Archive for June 7th, 2025
Shii News – Academic Items
1.ONLINE Webinar The amazing technicolor Yusuf u Zulaykha manuscript from Bukhara in the Sissinghurst collection
with Jamie Comstock-Skipp
British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS), 18 June 2025, 5:00 pm UK Time
Jaimee Comstock-Skipp will give a lecture on a recently conserved illustrated Persian manuscript belonging to Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson located in Sissinghurst Castle. It is a copy of Yusuf and Zulaykha, a mystical love story composed by the poet Jami, made in Bukhara (present-day Uzbekistan) in the early 1570s. The manuscript is connected to an extraordinary period of commercial productivity in the absence of royal patronage, and is connected to spiritual and economic networks spanning Central and South Asia. The manuscript may have journeyed from its original creation site in Central Asia; was dispatched to India for sale in the country ca. late 16th century or early in the 17th; then perhaps it had a stint in Istanbul or Iran in the late 19th or early 20th centuries, before being carried off to British soil by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. Or, Harold’s father, Arthur Nicolson—Lord Carnock—was part of the British Legation in Tehran and may have acquired it there earlier. The Bukharan manuscript testifies to thriving trade crossing continents in the early-modern period, as in our present age
Information and registration:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8_NWTitGS_uBEC98UpACIQ#/registration
2. ‘What the Qur’an really says about Jews, Judaism, and the Bible’
The event is generously hosted at the Aga Khan Centre and is sponsored by the Institute of Ismaili Studies and the Woolf Institute.
Date: 2 July 2025
Time: 13:00 – 14:30 (light lunch will be available from 12:15)
Location: Aga Khan Centre, 10 Handyside Street, London.
The event is free, but registration is required.
To register, please click here.
For more information about the event, please visit the event’s site here.
3. “Words Left Unsaid: A Tribute to Professor Franklin Lewis” a special issue of Middle Eastern Literatures edited by Sunil Sharma.
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/came20/27/1
4. Call for Submissions to an Edited Volume: Deadline July 1, 2025
“My Blood is Cheaper than Oil”: Arabic Literature and the Encounter with Petropolitics
How have 20th-century oil discoveries in the MENA region shaped the emergence of what came to be known as ‘Arab modernity’? How has modern Arabic literature reimagined domestic and social relationships with and through oil? And how have the increasingly precarious conditions of oil production, consumption, and theft over the course of a century transformed the Arabic literary imagination?
More than a material resource, oil is deeply entangled with the cultural production of home, nation, identity, race, religion, family, and legal status. Its presence permeates allegories, metaphors, literary genres, and framing practices. The violent traces of war and the haunting fumes of traumatic memory linger in the words and lacunae of Arabic literature. In Arabic discourse, oil has been both an evocative and lucrative symbol (of prosperity, modernity, war, and hegemony) and a material force shaping everyday life—driving urban development, education, the rise of civil society, the formation of a modern intellectual class, and traumatic phenomena such as epidemics, bodily deformities, forced migration, dispossession, and mass murder. Oil has also seeped into the domestic domain of literature, such as familial gestures, relations, affects, languages, and silences.
This edited volume seeks to center the narratives, affects, temporalities, and life worlds of oil in Arabic literature. From early encounters with oil discoveries and the rise of multinational petroleum industries to contemporary engagements with the aftermaths of petropolitics, the collection brings together diverse literary perspectives on oil’s profound impact on Arab cultures.
We invite chapter submissions for a peer-edited anthology on Arabic literature’s encounter with oil. Contributions may engage with Arabic poetry, short stories, or novels that explore the poetics and practices of oil culture in Arab spaces and their transnational ramifications. This call is open to a broad range of thematic and theoretical approaches. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Oil and migration, land dispossession, and diaspora
- Oil and archaeology, indigeneity, and monumental history
- Oil and war, coloniality, and environmental devastation
- Oil and transnationalism, globalization, and neoliberalism
- Oil and urban utopias/dystopias
- Oil as an archive and index of identity, race, and place
- Multisensory experiences of oil
- Memoirs of oil and empire
- Genealogies of oil
- Oil and the ecological nomad
- Storytelling through oil
Submission Guidelines:
Please send 250-word abstracts and a short bio to yhanoosh@gmail.com and yasminekhayyat@gmail.com by July 1, 2025. Notifications of acceptance will be sent within two weeks after the deadline. Full manuscripts (6000-10,000 words) will be requested by February 20, 2026.
For any inquiries, feel free to contact the editors at the email addresses above.
5. SOAS Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies
10 – 11 June 2025
This workshop, which takes place on two half-days and is taught in person and online, introduces researchers and wider audiences to strategies for preserving research investment using digital methods for the long term through data standards designed for sustainability. Using the collection of Zoroastrian manuscripts at the M.F. Cama Athornan Institute in Mumbai as a case study, the workshop sets out policies for creating digital heritage imagery for long-term preservation.
Workshop participants will be introduced to the creation of a research data repository and to technologies for subsequently annotating imagery and geo-locations. They will also learn how to preserve both images and annotations effectively for the long-term.
On the second half-day, students will get hands-on experience in creating repository accounts of their own. The state-of-the-art annotation techniques presented on day 1 will also be demonstrated in practice.
- Tuesday, 10 June 2025, 2pm – 5.30pm
- Wednesday, 11 June 2025, 9:30am – 12.30pm
For further issues or questions, please email sspizs@soas.ac.uk
6. Translating poetry from other languages into Persian: For whom, why, and how? (With special focus on Brecht.)
A Talk in Persian on Zoom followed by Q&A.
June 9, 2025, 17:30 ET
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7032021982?pwd=R1QzdnFBQzdvdzJjY1YvQXFJcXdpUT09
Meeting ID: 703 202 1982
At the invitation of the Association of Friends of Iranian Culture (Washington), Saeed Yousef will give a speech entitled “Translating Poetry from Other Languages into Persian: For Whom? For what? How to? ” (with special emphasis on Brecht) with questions and answers
The link to attend the program is mentioned above and more information can be obtained through the link below.
7. Séminaire “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien”: annulation de la séance prévue ce jour, jeudi 5 juin 2025, et mise en ligne Canal-U
Nous sommes au regret de vous informer que la séance de clôture de notre séminaire prévue ce jour, jeudi 5 juin 2025, est annulée. L’intervention de Mme Alessandra Fiorentini sera reprogrammée dans l’édition 2025-2026 du séminaire “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien” à partir de la rentrée prochaine.
Nous reprendrons nos activités en octobre, avec un nouveau binôme d’organisateurs, puisqu’après avoir contribué, sept années durant, à l’encadrement du séminaire, Samra Azarnouche passe la main à Simon Berger, qui rejoint Justine Landau dans ces fonctions. En notre nom à toutes et à tous, nous adressons nos très chaleureux remerciements à Samra pour sa contribution au succès du séminaire sur le long cours – et à Simon pour avoir accepté de reprendre le flambeau.
Nos remerciements les plus vifs vont également à celles et ceux qui ont œuvré pour la diffusion et la pérennisation de nos activités de recherche grâce à la création de la chaîne Canal-U du CeRMI – et avant tout à Poupak Rafii Nejad pour avoir conduit ce projet à bon port, accompagnée de Céline Ferlita (ARDIS) dans le traitement des enregistrements et les formations dispensées auprès des membres et doctorant.e.s de l’équipe. Un grand merci également à Maryam Momtahen et à Davide Scarfagna qui se sont donné la peine d’acquérir la formation technique nécessaire pour assurer la captation des séances cette année. Vous retrouverez d’ores et déjà nombre d’interventions, ainsi que l’ensemble des cinq Conférences Yarshater 2024 prononcées par David Durand-Guédy, sous ce lien : https://www.canal-u.tv/chaines/cermi
Enfin, merci à l’ensemble de l’équipe pour son soutien sans faille et son assiduité à ce séminaire, et à vous toutes et tous qui contribuez si activement à l’enrichissement de nos échanges et de nos discussions.
Dans l’attente du plaisir de vous retrouver à la rentrée prochaine, nous vous souhaitons un très agréable été.
Bien cordialement,
Les organisatrices –
Samra Azarnouche et Justine Landau
Contact: justine.landau@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr
8. Fons Vitae: Sufi masters conversation w/ Peter Sanders, Mostafa al-Badawi & Michael Sugich
A unique conversation recorded in Cairo in December 2022 between three men who have kept company with some of the great living sages of Islam.
Michael Sugich is the author of Signs on the Horizons: Meetings with Men of Knowledge and Illumination and Hearts Turn: Sinners, Seekers, Saints. Peter Sanders is the world’s pre-eminent photographer of the culture and spirituality of Islam. Dr. Mostafa al-Badawi was a student and disciple of Habib Ahmad Mashhur al-Haddad from 1979 until his master’s death in 1995. He has devoted the last thirty-five years to the translation into English and interpretation of the knowledge and wisdom of the Ba ‘Alawi Way.
https://fonsvitae.com/about-us/
9. BBC World Service: ‘The riddle of Iranian cinema’
10. We are delighted to announce the launch of the official MELA Notes YouTube channel!
Our new channel will serve as a digital platform to share recorded events, book talks, author interviews, and other content related to Middle Eastern librarianship, scholarship, archives, and publishing. Whether you are a librarian, scholar, student, or simply interested in the intersections of the Middle East and library science, we invite you to explore and engage with our growing archive.
We encourage you to subscribe, like, and share the videos to help us amplify the voices and research featured in MELA Notes.
Warm regards,
The MELA Notes Editorial Board
11. MELA NOTES Book Talks series: ‘The Wonder of the World: Travel Journals of Hajj Sayyah in the U.S. (1874–1875)’ by Ali Ferdowsi
Date: Thursday, July 3, 2025
Time: 3:00 PM Eastern | 2:00 PM Central | 12:00 PM Pacific
Online via Zoom: https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/97244878701
12. Conference of the IUAES Commission on Anthropology of the Middle East: “Anthropology Trans-forming, Middle East in Tension”, Institut Franꞔais des Études Anatoliennes (IFEA), Istanbul, 10-12 September 2025
Panels: 1. Medicalisation. – 2. Games and Sports. – 3. Human-Animal Relations. – 4. Gender and Sexuality in Iran and the South Caucasus at the Turn of the 20th Century. – 5. Memoirs, Life Histories, Stories, Narratives, Oral History and Memory: Individuals of Middle Eastern Societies. – 6. New Realities: The Role of Technology in Shaping Everyday Life in the Middle East. – 7. Rituals in Movement: Pilgrimage, Globalization, and Diaspora. – Etc.
Deadline for abstracts: 15 June 2025. Information: https://iuaes.ir
13. Gulf Studies Tenth Annual Conference of Gulf Studies: “Bridging Tradition and Progress: Social Transformation Trends in the GCC States”, Qatar University, 16-17 November 2025
As GCC states pursue ambitious national transformation agendas, this conference will explore how these states ba-lance modernization with the preservation of identity, heritage, and social cohesion. Themes include identity, education, family, migration, soft power, and more – framed by the region’s National Visions.
Deadline for abstracts: 20 June 2025.
Information: https://www.qu.edu.qa/en-us/research/gulfstudies-center/events/call-for-papers
14. PhD Candidate (100 %) in the History of Medieval or Early Modern Palestine, Institute for the History and Anthropology of Religions, University of Lausanne
Qualifications: M.A. in History or an equivalent qualification, with a specialization in Islamic history or the history of the Middle East. – Excellent command of Classical Arabic. Proficiency in another source language relevant to the PhD project. – Strong proficiency in the Palestinian dialect. – In-depth knowledge of Palestinian territory and its institutions. – Excellent academic proficiency in French and/or English. – Competence in the use of modern digital research tools.
Deadline for applications: 15 June 2025. Information: https://tinyurl.com/3kb5n2yt
15. Three Doctoral Fellowships (1 Year) and one Postdoctoral Fellowship (6 Months) at the Center for Economic, Legal, and Social Studies (CEDEJ), Cairo
Fellows should be conducting research on modern and contemporary Egypt from humanities or social science perspectives. The fellows will reside in Egypt and participate in the academic life of the Center. They will receive office space, full access to the library, and a monthly stipend.
Deadline for applications: 15 June 2025. Information: communication@cedej-eg.org
16. Post-Doctoral Position (1 Year +) in the Project “Americas and the MENA Region” (American Studies/History), American University of Beirut
Requirements: Ph.D. in a relevant field, such as International Relations, Middle Eastern Studies, Latin American Studies, History, Sociology, or a related discipline. – A demonstrated research interest in the Americas and the MENA region. – Proven ability to work independently and collaboratively within a multidisciplinary environment. – Knowledge of Arabic and/or Spanish is an asset.
Deadline for applications: 15 June 2025. Information: https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=68767
- June 07, 2025
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment