA), the military museum (HGM), and the Ottomans Museum in Perchtoldsdorf, a guided tour of Vienna’s historical highlights that have direct and subtle references to the history of Ottoman-Habsburg encounters.

Deadline for applications: 30 April 2024. Information: https://orientalistik.univie.ac.at/fachrichtungen/turkologie/veranstaltungen/summer-school-of-comparative-habsburg-ottoman-paleography/

 

 

 

13. International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA) Special Issue: 

“Gender and Architecture in the Islamic World: Restrictions, Reactions, and Actions”

Thematic volume planned for June 1, 2026
Proposal submission deadline: June 15, 2024

Guest Editor: Dr. Gül Kale, Carleton University
In-house editor: Dr. Alex Dika Seggerman, Rutgers University

Gender and Architecture in the Islamic World: Restrictions, Reactions, and Actions

Real and imagined spaces are inherently gendered based on widely accepted heteronormative and patriarchal ways of living, thereby affecting how buildings and cities are accessed, used, and experienced. Moreover, spatial practices associated with such heteronormative and gender binary systems impact design ideas that shape the built environment. The imposition of traditional gender roles in architecture from patriarchal and heteronormative views affect urban policy making, architectural education, and decision making in the building and transformation of cities. Even the word ‘architect’ was and still is often gendered both in historical and contemporary perceptions of the society due to the male-dominated professional field despite the involvement and contributions of women in the transformation of the built environment for centuries. Hence, space and gender are intrinsically linked and mutually construct one another. Against these complex yet urgent ongoing questions, this special issue of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture aims to interrogate the relation between gender and architecture focusing on feminist, queer, non-binary, and trans perspectives with an interdisciplinary approach from the past and present. However, in order to have a nuanced understanding of diverse dynamics shaping spaces and spatial practices, contributions will need to have an intersectional approach encompassing race, sexuality, age, disability, class, religion, and ethnicity. Moreover, studies mustderive from specific social, cultural, and political contexts and localities to prevent essentialist approaches to Islamic and diasporic communities.

This special issue raises questions around three themes: restrictions, reactions, and actions. On the one hand, while looking at gender history to see the restrictions imposed on various marginalised groups through socio-political structures and institutions, it is crucial to avoid victimising them by also underscoring their reactions, resistance, and attempts to reclaim their rights. On the other hand, it is equally important to show how marginalised and racialized groups took these rejections of heteronormative and patriarchal power dynamics as a starting point to build alternative communities based on their spatial experiences and embodied creative design ideas and practices. The purpose of this threefold approach is to have a well-rounded and nuanced grasp of the role of gender in architecture beyond passive and top-down narratives.

Regardless of traditional gender binary roles that associated women with domestic space and duties, women have contributed to the shaping and building of cities, communities, and spaces for centuries. But when one considers the restrictions imposed on not only women, but also nonbinary people, and their use, design, and experience of architecture in the past, the lack of historical records comes to the forefront as a serious obstacle. Given the scarcity of the primary sources, scholars look at different places for bits of information or read sources through new lenses to construct a narrative about women and marginalised non-binary people, who were not mentioned or centred in state records because they did not belong to courtly circles or other dominant groups. Hence, contributors will need to introduce an interdisciplinary approach and willingness to engage with diverse socio-political and cultural discourses and realities to reveal their hidden histories. For example, in the last decades, court records have emerged as an important source for understanding women’s lives and engagements with the city. These records show that diverse material, visual, and textual sources have the potential to contribute to writing new architectural histories disclosing the lives and spatial practices of women and non-binary groups from ordinary backgrounds. The lack of histories on women and non-binary people cannot be considered distinct from the restrictions imposed on them during spatial practices. What were the restricted spaces for them in the past? This historical perception of gender binary roles is also important in understanding contemporary architectural practices that privilege heteropatriarchal ways of shaping spaces and cities today, which affects the spatial experiences of queer, non-binary,and trans groups. Architecture can be a tool of suppression and segregation, sometimes in spite of the initial intentions behind it. Governing groups have used cities and buildings to subjugate women, queer, and trans communities, both in the past and today. These restricted spaces can expose various issues related to the intersection of gender and access. Spaces built according to a standard, able-bodied male model ignore other bodies outside of this norm. Contributors can examine real or imagined alternative spaces that challenge this normative patriarchal model. Considering the movement and impact of diverse bodies in space, it is equally important to look at the creation of alternative spaces of resistance and action during migration. Wars, authoritative states, or disasters, such as earthquakes and epidemics, cause displacements and relocations for people. Gender plays a critical role in generating spatial injustices and inequalities, particularly for women, queer, and trans communities, who are often made vulnerable to health and hygiene issues caused by gender normative or male-centred spatial organisations insensitive to their needs. Moreover, when people immigrate and settle in new places forming diasporic communities, they might reproduce traditional patriarchal structures such as the practice of sex segregation in religious or educational spaces. In diaspora, people of colour encounter diverse obstacles during urban experiences and through spatial segregations at the intersection of gender, race, and architecture. The contributors are invited to explore private, public, or in-between spaces where women, queer, non-binary, and trans people reclaim their autonomy, pushing the limits by creating new zones of resistance, action, and interaction.

Every restriction causes a reaction. Whereas traditional gender roles affected the various restrictions imposed on people in cities, for centuries women found creative ways to claim their right to experiencing the city even under strict control and patriarchal hierarchies. Modern city planning intersected with women’s movements and new rights. Modern architects introduced houses and buildings for a new way of living that reimagined gender roles and normative spatial measures. It is however important to question how progressive these modern transformations and designs were in terms of considering women’s changing role as well as promoting gender inclusivity and diversity. Architectural representations, drawings, and models can provide insight into understanding these conceptions. Looking closely at the designers who suggested changes to the private spaces particularly can disclose underlying and ongoing heteronormative and patriarchal structures despite the claim of progress as well as gender equality and inclusivity. At this juncture, it is crucial to hear, for example, how women reacted to traditional as well as modern spatial arrangements that acted as norm makers or gatekeepers. But women’s reactions were not limited to discourses. When and how did women gain full access not only to using but also working in and shaping public buildings such as hospitals, schools, libraries, and universities that empowered them? For example, contributors are encouraged to investigate women leaders in medicine, who developed spatial facilities and hospitals that supported women, queer, and trans people’s mental and physical wellbeing. Women who shaped architectural education and changed heteronormative studio practices will be another important topic to examine. Women in labour history as well as women working in architectural offices in diverse capacities emerge as another area to investigate further to understand the formation of the built environment outside the work of the male architect figure. There has been an ongoing effort to alter structural barriers in architecture to propose innovative design solutions overturning suppressed bodies and ideas and to create safe spaces for women, queer, non-binary, and trans people’s empowerment as well as gender inclusive spaces. Contributors might examine gender-neutral and gender inclusive spaces today, and in the past, tracing the alterations in social perceptions within time along with changing political discourses that target marginalised communities. Architecture can be used by power structures to hinder gender fluidity in spaces. But feminist, queer, and trans groups reclaim architecture to create gender fluid and safe spaces as agents of change for themselves and their communities. Contributors are invited to write on the erased, forgotten, or simply ignored contributions of women, queer, non-binary, and trans people to the spatial, social, and technological development of communities, neighbourhoods, and cities, from small scale workshops to alternative educational settings. Just as the male able-bodied model and its measures became the norm for forming spaces, their experiences also became the standard to imagine new spaces and who occupied these spaces. Papers interrogating this understanding to reimagine and reclaim women, queer, non-binary, and trans people’s emotional and multisensory history and lived experiences in architecture, which go beyond positivist and orientalizing discourses focused on the duality between body and the mind or the senses and the intellect are most welcome.

Equally important to underscore is writing about women, queer, non-binary, and trans people’s spatial experiences from their perspective by giving space to supressed voices. This includes a new assessment of the seeming contradiction between the notions of traditional and modern, both of which were often defined according to the heteropatriarchal gaze imposing how, for example, women should look and act. What do attempts to create safe spaces through gender inclusive washrooms, athletic facilities, women only gym classes, women in mosques movements, and shelters offer in terms of protecting one’s privacy and freedom while supporting spatial justice? What kind of a relationship do they establish with the public sphere that can be exposed to gender-based violence? The dichotomy caused by looking at private and public as two strictly separate zones defined by gender binary roles has already been challenged by scholars. They, for example, showed how working at home didn’t prevent women from participating in social, cultural, and economic activities, hence the link between public and private spaces is fluid. For centuries, knowledge has been produced in diverse spaces. It is thus important to delve into this relationship by looking at contemporary interpretations of private space and the notion of privacy by also incorporating changing lived realities and perceptions of gender beyond heteronormative, gender binary, and patriarchal norms.

Some further questions one might consider within the Islamic context might include:

• What are the legal policies that impact women, queer, non-binary, and trans people’s spatial actions and urban experiences today and/or in the past?
• Where can we locate architectural movements and alternative participatory practices that initiated real change for women, queer, non-binary, and trans people in specific neighbourhoods or cities?
• What is the impact of women, queer, non-binary, and trans people’s liberation movements in opening and forming new safe spaces?
• What are the real and virtual sites of resistance for women, queer, non-binary, and trans communities, ranging from gathering at small community meetings to occupying the squares?
• How can we rewrite the history of women’s participation in architectural education from an intersectional perspective?
• What can intersections of critical race theory and gender studies offer to reconsider travel literature and representations produced to convey urban narratives?

Editors welcome articles dealing with similar issues related to gender and architecture from an intersectional and interdisciplinary perspective, encompassing a wide variety of areas including, but not limited to, legal history, law, critical race theory, labour history, environmental history, history of emotions, and history of science.

Articles offering historical and theoretical analysis (Design in Theory; DiT) should be between 6000 and 8000 words. Those on design and practice (Design in Practice; DiP) should be between 3000 and 4000 words. Practitioners, urbanists, art historians, specialists in literary, religious, and gender studies, curators, archivists, librarians, archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers, sociologists, and historians whose work resonates with the topic of this special issue are welcome to contribute discussions that address the critical themes of the journal. Collaboratively authored articles are also welcome. Please send a title and a 400-word abstract to the guest editor, Gül Kale, Carleton University (IJIAgender@gmail.com), by June 15, 2024. Authors of proposals will be contacted by July 30, 2024, and may be requested to submit full article drafts for consideration by January 30, 2025. All submissions will undergo blind peer review, editing, and revision. For detailed author instructions, please consult: www.intellectbooks.com/ijia.

Contact Information

Dr. Gül Kale, Carleton University

Contact Email

IJIAgender@gmail.com

 

 

14. Hybrid: The Inaugural Catherine B. Asher Lecture in South Asian and Islamic Art on April 19, 4:30pm CDT, Online & Elmer L. Andersen Library 120, at the University of Minnesota.

This event honors the legacy of Cathy’s scholarship and mentorship in both fields. We very much hope that you will join us in honoring and remembering her through the presentation of new scholarship in the domains for which she cared so deeply.
The lecture, “Tactile Histories of the Mughal Album,” will be delivered by Dr. Yael Rice.

As compilations of discrete, fragmentary images and texts in codex format, Mughal albums lend themselves to ocularcentric analysis. How else, if not by sight, would one read a book? Yet the Mughals’ word for album, muraqqa’—Arabic for “patched” or “mended”—, foregrounds other modes of sensory engagement, namely touch. While the term clearly evokes the tactile processes of trimming and pasting together employed in the production of such albums, it also suggests the frequent episodes of repair that any excessively handled book would demand. Following this linguistic cue, this talk situates the Mughal album at the center of a complex matrix of both visual and tactile practices. It examines how physical touch and haptic perception factored in the organization, construction, and use of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century albums both within and beyond the Mughal court. It furthermore places these materials within a broader constellation of stitched textiles and gardens with and in which albums were enjoyed. Thus, this talk also builds on the important work of Catherine Asher, whose scholarship opened up new and vital ways of understanding the Mughal lived environment.
Please join us either in person or online (register here).
This event will be streamed online but it will not be recorded.

 

 

 

 

15. Tradu/izioni d’Eurasia Reloaded

Liquid Frontiers and Entangled Worlds

2,000 Years of Visual and Material Culture From the Mediterranean to East Asia

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

12 April – 1 September 2024

MAO Museo d’Arte Orientale, Turin

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

12 April marks the public opening of the refurbishment of Tradu/izioni d’Eurasia, the exhibition organised by MAO for the 700th anniversary of Marco Polo’s death.

The most significant changes include numerous important loans from the Uffizi, the Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence, the Musei Civici, Bologna and the Museo della Ceramica Duca di Martina, Naples and site specific works by the French-Moroccan artist Yto Barrada.

The exhibition is accompanied by a rich programme of talks, concerts, screenings and performances, offering visitors opportunities for reflection and new readings of the complex, fascinating story that has unfolded along the Silk Road across the centuries.

On 12 April, MAO is unveiling the refurbishment of Tradu/izioni d’Eurasia, an exhibition that tells the fascinating story of the journey of art, culture, traditions and language from East Asia to the Mediterranean basin (and back) through a new, well-chosen selection of pottery, textiles, metalwork and manuscripts.

Like Marco Polo, people travelled along the caravan routes that connected Asia and Europe across thousands of years. Travelling alongside with them were ideas, motifs and knowledge, an entire migrating heritage – material and immaterial – that put down roots everywhere it arrived through a steadfast process of adaptation.

Tradu/izioni d’Eurasia tells this story, a tale made up of connections, influences and betrayals: it is our story, a narrative that unites far-flung corners of the Eurasian continent more than we are inclined to believe and shows that the concept of ‘border’ has always been illusory and arbitrary.

The story unfolds in thematic sections alternating with forays into the contemporary world and united by a new version of Chiara Lee and freddie Murphy’s site-specific sound installation Distilled, which has been developed and added to beyond its October 2023 iteration.

The new display opens with an installation by the Berlin studio Zeitguised and explodes with the theme of blue, often paired with contrasting white: precious vases, plates and bowls of disparate provenance (from China to Delft, passing through Iran), on loan from the Museo delle Civiltà, Rome, the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza and the Museo Nazionale della Ceramica Duca di Martina, Naples, and two masterpieces by Giovanna Garzoni, from the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence.

The paintings, both of which are vibrant still lifes, feature a Chinese vase and cup decorated with typical white and blue motifs, attesting to the fluidity with which objects and iconographic themes have always circulated across Eurasian, whether brought as gifts or sold along the trade routes.

Through painting, Garzoni depicted the ties between Asia and Europe and the powerful fascination with the exotic that began bewitching the European courts, especially that of the Medici in Florence, in the fifteenth century. Art talking about art, in a play of references and decorative motifs that echo – familiar, yet different – at distant latitudes and in remote periods.

The next section is devoted to the theme of grapes and, by extension, wine. Central to Sogdian culture, wine was used not only for libations and during Zoroastrian rituals but also trade. In the exhibition, the decorative motif of the bunch of grapes is represented by pottery from China, Turkey and Iran – attesting to its wide circulation – and an extraordinary Japanese obi by the master artisan Yamaguchi Genbei: a five-metre length of fabric decorated with the well-wishing grape motif.

The heart of the reload is a series of site-specific works by the French-Moroccan artist Yto Barrada, the exhibition’s guest of honour.

Drawing inspiration from Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color by Emily Noyes Vanderpoel (1842–1939), for Tradu/izioni d’Eurasia Reloaded Barrada made a series of eight medium-sized canvases that take an at once both archival and poetic approach to exploring the subject of colour and its meanings in works in the MAO collection.

The series is of course an homage to Noyes Vanderpoel, a scholar, activist, artist and patron of the arts who was based in New York in the early twentieth century, but it is especially a narration of subterranean and subordinate stories linked to the theme of diaspora and cultural influence. A story that dispenses with words in favour of the silken materiality of velvet.

Yto Barrada’s project was realised in collaboration with the Fondazione Merz, where the artist will hold a solo exhibition in the autumn of 2024. She is the winner of the fourth Mario Merz Prize, a biennial award instituted in 2013 with the aim of identifying and supporting individuals in the fields of international contemporary art and music.

Yto Barrada’s works have been placed in dialogue with textiles and pottery on loan from the Fondazione Bruschettini per l’Arte Islamica e Asiatica. The new selection of works includes refined exemplars of Ottoman art decorated with the cintamani motif, an ancient religious symbol of Buddhist origin that was reformulated and reinterpreted as a symbol of sovereignty, power and well-wishes in Iran and Turkey and, more generally, the Islamic world. These artefacts are paired with a precious sixteenth-century illuminated manuscript of The Shahnameh or Book of Kings, by the Persian poet Ferdowsi, on loan from the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence. In some of the volume’s numerous and extremely fine illuminations, the Persian hero Rustam is wearing a mantle embellished with the cintamani motif.

Thanks to support from MAO and the Istituto per l’Oriente Nallino, Rome, The Book of Kingshas been restored and digitalised: it was a complex, difficult project, but indispensable for being able to display the volume in the museum and for future use by the scholarly community. The manuscript will also be the subject of a public study day planned for June.

The next section explores at the scale motif, with metal and ceramic tableware from India, Turkey, Iran, China and Italy on loan from the Musei Civici, Bologna and a few important private collections.

The scale pattern, symbolising good health and riches, was the result of multiple cultural and artistic encounters and can be considered an emblem of the ‘entangled worlds’ at the heart of the exhibition. It returned, translated and readapted, in the symbol of the dragon and in that of the carp, just as the pilgrim’s flask type re-emerged, represented in the exhibition by a splendid majolica exemplar from fifteenth-century Pesaro.

Next to the room of metalwork from the Aron Collection there is a new selection of seventh- and eighth-century samite, silk textiles used in the past for vestments and sumptuous clothing and embellished with animal motifs (lions and bulls in niches and birds in beaded circles). These textiles are echoed in a seventeenth-century Japanese painting of a Buddhist monk wearing a kesa (the traditional Buddhist mantle) that is as richly decorated as the fabric that covers his chair.

The exhibition ends with a poetic, immersive installation, Anila Quayyum Agha’s Shimmering Mirage (Black), 2018, which transports visitors to an imaginary elsewhere, and a reading room by the Milan publisher by the same name, Reading Room (specialised in independent publications and artists’ books), where there is also a video work by the Lebanese artist Ali Cherri, The Watchman (2023). The video follows Sergeant Bulut (a postmodern version of Lieutenant Drogo in The Desert of the Tartars), who is stationed in a watchtower on the southern border between the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus. There, immersed in a world caught between reality and imagination, the soldier passes endless days and equally endless nights waiting for an enemy that never comes, until vague lights appear on the horizon that give the film a ghostly final twist. It is a powerful and needed reflection on the concepts of border and death, the intrinsic violence of the frontier and the absurdity of war rhetoric.

The final component of the exhibition is the light installation MOSADEGH (2023) by the Iranian artist Shadi Harouni, which invites reflection on themes like democracy and hope through the poetic and fierce account of the complex history of modern Iran, in dialogue with one of the 100 fragments of the copy of a Caucasian carpet made for the Pergamon Museum, Berlin as part of ‘CULTURALXCOLLABS – WEAVING THE FUTURE‘, a participatory art project that goes beyond museum walls to engage with the community and create a dialogue between past, present and future, in an exchange between culture, museum and individuals with different stories and sensibilities.

The project begins with the extraordinary story of a seventeenth-century Caucasian carpet decorated with a dragon motif. It entered the collection of the Berlin museums in 1881, but it was partially destroyed by a fire bomb during World War II, which spared only a few fragments. Using these fragments, a complex restoration project was launched in 2004 that gave the carpet the look of an almost graphic puzzle. In 2022, a copy of the carpet was made by hand in India for CulturalxCollabs – Weaving the Future and cut into 100 equal fragments, which began to circulate around the world, creating a tangible link between the museum, which is currently closed for renovations, and people, with the aim of generating a collective, shared narrative at the end of the project, planned for 2027.

The fragment-copy is displayed with two precious Caucasian carpets from the seventeenth century: alarge carpet with a floral pattern and two fragments of a carpet with a dragon motif, both from the Bruschettini Collection. These motifs, tied to traditional Chinese and Persian symbolism, evoke cosmological myths about the opposition of light and darkness, fertility and the origin of life, and symbolise power and spirituality.

 

In keeping with all of MAO’s exhibition projects, this refurbishment is also accompanied by a rich public program of musical events and performances, once again by Chiara Lee and freddie Murphy, and a series oftalks and meetings that offer the public new opportunities for reflection on complex themes intimately tied to current issues.

Finally, a booklet containing texts that take a closer look at and expand upon the themes of the exhibition will be distributed free of charge in the museum.

The reload of the exhibition is accompanied by the rehang of the Islamic Asian Countries gallery, including the display of an extraordinary group of Kerman carpets, a particular type of rug from the Safavid period (1501–1722) called ‘vase carpets’: twelve precious fragments from the collection of the Fondazione Bruschettini per l’Arte Islamica e Asiatica and a rare large exemplar from MITA, the Museo Internazionale del Tappeto Antico, Brescia.

Produced in the Iranian city that gives them their name, Kerman carpets are a type of Persian rug marked by technical refinement and innovative taste and distinctive for their vast variety of patterns, an especially rich colour range and remarkable durability. The quality of these carpets tells us that although Kerman was never the seat of the Safavid court, it was an especially important city and entrusted to princes close to the sovereign. ‘Vase carpets’ have a large, often monumental, vase motif in the middle, filled with stylised flowers, plant motifs and geometric shapes. The borders of this carpet type are generally relatively thin in relation to the middle field.

The display of these carpets is a new instalment of the project Flowers in Wool, which began in Genoa in 2022 with the exhibition I magnifici tappeti Sanguszko, and the next instalment of which is an upcoming major exhibition of Kerman carpets from Italian collections.

 

 

 

 

16. Simon Fraser University – Farley Distinguished Visiting Scholar in History
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=67088

 

 

 

 

 

17. NEW Deadline

The Arabic Language and Literature department at UAE University is currently advertising a full-time professor position in Classical Arabic. They are seeking a scholar who can teach in Arabic and possess a distinguished profile in Scopus in terms of publications and citations. UAEU provides exceptional benefits, including free accommodation, a tax-free salary, a children’s school allowance, return tickets in the summer, and comprehensive health care coverage. Please feel free to reach out if you require further information.

The new deadline is 15/4/2024. Here is the link to apply:

https://jobs.uaeu.ac.ae/Postings/PostingDetails/3996

 

 

 

18.New interdisciplinary journal on Amazigh Studies launched

As part of a wider project aimed at establishing Amazigh Studies Program at UCLA, Professor Aomar Boum of UCLA Anthropology, a CNES Faculty Advisory Committee member, and Professor Brahim El Guabli of Williams College, launched the first issue of the new Tamazgha Studies Journal (TSJ). Drawing on the Amazigh Cultural Movement’s use of Tamazgha to refer to the historical Amazigh homeland extending from the Canary Islands to southwest Egypt, TSJ will use the new developments in Amazigh Studies to create new knowledge in this field of study. A detailed history of Amazigh studies at UCLA and the role of CNES in its establishment is explored in one of the articles featured in the issue.

 

 

 

 

19. Of Language and Identity in Early Islam

The 2024 Giorgio Levi Della Vida Award presentation and conference

Thursday, May 16 – Friday, May 17, 2024

10:00 am

Charles E. Young Research Library

UCLA

The award will be jointly presented to Michael Cook, Class of 1943 University Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, and Hossein Modarressi, Bayard Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, in recognition of their decades-long collaboration and their enormous contributions to the fields of Near Eastern and Islamic Studies.

https://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/event/16624

 

 

1.The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of the University of Chicago is honored to have Prof. Dominic Parviz Brookshaw as the fourth speaker in the Franklin Lewis Lecture Series of 2022-2025. The lecture will be in person and on zoom on Friday, April 19 at 5:00-7:00 PM US Central Time.

Title: ‘Illusory Originality: Appropriation, Repurposing, and Response in the Poems of Tahira Qurrat al-‘Ayn’

Zoom link:

https://uchicagogroup.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0ocuqpqzkuHdC41RztwbolJdTYUouiJ6d1#/registration

 

 

 

2. At the end of last year, GINGKO published Precious Materials: The Arts of Metal in the Medieval Iranian World.

First published in French in 2021, the book showcases the pre-Mongol metalwork held at Louvre in Paris and has now been translated into English in an edition revised by the author, Annabelle Collinet.

 

 

 

3. Online: “The Introduction of Islamic Coinage in 697-98″

with Michael Bates, Stephen Heidemann, and Stuart Sears.

Friday, April 5th, @12 noon EST

https://www.gc.cuny.edu/events/introduction-islamic-coinage-697-98-and-after

 

 

 

 

4. Caliphate and Imamate

An Anthology of Medieval Muslim Texts on Political Theology

H Ansari, N Husayn, eds.

Cambridge, 2023

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/caliphate-and-imamate/93727020916F4855058FD7DC472C8EBD

 

 

 

 

5. World Cultures Curator (Arabic and Persian)
The University of Edinburgh
This post sits within Heritage Collections, Research Collections team working within the Centre for Research Collections in the Main Library in George Square. It reports to The University Archivist and Research Collections Manager. The working hours and pattern are usually 35 hours a week with much of this on campus working with the collections.
Deadline | 4 April 2024
More information

 

 

 

 

6. Bennett Boskey Fellowship in Modern Global History (1700 -present)
University of Oxford
Exeter College invites applications for the Bennett Boskey Fellowship in Modern Global History (1700-present). The Fellowship, which is strictly temporary, will be tenable for a period of up to 36 months (with effect from 1 September 2024, or as soon as possible thereafter). We particularly seek applications from candidates who focus on the history of the Middle East (including North Africa) or the South Atlantic (West Africa and Latin America).
Deadline | 5 April 2024
More information

 

 

 

 

7. Irish Research Council (IRC) Doctoral Researcher
University College Dublin
Applications are invited for a PhD doctoral researcher within the UCD School of Politics and International Relations to deliver the research objectives of a project funded by the Irish Research Council. The project applies methods from quantitative text analysis/NLP in Arabic and cognitive mapping (Axelrod 1976) to examine interviews with participants in Muslim resistance movements.
Deadline | 8 April 2024
More information

 

 

 

 

8. Lecturer in Arabic Studies
The University of Manchester
To further strengthen our teaching portfolio, the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures wishes to appoint a Lecturer in Arabic Studies. The post is tenable from September 1st 2024 to June 30th 2027. This post in Arabic Studies is a teaching and scholarship position. Applicants must have a relevant PhD and demonstrate the ability to meet flexible curricular and teaching needs and demonstrate capability to contribute organisationally to the wider Departmental community.
Deadline | 8 April 2024
More information

 

 

 

 

9. Research Associate in Early Modern Global History (Islamic World Focus)
The University of Manchester
Applications are sought for a full-time Postdoctoral Research Associate to work with Dr Edmond Smith, conducting research for the ERC-selected, UKRI-funded project “Institutional Transformation and the Entangled Commercial Cultures of International Trade, 1450-1750” (INTRECCI). The successful applicant will hold a PhD in the field of early modern, global, or economic history, or in another relevant field, with expertise in the history of trade and empire in the Islamic World.
Deadline | 10 April 2024
More information

 

 

 

 

10. Research Associate in Early Modern Global History (Islamic World Focus)
The University of Manchester
Applications are sought for a full-time Postdoctoral Research Associate to work with Dr Edmond Smith, conducting research for the ERC-selected, UKRI-funded project “Institutional Transformation and the Entangled Commercial Cultures of International Trade, 1450-1750” (INTRECCI). The successful applicant will hold a PhD in the field of early modern, global, or economic history, or in another relevant field, with expertise in the history of trade and empire in the Islamic World.
Deadline | 10 April 2024
More information

 

 

 

 

11. Evans-Pritchard Lectureship 2024-25
All Souls College, Oxford
Applications are invited for the Evans-Pritchard Lectureship, to take place during the academic year 2024-2025. The Lecturer will deliver a series of four to six lectures in the course of a month, usually during May, based on fieldwork or other indigenous primary materials concerning Africa, the Middle East or the Mediterranean, and offering an empirical analysis of social relations.
Deadline | 7 May 2024
More information

 

 

 

 

12. 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).

Deadline | 1 April 2024

More information

 

 

 

 

13. Hudood: Rethinking boundaries
Exhibition | Brunei Gallery | 11 July-21 September
The exhibition introduces contemporary art from the Barjeel Foundation, with a focus on the overarching theme of “Boundaries” as both a subject and a tool for meaningfully accessing a diverse array of art from the SWANA region. Delving into the profound implications of walls and borders on artistic expression, the exhibition prompts the question of whether it is the artist’s perspective that ultimately transcends these boundaries.
More information

 

 

 

 

14. ONLINE Webinar “Staging Piety: The Takkiyya Muʿavin al-Mulk in Kermanshah”

With Nahid Massoumeh Assemi 

British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS), 4 April 2024, 5:00 pm UK Time

This talk gives a brief account of the development of the rituals of commemoration of the Battle of Karbala in Iran, and their patronage by the state and the elites of society, who solicited the loyalty of the broader public by building takkiyyas, providing the venues for pious forms of entertainment. It also argues for the role of takkiyyas in creation of a sense of community and group identity; the formative stage of the emergent idea of nationhood at the time.

Information and registration:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/3717098146803/WN_Wc0se2GzSxC0F4HCmWxgEg#/registration

 

 

Registration is required.

UN WGAD finds the detention of four elderly Bahraini opposition leaders arbitrary and subjected to torture, coerced confessions, enforced disappearances, unfair trials, and medical neglect

For the ADHRB’s latest weekly newsletter, click here.

1.HYBRID Lecture “Roads to Civilization: Imagining, Mapping, and Integrating Dersim into the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish State” by Cevat Dargın, New York University, 11 April 2024, 10:30 pm CET

This talk explores the historical journey of Dersim in eastern Anatolia with a predominantly Kizilbash Kurdish population, as it transitioned from the Ottoman Empire to the modern Turkish state. It analyzes how racialized ideologies and colonial policies influenced the treatment and perception of this ethno-religious group across both the empire and the nation-state. The talk provides critical insights into broader issues of identity, violence, and statecraft in the region.

Information and registration: https://nyu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYvcOutqjIjGNH17xw2qwwQRtSOZdzulNtE#/registration

 

 

 

 

2. „DAVO-Werkstattgespräche” to Promote Young Scholars during the Congress of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO), University of Goettingen, 26-28 September 2024

Young scholars will have the chance to present their scientific theses (Master thesis, PhD) in progress in German or English language. Since the general idea of the workshop is not to present finished works, young scholars are explicitly invited to contribute their projects in an early stage of conception or implementation.

Deadline for proposals: 15 May 2024. Information: contact Dr. Tobias Zumbrägel (tobias.zumbraegel@uni-heidelberg.de)

 

 

 

 

3. Conference “The Social Sciences and Humanities in Iran: Possibilities and Constraints”, Iranian Studies Unit of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Doha, Qatar, 9-10 October 2024

The conference will reflect on the state of social sciences and humanities in theory, methodology, and practice, and will examine how they are taught and researched in Iran. In addition to looking at some of the key institutions that have shaped social sciences and humanities research in Iran, the conference will examine the impact of the Islamic Republic’s establishment and its policies on research and teaching.

Deadline for abstracts: 17 April 2024. Information:

https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/Events/iranian-studies-unit-2024-conference-/Pages/index.aspx

 

 

 

 

4. International Conference “A Decolonial Mediterranean? Disparities, Imaginations, Power Relations“, Merian Center for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM), Tunis, 4-6 November 2024

The conference aims at critically investigating the legacies of European colonialism in the subsequent states around this maritime space and at addressing different or complementary representations of the Mediterranean within the Maghreb or other regions of the world, such as the interconnections between “White”, “Red” and “Black” Sea, put forward by intellectuals and politicians of the Ottoman Empire or other spatial imaginations, historical legacies, ideas and practices.

Deadline for abstracts: 30 April 2024.

Information: https://application.trafo-berlin.de/procedure/6c6c7876-9bf8-4349-8b45-1504b5a4b033

 

 

 

 

5. Workshop “State Islam and Authoritarian Rule: Comparing Control Over Religious Institutions in Muslim-majority States”, Lancaster University, 11 December 2024

Contributions should discuss the role of state Islam in a Muslim-majority state or states within a particular region, including the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Central or South Asia, or East Asia. What is the extent and form of state control over religious institutions? In what ways have these controls been shaped by historical state-religion relations? Why do states intervene in the religious sector? To deny space for Islamist opponents to operate? To combat the threat of religious extremism?

Deadline for abstracts: 31 May 2024.

Information: https://www.sepad.org.uk/announcement/call-for-papers-state-islam-and-authoritarian-rule

 

 

 

 

6. University Assistant (PhD Position), Department of Islamic Theology and Religious Education, University of Innsbruck

In this position you are expected to write a dissertation in a stimulating environment using the university’s infrastructure. You will hold your own lectures, tutor students and participate in administration. 50% of the working time is reserved for the thesis

Deadline for applications: 1 April 2024.

Information: https://lfuonline.uibk.ac.at/public/karriereportal.details?asg_id_in=14072

 

 

 

 

7. Postdoctoral Researcher (12 Months), Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies / Gender Studies and Islamic Studies, University of Zurich

This is a position in the research project “Fragmented Sovereignties in the Colonial Age: ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jazāʾirī (1808-1883) and the Making of an ‘Arab Hero'” funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Your profile: PhD in Middle Eastern Studies/Islamic Studies or a related field; relevant research expertise in the area; proficiency in both Arabic and French is essential; knowledge of Ottoman Turkish is desirable.

Deadline for applications: 31 March 2024. Information:

https://jobs.uzh.ch/offene-stellen/postdoctoral-researcher/3403c21c-9fb1-4a40-a70a-8eb202065f28

 

 

 

8. Postdoctoral Fellowships of the Marie S. Curie Actions (MSCA), Ghent University

The European Fellowships provide postdocs with a budget to work for one or two years at a European institution in a different country from where they have been working and residing in the past years. With a Global Fellowship, postdocs can go to an institution outside of the EU Member States or Associated Countries for 1 to 2 years, and then come back to a European institution for the final year of the fellowship.

Deadline for applications: 11 September 2024.

Information: https://bozi.ugent.be/nl/bozi/c83B4eMbBdJ53L2tNRm3WJ

 

 

 

9. ERC Postdoctoral Researcher for the “Invisible East Research Programme”, University of Oxford

You will be responsible for carrying out research on medieval writing in the Islamicate East and its connections with the history of language. You will contribute to building an online digital corpus of documents written in Persian, Arabic, Bactrian, Pahlavi, Hebrew and other languages of the medieval Islamicate East. You will have expertise in a language of the Islamicate world, and knowledge of the history and civilisations of Islamicate world.

Deadline for applications: 2 April 2024.

Information: https://my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.display_form

 

 

 

10. Project Manager in Conflict Transformation in Erbil, Iraq, forumZFD

You will support local communities and contribute to non-violent conflict transformation. Your profile: University degree in social/political sciences, law, peace and conflict studies or other relevant discipline. – Minimum of 5-years professional experience in conflict transformation and peacebuilding in a conflict or post conflict setting. – Experience as Civil Peace Service Expert and regional knowledge of the Iraqi context is an asset.

Deadline for applications: 31 March 2024.

Information: https://www.forumzfd.de/en/job/project-manager-mfd-erbil-iraq-3

 

 

 

 

11. ONLINE Intensive Course “The Tenth Yemen Exchange”, Sana`a Center and The Exchange Foundation, 22 April – 3 May 2024

The course is designed to provide unique access to information, perspectives, updates, and analysis on Yemen for those seeking to develop a working background on the country as well as those already thoroughly versed in its dynamics.

Deadline for application: 31 March 2024.

Information: https://sanaacenter.org/event/the-tenth-yemen-exchange

 

 

 

 

12. Summer School for “Current Issues in Middle East Politics”, Bodrum Institute, Bodrum/Turkey, 2-7 June 2024

The program will focus on the Middle Eastern regional order, regional conflicts, alliances, wars, and peace-making as well as the state-society dynamics. The course will cover the Arab world, Iran, and Israel.

Deadline for applications: 15 April 2024. Information: http://www.bodruminstitute.com/index.php/educations/126-current-issues-in-middle-east-politics

 

 

 

13. Grant of the British Yemeni Society for Academic Study Related to Yemen (up to £1,000)

Applications are invited from anyone carrying out research in, or on Yemen, at a university, preferably one that is based in Britain or Yemen. Applicant’s nationality is irrelevant. Applications may be made to assist with study in any subject or field, so long as it is concerned with Yemen, and is for a specific qualification (e.g., BA, MA, PhD etc.).

Deadline for applications: 31 May 2024. Information: https://britishyemenisociety.org.uk/what-we-do/

 

 

 

 

14. Articles for “Keshif: E-Journal for Ottoman-Turkish Micro Editions”

Ottoman Studies is a manuscript science, and all scholars who work on manuscripts know this situation: one “discovers” accidentally short texts in manuscripts–single poems, letters, contracts, and marginal notes of different, often private matters. Our vision for Keshif is to provide a forum for researchers to make these frag-ments accessible to a wider audience, i.e. to bring together the many pieces of the mosaic, such that complete pictures gradually emerge.

Deadline for contributions: 5 June 2024. Information: https://journals.univie.ac.at/index.php/keshif/index

 

 

 

15. Arabic Lectureship, UC Santa Barbara

The Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara invites applications for a lecturer position in Modern Standard Arabic beginning in the 2024-2025 academic year.

Responsibilities consist of teaching both first-year Arabic (Introductory Arabic) and second-year Arabic (Intermediate Arabic). The total teaching load is six courses over the three quarters of the academic year. A reasonable estimated full-time rate for this position is $66,259-$72,404. Position percent time is 67%. The anticipated start date for this Appointment begins July 1, 2024.

This lecturer position will complement core faculty in Islamic Studies (Religious Studies), Middle Eastern history, Global Studies, Comparative Literature, Middle Eastern Ethnomusicology, and other disciplines. In addition to its strong graduate program in Islamic Studies, the department of Religious Studies administers an undergraduate B.A. degree in Middle East Studies. UCSB is also home to a vibrant Center for Middle East Studies (www.cmes.ucsb.edu).

The department is especially interested in candidates who contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through research, teaching, and service. UCSB has recently been designated a Hispanic serving institution under the U.S. Department of Education’s guidelines (where total Hispanic enrollment constitutes a minimum of 25% of total enrollment).

Applicants should submit: (1) cover letter; (2) curriculum vitae; (3) statement of teaching pedagogy; (4) summary of teaching experience; (5) summary of teaching evaluations; and (6) arrange to have three letters of recommendation submitted through UC Recruit at https://recruit.ap.ucsb.edu. Inquiries may be addressed to the department’s Academic Personnel Coordinator, Kasey Odell, at kodell@hfa.ucsb.edu.

 

 

 

 

16. Breathtaking Revelations:
The Science of Breath from The Fifty Kamarupa Versesto Hazrat Inayat Khan
by Carl W. Ernst & Patrick J. D’Silva

This contains translation of a 14th-century Persian text on the power of breath and yogic practices, The Fifty Kamarupa Verses, plus an English text on the same topic written by Hazrat Inayat Khan and edited by Patrick J. D’Silva.

The book is available from Suluk Press at https://sulukpress.com/books/breathtaking-revelations/

There will be an author chat about the book on Saturday, April 27 at 3-4:15pm EST at Breathtaking Revelations Author Chat Tickets, Sat, Apr 27, 2024 at 3:00 PM | Eventbrite

 

 

 

17. Course name: Arabic Manuscripts Codicology and Philology

Course venue: Library of the Academy of Science, Lisbon, Portugal

Course dates: 08 – 11 July 2024

Course details: https://www.aku.edu/ismc/events/pages/event-detail.aspx?EventID=2533&Title=Arabic%20Manuscripts%20Codicology%20and%20Philology

 

 

 

 

18. Where did Homo sapiens go after leaving Africa? New study has an answer

https://www.reuters.com/science/where-did-homo-sapiens-go-after-leaving-africa-new-study-has-an-answer-2024-03-25/?user_email=512cf21627ad6d0030cfefd64893c4cd7b26f9b8526e567a740198ca4e3f48b6

 

 

 

19. Hybrid event – Edinburgh’s Alwaleed Centre is delighted to be hosting Dr Shabana Mir (American Islamic College, Chicago) for a special hybrid seminar this coming Thursday 28 at 4pm GMT.

‘Campus Connections and Ruptures: Muslim Students in the United States’ will explore the first ethnographic study of Muslim American college students, asking listeners to reflect on their implications for Muslim belonging, in the United States especially but in Western nations generally.

This event is available to attend in-person at the Alwaleed Centre, University of Edinburgh, or online via Zoom.

For further information and to register for free, click here: www.alwaleed.ed.ac.uk/events/shabana-mir

 

 

 

20. Centre of Islamic Studies Cambridge Events:

Wednesday 27 March 

Afterlives of Urban Muslim Asia

Paul Anderson with Professor Magnus Marsden & Dr Vera Skvirskaja

2:00 – 3:30 – Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies

Booking email address:  cis@cis.cam.ac.uk

All talks are free and open to all.

 

 

 

21. Armenian School of Languages and Cultures – ASPIRANTUM is organizing the seventh 16-week Persian language semester program in Yerevan, Armenia. The 16-week semester program of Persian language will start on August 18, 2024, and will last till December 6, 2024 (111 days, 300 hours of Persian language instruction).

For more details and to apply, please visit https://aspirantum.com/courses/study-persian-language-semester-abroad

During the Persian language summer classes, the following components will be covered every day to foster the Persian language knowledge of participants:

Grammar: Every day class will cover the main grammatical concepts of the modern Persian language as well as parallels with classical Persian.
Vocabulary: During the 16-week course, it is anticipated that the participants will learn more than 3000 new Persian words from literary language and words used in everyday life.
Listening: The classes are scheduled so that participants, with the guidance of an experienced instructor, learn the Persian language through songs and movies, watching and listening to news and other short videos about interesting and sometimes funny topics and stories about Iranian realities.
Speaking: Every day, the Persian language classes will push the students to exercise their speaking abilities through discussions, conversations, and role-plays about different texts and topics.
Writing: Each day, the participants of the Persian language class will have assignments and homework to complete for the next day, and the homework will primarily involve writing assignments.
Reading: Every day, students will read and discuss political texts, prose and poetry, conversations, and news. The corpus of texts to be read and discussed during the classes comprises different prominent Persian authors, daily conversations, and news of the day.

You can check the video testimonials of our previous students here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQXUOf6S4Po

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfQMbcNJrvY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0BG9AJb-XU

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

Participation fee:
The participation fee is 12,900 USD for the 16 weeks of the Persian Language course.
Discount: The participation fee will be 10,900 USD if you apply before April 25, 2024, and pay by April 30, 2024.
For more details and to apply, please visit https://aspirantum.com/courses/study-persian-language-semester-abroad

 

 

 

 

22. Uyghur Women Activists in the Diaspora

Restorying a Genocide

Susan J. Palmer, Dilmurat Mahmut and Abdulmuqtedir Udun

Bloomsbury, 2024

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/uyghur-women-activists-in-the-diaspora-9781350418332/

 

The Māḥauls of Oratory: Urdu Shi`i Khiṭābat in contemporary Karachi
In this talk, I attend to the material and the historical māḥauls within which Urdu Shiʿi khiṭābat (oratory) unfolds in Karachi. My attention to these contexts aims to move beyond a solely discursive approach to public language-use, in which much of the emphasis lies on referentiality, or what do orations mean. Instead, I foreground the physical and ideological contexts of khiṭābat to lay bare the newness of practices and concepts that undergird oratorical speech-events.
Registration required
Zoom webinar:https://utoronto.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mV4_DL0DRNasaRxDpRT5uw

1.Le CeRMI a le plaisir de vous convier à laprochaine séancedu séminaire “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien”, qui se tiendra le jeudi 04 avril 2024, 17h-19h, en salle 3.15 à l’INaLCO (65 rue des Grands Moulins, Paris XIII, 3^e étage

Nous sommes heureux d’accueillir Mme Camille Rhoné-Quer, Maîtresse de conférences à l’Université d’Aix-Marseille en délégation au CeRMI, pour une conférence intitulée : « Histoire environnementale du monde turco-iranien médiéval : état des lieux, perspectives et étude de cas (bassin versant de l’Amou Darya) ».

 Résumé

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

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

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

Orientations bibliographiques

• Arezou AZAD.“The Ecology and Economy of Khurasan in the 7th-8th Century,” dans A. Marsham (ed.). The Umayyad World. Londres: Routledge, 2020, p. 332-354.
• Guillaume BLANC, Élise DEMEULENAERE, Wolf FEUERHAHN (dir.). Humanités environnementales. Enquêtes et contre-enquêtes. Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, Série histoire environnementale, 2017.
• Richard BULLIET. Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran: A Moment in World History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
• Basira MIR-MAKHAMAD, Sirojidin MIRZAAKHMEDOV, Husniddin RAHMONOV, Sören STARK, Andrey OMEL’CHENKO, Robert N. SPENGLER III.“Qarakhanids on the Edge of the Bukhara Oasis: Archaeobotany of Medieval Paykend,” Economic Botany, 75, 2021, p. 195-214.
• Jürgen PAUL.“Nomads and Bukhara. A Study in Nomad Migrations, Pasture, and Climate Change (11th century CE),” Der Islam, 2016, 93 (2), p. 495-531.
• PORTERO, A. FUSARO, R. PIQUÉ, J. M. GURT, M. ELORZA, S. GABRIEL, & S. R. PIDAEV.“The Environment in the Islamic City of Termez (Uzbekistan): Zooarchaeology and Anthracology of a 9th-century tannur,” Journal of Islamic Archaeology, 8 (1), 2021, p. 1-21.
• Liang Emlyn YANG, Hans-Rudolf BORK  et alii(eds.). Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historical Silk Road. Cham: Springer, 2019.

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 :

https://cermi.cnrs.fr/seminaires-de-recherche/societes-politiques-et-cultures-du-monde-iranien-2023-2024/

 

 

 

 

2. Call for Papers:  Graduate Interdisciplinary Conference, 27th and 28th June 2024

Seeing Muslimness

Deadline for proposals: 30th April 2024

University of Cambridge (In Person)

Seeing, whether through the lens of perception or representation, plays a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of the world and of those who inhabit it. Within this web of visual perception, knowledge construction, and power dynamics, we take ‘Muslimness’ as a focal point at which various modes of seeing converge, intersect, and often clash. This inquiry encompasses a study of ‘Muslimness’ as expressed in literature, film, culture, architecture, food, animal studies, fashion, and more broadly, as ‘presence’ in physical digital and spectral forms. The act of seeing goes beyond mere observation; it influences our perception, understanding, and further representation of Muslimness. These modes of seeing, whether they be oppressive, digital, communal, individual, self-perpetuating, or self-fulfilling, create discursive notions of authenticity, representation, and self-fashioning within Muslim communities. We seek to explore the multifaceted dimensions of seeing, presenting, and representing Muslimness and its profound impact on being. Building on scholarship that considers Muslimness as a plural and heterogenous social category, we aim to query what epistemological hierarchies determine how Muslimness is seen, shown and performed. What are the affective responses to Muslimness, and how do they manifest? In other words, what does Muslimness do, and what does seeing Muslimness do.

We invite scholars, researchers, and practitioners from across disciplines and genres to unpack these complex ways of seeing Muslimness and question its forms, formations and transformations. We welcome interdisciplinary perspectives from scholars engaged in fields such as cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, media & film studies, digital humanities, literature, and architecture. Potential paper topics include but are not limited to:

1. Gaze, surveillance, and stereotyping
2. Ideas of ‘Muslimness’ in animals, the supernatural, and the extra-human
3. Digital/Physical Visual symbols in local, vernacular and global contexts
4. Built and Digital Infrastructures
5. Muslimness in Everyday Life: personal and communal experiences.
6. Cross-border and cross-cultural Muslimness: Diasporic and migrational perspectives
7. Politics of unseeing, exclusion, and erasure
8. Politics of secularization
9. Violence (material and non-material)
10. Digital Activism
11. The Spectacle and the Narrative in art, media and popular culture
12. Muslimness in/as Environmentalism
13. Humanist and Posthumanist Perspectives

Please submit an abstract, not exceeding 300 words, along with a brief biography.

Deadline for submissions: 30 April 2024

Notification for final acceptance: May 15 2024

Please note that this is an in-person conference. Participants will be required to be present in Cambridge on the date of the conference. We would not be able to provide travel or accommodation bursaries for the participants.

Please direct all queries to seeing.muslimness@gmail.com

For more info, please visit: https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/41566/#description

 

 

 

 

3. IJIA OPEN FORUM ON GETTING PUBLISHED 

Wednesday, March 27, 2024 (Noon–1:00PM US Eastern Time)

The International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA) invites readers and potential authors – researchers, graduate students, university faculty, and professionals in architecture and related fields (including art history, urban planning, landscape design, sociology, anthropology, preservation, archaeology, etc.) – to join members of its editorial staff on Wednesday, March 27, 2024, Noon–1:00PM US Eastern Time for an open conversation on research and the publication process. The informal session will provide an opportunity for a discussion, questions, and answers regarding the IJIA publication process, the state of publication in the field, potential avenues for publishing success, and the journal’s perspective on the future of architectural studies in the Islamic world.

Please sign up at this link in order to register for this free event and for access to the Zoom session link.

 

 

 

4. UCLA Pourdavoud Lecture Series with Hilmar Klinkott

Consolidation of Law, Legal Order, and the Question of Constitutionalizing Processes in the Achaemenid Empire

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 at 4:00pm Pacific

Royce Hall 306

Hybrid Zoom Option Available

Registration Required

 

 

 

5. The Arabic Language and Literature department at UAE University is currently advertising a full-time professor position in Classical Arabic. They are seeking a scholar who can teach in Arabic and possess a distinguished profile in Scopus in terms of publications and citations. UAEU provides exceptional benefits, including free accommodation, a tax-free salary, a children’s school allowance, return tickets in the summer, and comprehensive health care coverage. Please feel free to reach out if you require further information.

The deadline is 31/03/2024. Here is the link to apply:

https://jobs.uaeu.ac.ae/Postings/PostingDetails/3996

 

 

 

 

6. Women Fighters in the Kurdish National Movement Transforming Gender Politics and the PKK

M Topal

Bloomsbury, 2024

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/women-fighters-in-the-kurdish-national-movement-9780755648368/?mc_cid=bf536a8e53&mc_eid=cf8726f727

 

 

 

 

7. Islam in North America

H Rashid et al eds.

Bloomsbury, 2024

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/islam-in-north-america-9781350385085/

 

 

 

8. MIT Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture 2024-2025 POSTDOCTORAL / POST-PROFESSIONAL DEGREE FELLOWSHIPS FOR RESEARCH IN ISLAMIC ART, ARCHITECTURE, URBANISM, DESIGN, AND PRESERVATION

Closing date 11.4.24

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=67076

 

 

 

 

9. Call for Applications – Resident Scholar Program for Lebanon-based and Lebanese Scholars

The Finnish Institute in the Middle East in Beirut is excited to announce the call for applications for its Resident Scholar Program for the period of 1 September 2024 to 28 February 2025. The application period is now open, ending on 21 April 2024.

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=67073

 

 

 

10. Registration is now open for the conference ‘Arts of the Indian Ocean’.

April 27 (online), May 2 – 4 (in person and online), Toronto, Canada

Registration for one or more days and the full conference program can be found on this link:

https://www.utm.utoronto.ca/dvs/arts-indian-ocean

All presentations will be livestreamed and can be viewed virtually.

Attending the conference virtually is free of charge, but registration is required.

The in-person conference (May 2-4) is free to students, but others will be asked to contribute $50 CAD, which covers refreshments and receptions

We look forward to seeing you online or would love to welcome you in Toronto!

Conveners:

Ruba Kana’an

Zulfikar Hirji

Sarah Fee

Sanniah Jabeen

Arts of the Indian Ocean brings together knowledge producers working on the Indian Ocean’s arts from diverse backgrounds and scholarly arenas to present and discuss research and work on the materialities and artistic expressions in the Indian Ocean world, across geographies — from eastern and southern Africa, through the Gulf and Red Sea to South and Southeast Asia and the south China Sea — as well as across temporalities — from antiquity up until the present-day. Through the examination of the creation, production, and circulation of material culture in a wide range of forms including the visual arts, portable objects, manuscripts and maps, ships and navigational instruments, landscape, architecture, and the built environment, textiles and dress, photography and film, as well as the digital and plastic arts, the conference seeks to: provide a platform for scholars and artists to exchange current research; map the field of Indian Ocean arts; and open up new questions on Indian Ocean pasts, presents, and futures.

Contact Information

Sarah Fee, Sr. Curator, Royal Ontario Museum

Contact Email

sarahf@rom.on.ca

URL

https://www.utm.utoronto.ca/dvs/arts-indian-ocean

 

 

 

11. Please join the National Museum of Asian Art online on Tuesday, March 26, 12 pm EST for Partying Like It’s 599: On Feasting in Iranshahr with Touraj Daryaee, University of California, Irvine.

Multiple sources, both textual and pictorial, document banquets and feasting in late antique Iran. At the court and among the local notables of Iranshahr (Empire of the Iranians), the banquet, which in Persian is called bazm, created solidarity among the elites and imposed itself culturally among the populace. But to eat at the table of the ruler also symbolized one’s status in an empire that stretched from Balkh to the Euphrates and from the Caucasus to Arabia. The sharing of food with the king at his table meant one was held in the highest esteem and implied the distribution of the king’s glory, power, and beneficence to those seated with him. In this program, professor Touraj Daryaee will discuss the forms and ways of feasting that took place at the court of the king of kings, which reached its zenith in the sixth century CE.

Touraj Daryaee is the Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies & Culture and the director of the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies & Culture at the University of California, Irvine. His work revolves around the history of the Sasanian Empire and the Iranian world. He is the author of Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (I.B. Tauris, 2009) and is the editor in chief of the E.J. Brill Ancient Iran Series. He is also the editor of Sasanian Studies (Harrassowitz, 2022) as well as Dabir, an online journal at UC Irvine.

Register here

View the event listing here

Contact Information

Lizzie Stein, Scholarly Programs and Publications Specialist

National Museum of Asian Art

Contact Email

AsiaScholarlyProgram@si.edu

URL

https://asia.si.edu/whats-on/events/search/event:173394391/

 

 

 

 

12. The Dunhuang Foundation (https://dunhuangfoundation.us/) announces our first in-person event for 2024. Dr. David Roxburgh, the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Islamic Art History at Harvard University, will be presenting his lecture, “Herat, the Pearl of Khurasan: Urban and Cultural Transformation under Shahrukh (r. 1409-1447)”. 

The lecture will be held at the Lynn Wyatt Theater at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on Wednesday, April 10th from 6:00 – 7:00 PM. The lecture is free, but does require registration. Please visit:  https://bit.ly/RoxburghLecture.

Abstract

“Herat, the Pearl of Khurasan: Urban and Cultural Transformation under Shahrukh (r. 1409-1447)”

Following Timur’s death in 1405, his son and successor Shahrukh (r. 1409-1447) established Herat as the capital and embarked on a program of redevelopment. Joined by other patrons of the Timurid elite, especially his son Baysunghur, Shahrukh created optimal conditions for cultural production in the arts. His rule also witnessed a resurgence in contacts with east Asia under Ming dynasty emperor Yongle (r. 1402-1424), exchanges that brought a new wave of contemporary objects from China to the “western lands.” Focusing on selected elements of the city and its life in the 1420s and 1430s, the lecture explores the dynamics and outcomes of a cultural achievement which secured Herat’s importance as an artistic center for centuries.

Contact Information

Rachel Parikh, Deputy Director

Contact Email

rparikh@dunhuangfoundation.us

URL

https://bit.ly/RoxburghLecture

 

 

 

13. UCLA Iranian Studies Program:

And, Towards Happy Alleys

A Film Screening

Wednesday, April 3, 2024 at 4:00pm Pacific Time | Royce Hall 314

https://nelc.ucla.edu/event/iranian-studies-and-towards-happy-alleys-film-screening/

This Summer Skills Seminar introduces participants to Islamic law. The seminar is focused on developing the skill of reading Islamic legal texts as opposed to surveying Islamic legal doctrines. It is designed for beginners seeking to build their capacity to investigate Islamic law.

Professor Ali will lead participants in a methodical reading of an introduction to Islamic law. Participants will read the chapters on legal obligation (taklīf) and ritual purity (ṭahāra) in Durūs tamhīdiyya fī l-fiqh al-istidlālī by Muḥammad Bāqir al-Īrawānī (b. 1949). In addition to the text itself, the course will cover selected topics in jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh) and bio-bibliography (rijāl). Topics covered include: the meanings of ʿaql; the principle qubḥ al-taklīf bi-mā lā yuṭāq; repairing weak chains of transmission; exceptions to general rules and the principle of istiṣḥāb; al-shubuhāt al-miṣdāqiyya; al-tawthīqāt al-ʿāmma; tasālum versus ijmāʿ; al-qāʿida al-mirzāʾiyya; and al-sīra al-ʿuqalāʾiyya.

Participants are required to have intermediate Arabic,* but they are not required to have a background in Islamic law. The seminar will be held via Zoom over 4 days, with two 2-hour sessions each day. At the end of the seminar, participants will have gained some of the basic tools needed to read Islamic legal texts independently.

The deadline to register is April 15.

Full information at:
https://www.mediterraneanseminar.org/overview-islamic-legal-texts-2024