Archive for January 28th, 2025
Shii News – Academic Items
1.Literature in Persian Language Pedagogy webinar Feb 1: Lyrical Language Learning: A Multisensory Approach to Teaching Persian Language through Literature and Music
The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies
in collaboration with the
Department of Middle Eastern Studies and the
Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago
jointly present:
Lyrical Language Learning: A Multisensory Approach to Teaching Persian Language through Literature and Music
Behzad Borhan, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University
Saturday, 1 February 2025, 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time (Canada and US)
Zoom Meeting Registration:
https://utoronto.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwrdOuvrD4vGtCiHrAnhttGpwvzmm4qDzdx
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Abstract:
This talk investigates the pedagogical potential of integrating Persian literature and music in teaching Persian. It begins by examining the rationale behind incorporating music in language instruction. Studies highlight music’s effectiveness in facilitating foreign language learning, enhancing memorization, pronunciation, rhythm, cultural immersion, and emotional engagement. Persian, however, presents a unique case. Historically, Persian poetry and music have been intertwined, forming a cornerstone of Persian culture. Poet-musicians like Bārbad, the Sassanian chief minstrel-poet; Rūdakī; and Ḥāfiẓ exemplify the profound synergy between these art forms, which enriched Persian as a cultural and literary language. The presentation also considers the historical and cultural dimensions of Persian as a classical language. For centuries, Persian functioned as the lingua franca of the Persianate world, spanning Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Ottoman Empire. It served as the primary language of administration, literature, and intellectual exchange, transcending local languages and religious boundaries. Its prestigious status as the language of high culture, with an extensive literary tradition, underscores its significance in language instruction today. Finally, this talk highlights how the integration of music and poetry enhances language learning by fostering a deeper connection to the rhythm, structure, and expressive nuances of Persian. This multisensory approach not only aids in developing linguistic skills but also cultivates an appreciation for the artistic dimensions and cultural context that shape the language.
2. Prof. Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi as speaker in UChicago’s Heshmat Moayyad Lecture Series: Rights Civilization and Governmentality: The Cyrus Cylinder and ‘Equality Rights’ in Cold War Iran
The Department of Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Chicago is honored to have Prof. Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi as speaker in the Heshmat Moayyad Lecture Series 2025. The lecture will be in person and on zoom on Wednesday, Feb 19 at 5:00 PM US Central Time at The Tea Room, The Social Science Research Building.
Title
Rights Civilization and Governmentality: The Cyrus Cylinder and ‘Equality Rights’ in Cold War Iran
Abstract
“Rights Civilization and Governmentality: The Cyrus Cylinder and ‘Equality Rights’ in Cold War Iran” explores the interplay between historical memory, social rights, and the contested conceptions of governmentality and constitutionality in the four decades prior to the 1979 Revolution. Offering a corrective to the ideological and linear revolutionary narratives of Pahlavi Iran, this historical inquiry elucidates how a multi-confessional conception of Iran and its constitutionally sanctioned “equality rights” of citizens was reconceived at “a moment of danger” during WWII when Iran was invaded by the Allied forces and Reza Shah Pahlavi (r. 1925-1941) was forced to abdicate. It explores how the endeavor for the promotion of legal equality of women and non-Muslims was opposed on religious and constitutional grounds by those who conceived of Iran as a “Shi‘i nation” (millat-i Shi‘ah). Exploring the concurrent and protracted efforts of lawyers and jurists (fuqaha) to promote two divergent modes of governing the everyday conduct of citizens—one based on “equality rights” and the other on Islamic jurisprudence––this lecture offers a historically situated account of the rights question in Iran in the decades before the 1979 Revolution.
Please register here to get the zoom link:
3. February 26, 12:00-1:00 pm
Near Eastern Studies and Digital Scholarship @IAS virtual event:
Opportunities and Challenges for Indexing a Polyglot Society: The Development of HIMME
Thomas A. Carlson (School of Historical Studies, IAS and Oklahoma State University).
More languages and literary traditions existed simultaneously in the medieval Middle East than any individual scholar can hope to master. Disciplinary norms have mandated that scholars focus on one or perhaps two languages, but the actual historical society was bewilderingly polyglot. Can digital methods provide an opportunity for overcoming our individual scholarly limitations? On the other hand, what dynamics of multilingual cultures challenge modern digital approaches themselves? This talk will open a conversation centered around the development of the Historical Index of the Medieval Middle East (HIMME: https://medievalmideast.org/)
Registration is required: https://bit.ly/HIMME
https://www.ias.edu/hs/islamic-world/events
https://www.ias.edu/digital-scholarship/events_ias
4. Scholarships | The E J W Gibb Memorial Trust
This year The Gibb Memorial Trust is offering three annual scholarships to students undertaking doctoral research in the field of the Trust’s activities.
The Gibb Memorial Trust’s Centenary Scholarship of up to £2,000 is available to postgraduate students at an advanced stage of their doctoral research in any area of Middle Eastern Studies (7th century to 1918) at a British university.
Centenary Scholarship application form & past recipients
Two A. H. Morton Memorial Scholarship for Doctoral Research in Classical Persian Studies for a maximum of £3,000 each and can be applied to any year of a course of doctoral study at a British university, including for an approved period of study abroad.
Applicants may apply for only one of the scholarships in any one year. Previous winners may not re-apply for the same scholarship.
Applications must be submitted by 31 March 2025. The result will be announced at the end of June and posted on our web site.
For any questions, please contact the Secretary, Zuher Hassan, at secretary@gibbtrust.org.
5. The Armenian School of Languages and Cultures – ASPIRANTUM, is organizing a Persian language summer school in Yerevan, Armenia. The program starts on June 22, June 29, or July 6, and you can stay up to 10 weeks until August 29, 2025. If you prefer a shorter program, there are options for 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 weeks. To get more information and apply, please refer to the details below.
Find more details and apply here: https://aspirantum.com/courses/persian-language-summer-school
Deadline: May 28, 2025.
Deadline for discounted fee: March 15, 2025
2025 Persian language summer school will help the participants master written and oral modern Persian skills, read and interpret Persian texts from different periods, and rapidly deepen their knowledge in colloquial Persian.
10 weeks – 200 contact hours (1 hour = 60 minutes)
9 weeks – 180 contact hours
8 weeks – 160 contact hours
7 weeks – 140 contact hours
6 weeks – 120 contact hours
5 weeks – 100 contact hours
Every day, the participants will receive Persian language instruction for 4 hours and after-class lectures, and extra training. The classes start in the mornings or noon, and the schedule is the following:
09:00 (14:00) – 10:00 (15:00) – Persian language class
10:00 (15:00) – 10:10 (15:10) – Coffee Break
10:10 (15:10) – 11:10 (16:10) – Persian language class
11:10 (16:10) – 11:20 (16:20) – Coffee Break
11:20 (16:20) – 12:20 (17:20) – Persian language class
12:20 (17:20) – 12:30 (17:30) – Coffee Break
12:30 (17:30) – 13:30 (18:30) – Persian language class (fourth and final class)
During the Persian language summer classes, the following components will be covered every day to foster the Persian language knowledge of participants:
Grammar: Everyday class will cover the main grammatical concepts of the modern Persian language as well as parallels with classical Persian.
Vocabulary: During the 10 weeks course it is anticipated that the participants will learn around 1500 new Persian words from literary language as well as 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 and watch and listen to the 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: Everyday 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 as well as news of the day.
Contact Information
ASPIRANTUM – Armenian School of Languages and Cultures
3rd floor, 6 Yekmalyan St, Yerevan 0002, Armenia
Contact Email
URL
https://aspirantum.com/courses/persian-language-summer-school
6. The Editorial Board of the Journal of Oriental Studies (Արևելագիտության հարցեր; JOS) invites contributions of articles, research notes, and book reviews for the upcoming open-topic volume of the journal to be published in 2025․
JOS is an interdisciplinary and inter-regional journal published by the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Yerevan State University.
We publish research articles on diverse topics related to the fields of history, religion, linguistics, literature, archaeology, social and cultural anthropology of the Arabic Countries, Iran, Central Asia, Turkey (the Ottoman Empire), and the Caucasus as well as Armenian Genocide and Diaspora Studies.
Every article submitted to JOS has to pass a double-blind peer review process before being considered for publication. Before entering the peer review process, the submissions have to pass a first assessment round conducted by the editors aiming to determine whether the overall composition of the manuscript (topic, language, length) meets the journal’s requirements. If the article does not comply with the topics of the Journal, it is excluded from revision, and the author is being notified about it.
Contributions for publication can be submitted via the journal’s website https://journals.ysu.am/index.php/j-orient-stud.
A typical article for the JOS should be between 25000-30000 symbols (including spaces). Publication languages are English and Russian.
For more details and information, please visit: https://journals.ysu.am/index.php/j-orient-stud/about/submissions .
No fee is charged to the authors for the articles to be published in our journal.
The deadline for submission of articles for Volume XVII is 1 April 2025.
Please direct any questions about submissions to jos@ysu.am
Contact Information
Dr. Naira Poghosyan, Associate Professor, Yerevan State University, nairapoghosyan@ysu.am .
Contact Email
URL
https://journals.ysu.am/index.php/j-orient-stud/announcement/view/11
7. Lecture – “Using Linked Open Data to Make Visible Links between Islamic Heritage Collections across the British International Research Institutes Network,” VIAHSS – February 4
We are pleased to invite you to join us for our next talk, which will take place on Tuesday, February 4, 2025, at 12:00 NYC / 17:00 London / 20:00 Istanbul.
Jessica Holland (British School at Athens), David Maina (British Institute of East Africa), and Anne Marie Williamson (British Institute for Libyan and Northern African Studies) will present “Using Linked Open Data to Make Visible Links between Islamic Heritage Collections across the British International Research Institutes Network.”
To attend, please make sure to register in advance here:
https://wellesley.zoom.us/meeting/register/t_-oLYqESaydiWgrfEZSpA
Upon registration, you’ll receive the link to access the lecture.
As always, you can find a full schedule of upcoming talks and register for our list-serv on our website at viahss.org. Although not every talk is recorded, we also have recordings of several recent talks available on the VIAHSS Vimeo page at vimeo.com/viahss. Lastly, you can follow us on X at @viahss and on Instagram at @theviahss to stay up to date on upcoming events!
Contact Information
Drs. Alexander Brey, Jaimee Comstock-Skipp, and Rachel Winter
Contact Email
URL
8. THE TEXTILE MUSEUM JOURNAL AUTHOR INTERVIEW SERIES
Dear Colleagues,
Please join us for the last program in the 2025 The Textile Museum Journal Author Interview
Between Ornament and Structure: Carpets in Modern Art and Architecture
January 29, 12pm EST (virtual)
Farniyaz Zaker explores the role of carpets in modern art and architecture. Drawing on Gottfried Semper’s idea that architecture has its roots in textiles, Zaker investigates how modern architecture and art use textiles — especially carpets — to shape our perception of space, creating a sense of enclosure and physicality. For a description of this segment of the program and registration, please visit: https://museum.gwu.edu/textile-museum-journal-between-ornament-and-structure-carpets-modern-art-and-architecture
The author interviews from the previous four years are available at the museum’s Vimeo site for viewing. Please feel free to share the links with your friends, colleagues, or anyone whom you think will be interested in learning about the subjects.
TEXTILES ACROSS TIME
2024
A 14th-Century Asian Silk in a Monastic Manuscript with Dr. Nikolaos Vryzidis
Link: https://vimeo.com/903797919
Two Velvet Letter Pouches and Their Role in Safavid Diplomacy with Dr. Anna Jolly and Dr. Corinne Mühlemann
Link: https://vimeo.com/906100824
Reading Mosurin Wool Textiles in Imperial Japan with Yu-Ning Chen
Link: https://vimeo.com/908387173
TEXTILES AND MATHEMATICS
2023
Keeping Nasca Time: The Brooklyn Museum Textile as a 365-Day Calendar with Dr. Lois Martin
Link: https://vimeo.com/790174356
Indigenous Knotted-Cord Records in Costa Rica with Dr. Scott Palumbo and Dr. Keilyn Rodríguez Sánchez
Link: https://vimeo.com/790913337
Crafting Novel Knotted Textiles with Mathematics with Dr. Nithikul Nimkulrat
Link: https://vimeo.com/793090266
Weaving a No-Waste Garment on the Loom: Understanding Gaussian Curvature with Dr. Eva Knoll, Département de mathématiques at the Université du Québec à Montréal
Link: https://vimeo.com/795343342
GLOBAL AFRICA
2022
The Quilts of Bisa Butler with Dr. Nancy Demerdash
Link: https://vimeo.com/673313352
Reconstructing the Historical “Akhnif” of Southern Morocco with Dr. Myriem Naji
Link: https://vimeo.com/675956827
Getting to Know Early Modern Kongo Textiles with Dr. Cécile Fromont
Link: https://vimeo.com/680523397
Royal Garments of the Emir of Kano with Dr. Elisha P. Renne
Link: https://vimeo.com/681476100
Indigo Reimagined with Peju Layiwola with Dr. Jean Borgatti and Dr. Peju Layiwola
Link: https://vimeo.com/687199309
Zohra Opoku’s Poetic Image Making with Dr. Silvia Forni
Link: https://vimeo.com/687508079
COLOR
2021
Brilliance, Color, and the Manipulation of Light in Andean Textile Traditions with Dr. Elena Phipps
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Asian Textiles in Portuguese Collections with Dr. Jessica Hallett, Dr. Raquel Santos, Dr. Blythe McCarthy, Dr. Ana Claro, Dr. Maria João Ferreira, Curator
Color, Expectations, and Authenticity in Oriental Carpets with Prof. Dr. Walter Denny
Dyers’ Notebooks in Eighteenth-Century England and France with Dr. Anita Quye
https://player.vimeo.com/video/522876661?h=3291189d3e
We very much hope that you will join us in as many programs as you can and also enjoy reading our current volume.
With best wishes,
The Textile Museum Journal Editorial Tea
Contact Information
The Textile Museum Journal (tmjournal@gwu.edu)
Contact Email
URL
https://museum.gwu.edu/textile-museum-journal
9. What is Islam About: Concept and Conceptualization of Islam from an Interdisciplinary Perspective
21-22 February 2025, Goethe-University Frankfurt
The terms ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslims’ are part of our scientific discussions and social reality. We conduct research on Islam in the past and the present and study texts, artefacts and people in various disciplines from different perspectives and in many places. A preliminary overview of research shows that the two terms signify different things both within different disciplines and in exchanges between them. Nevertheless, the various academic fields seem to share several premises: Muslims are often viewed as a collective, Islam is regarded as a subject (or a ‘thing’) and the historical continuity of Islam is assumed. An interdisciplinary discussion of these assumptions is absent. At this workshop, we look at different academic disciplines and their explicit and implicit premises about Islam. In particular, we examine how Islam has been, and is, defined and conceptualized by modern scholars from Islamic Theology, Islamic Studies, Religious Studies, History, Art History, Archaeology and Anthropology. At the same time, we explore the concept and conceptualization of Islam in different periods in history and in various sources. Through this interdisciplinary and diachronic comparison, we would like to start a discussion on what Islam could mean and how to apply the concept in our research.
Program in the link: What is Islam About, Frankfurt, 21-22 February 2025
Contact Information
Hagit Nol
Contact Email
10. CFP – Islamic Archaeology Conference, Warsaw – November 5-8
Islamic Archaeology as a discipline has seen a spectacular growth in complexity and amount of themes in the last two decades. After a long period, in which Islamic Archaeology and Art History in Middle Eastern and North African countries were entangled, the discipline has found a new life in the 21st century by adopting new perspectives and expanding to new research areas. The materials that constitute its subject of study and the groups of researchers that address it are spread worldwide, and therefore a range of points of view and expectations from different archaeological traditions have been developed. It is a good time now to address this variety in the discipline in search of common trends and interests.
Islamic Archaeology Conference 2025 invites researchers and professionals worldwide to comprehensively explore the Islamic material culture and analyse historical narratives and syntheses that the discipline contributes to. The committee welcomes abstracts from scholars of all nationalities. We particularly encourage submissions from graduate students and early career researchers. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by a committee of international experts and accepted or rejected solely on the basis of academic merit.
We welcome paper submissions on a wide range of topics related to the archaeology of the Islamic world of all periods, including but not limited to:
- Archaeological Fieldwork: recent archaeological results.
- Urban and Rural Landscapes: the organisation and development of cities and rural settlements.
- Built Environments: structures, water installations, and architectural elements.
- Burial and Off-Site Archaeology.
- Artifacts: studies on ceramics, metalwork, glass, textiles, and other objects and raw materials.
- Trade, Exchange and Networks.
- Cultural Interactions.
- Methodological and Theoretical Advances: New approaches and technologies in Islamic archaeology.
We also invite pre-arranged panels dedicated to well-defined themes in Islamic archaeology.
Submission Guidelines
Papers: 150-250 word abstract outlining the research objectives, methodologies, and preliminary findings. Please note that each conference presentation will be 20 minutes long maximum.
Panels: 300 word abstract including:
- Introduction to the topic;
- The envisioned structure of the panel: the number of speakers, and length of particular presentations and discussions. We encourage formats that promote a vigorous exchange of ideas;
- Short information on the convenor (the person submitting the proposal);
- Provisional list of participants.
Formatting: Abstracts should be submitted in Times New Roman, 12-point font, and include a title and the author’s names and affiliations. The conference’s language is English.
Speakers fees:
25€ for Professionals
Free of charge for students
Important Dates:
Abstract submission deadline: 31 March 2025
Notification of acceptance: 31 May 2025
Contact Information
Karol Juchniewicz and Agnieszka Lic, Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
Contact Email
URL
https://www.academia.edu/127102550/CfP_Islamic_Archaeology_Conference_2025_Wars…
11. Ilkhanid Capital Cities: Transcultural Interactions, part of the Edinburgh Historical Studies of Iran and the Persian Worldseries by Edinburgh University Press.
Atri Hatef Naiemi
https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-ilkhanid-capital-cities.html
(Use the code NEW30 for 30% off the listed purchase price.)
- January 28, 2025
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment