Archive for June, 2025

1.HYBRIDE Journée d’étude „Étudier les polices au Moyen-Orient : penser les formes d’États du VIIIe siècle à nos jours“, CAREP Paris, 23 juin 2025, 09h30 – 17h30 CET

Information, programme, et inscription: https://tinyurl.com/3vnhd4dt

 

 

 

 

 

2. Symposium “Islamic Law in Comparative Perspectives: Milestones, Methods, and Epistemologies” in Honour of Professor Nadjma Yassari, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg, 3-4 July 2025

This event will celebrate the extensive and influential research of Professor Nadjma Yassari (Director of the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law) on Islamic law, as well as her outstanding contributions to the field of comparative law. The symposium will feature several panels that explore the past, present, and future of these disciplines together with former members of the research group, colleagues, and long-standing collaborators.

Information and registration: https://tinyurl.com/ne9vbuay

 

 

 

 

 

3. ONLINE 10th Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Turkic Languages (AATT): “Bridging Tradition & Technology in Teaching Turkic Languages: Strategies for the Future”, 17 October 2025

Deadline for abstracts: 15 July 2025. Information: https://tinyurl.com/e2s9k8mz

 

 

 

 

 

4. Research Conference on “AI Methodologies and Applications in Middle Eastern/Islamic World Studies”, Global Studies Centre, Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait, 4-5 February 2026

Themes: 1. Opportunities/Challenges/Ethics in incorporating AI in the methodology of the Social Sciences and Humanities disciplines. – 2. Specific Social Sciences or Humanities research projects or applications with significant use of AI or other digital technologies in Middle Eastern and Islamic World Studies. – 3. AI applications in religious law, textual commentary and prophetic traditions. – 4. AI applications in the cultural heritage of the Middle East and Islamic World.

Deadline for abstracts: 1 October 2025. Information: https://www.gust.edu.kw/gsc

 

 

 

 

 

5. Assistant Professor (2 Years) in Political Science with Emphasis on the Middle East, The American University in Cairo

Requirements: A PhD is required at the time of appointment. Candidates should demonstrate excellence in teaching and have an active research agenda. Candidates with experience in and familiarity with the North American higher educational system are preferred.

Deadline for applications: 1 January 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/yeyjpf4a

 

 

 

 

 

6. Articles for the “Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (TJMES)”, Issue December 2025, Middle East Institute of Sakarya University

TJMES welcomes academic contributions to all aspects of the Middle East. TJMES prefers research written from multi-disciplinary perspectives and from a number of fields, including but not limited to international relations, politics, sociology, history, geopolitics, philosophy, war and peace studies, security, and economics. Particularly, the journal welcomes contemporary issues regarding the Middle Eastern countries.

Information: https://tinyurl.com/ycxyt3am

 

 

 

 

 

7. Intellect is pleased to present Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research 18.1.

For more information about the journal and issue click here:

https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-arab-muslim-media-research

and

https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/jammr/browse

 

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

Digital Data Training Session: Creating sustainable data resources – escaping the technology obsolescence vortex

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

Registration

 

 

 

 

 

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.

https://kanooneiranian.org/2025/06/03/%d8%aa%d8%b1%d8%ac%d9%85%d9%87-%d8%b4%d8%b9%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d8%b2-%d8%b2%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%87%d8%a7%db%8c-%d8%af%db%8c%da%af%d8%b1-%d8%a8%d9%87-%d9%81%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%b3%db%8c-%d8%a8%d8%b1%d8%a7%db%8c/

 

 

 

 

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’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0ldslyr?at_campaign=crm&at_medium=emails&at_campaign_type=owned&at_objective=conversion&at_ptr_name=salesforce&at_ptr_type=media&at_creation=[88024_worldservicenewsletter050625]-20250606-[bbcrworldservice_documentary_iran_headline]

 

 

 

 

10. We are delighted to announce the launch of the official MELA Notes YouTube channel!

Visit and subscribe here

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

 

Was There an Early Imāmī Shīʿī Legal System?

Spiritual Gems: The Mystical Qur’an Commentary, ascribed to Ja’ far al-Sadiq

Al-Mahdi Institute is proud to announce the launch of the Postgraduate Diploma in Islamic Studies (PGDip.) – a 7-month online course that bridges the depth of seminary (ḥawza) learning with the critical rigour of academic scholarship. Designed for students and researchers with a background in Islamic Studies, Social Sciences, or the Humanities, the PGDip. is entirely in English, without the requirement for Arabic language proficiency.

This PGDip. is ideal for those seeking a critical and analytical approach to Islamic thought while balancing professional or academic commitments, with just 3 hours of teaching per week. Graduates will also have the opportunity to progress to a fully funded MA in Islamic Studies, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham.

Applications for the PGDip. starting on 1st October 2025, are now open! Limited funding is available, and we encourage early applications to be considered for funding.

📄 Read the prospectus: ami.is/pdis-pdf
🔗 Learn more and apply now: ami.is/pdis

1. Persianate Prose and the Making of Malay Muslim Literature

M Daneshgar

Edinburgh U Press, 2025

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-persianate-prose-and-the-making-of-malay-muslim-literature.html

 

 

 

 

 

2. Graduate Student Paper Award of the “Association of Middle East Children and Youth Studies (AMECYS)”

The AMECYS Graduate Student Paper Prize was established in 2018 to recognize an outstanding graduate contribution to the study of children and youth in the Middle East, North Africa and their diasporic communities. Papers must not have yet been published or submitted for publication. Papers may constitute stand-alone articles or book chapters, and may be at a stage of being readied for journal, monograph, or edited book publication.

Deadline for contributions: 1 August 2025. Information: https://tinyurl.com/rbhf2vtm

 

 

 

 

 

3. Introduction to Pahlavi: Online Summer School of Zoroastrian Middle Persian

July 21 – August 7

The course is designed as an intensive introduction to Zoroastrian Middle Persian, and the literature written in that language, with discussions of broader linguistic, historical and cultural contexts.

https://ferdowsi.org/introduction-to-pahlavi-online-4/

After completing this course, with a total duration of 36 hours, you will be able to easily read Pahlavi texts, such as Kārnāmag ī Ardaxšēr ī Pābagān, Ardā-Wīrāz-Nāmag, Ayādgār ī Zarērān, Bundahišn, etc. on your own. Apart from learning to read in Inscriptional Pahlavi script, a broad overview of the principles of Book Pahlavi script will also be given, which will help you to continue studying the latter later on your own.

Information on the Ferdowsi School of Persian Literature is here.

About the experiences of previous students see here: Testimonials.

Ruben S. Nikoghosyan

Ferdowsi School of Persian Literature

Yerevan, Armenia

Website: www.ferdowsi.org

 

 

 

4. The Great Lakes Adiban Society (GLAS) Ninth Annual Workshop will be held Friday–Sunday, October 10–12, 2025, at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. 

GLAS provides a regional forum for scholars of Islamicate adab to meet and share their work. We leave our parameters of language and genre intentionally open to invite as wide a collaboration as can be useful. As a group we are generally interested in the literary production of the broad complex of premodern Islamicate societies across the Eastern Hemisphere grounded in similar literary conventions. Thus, our scope focuses on past texts and traditions from the languages of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu, as well as many others including Armenian, Dravidian languages, Kurdish, Georgian, Hebrew and Jewish languages, as well as Slavic languages.

This year, GLAS and the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program will host a special guest. On Friday, October 10, 2025, at 16:00 , Professor Jamal Elias will kick off our workshop by discussing his forthcoming book, After Rumi: The Mevlevis and Their World  (Harvard Univ. Press, 2025). This talk will be open to the public and will be followed by a reception.

For the workshop on Saturday and Sunday, October 11 and 12, 2025, GLAS welcomes works in progress that would benefit from extensive discussion and feedback, especially for graduate students and early career scholars. Please submit a proposal by filling out this google form by August 1, 2025.  We expect to notify presenters by August 15.

For graduate students: we have a limited amount of funding for travel and lodging (to request funding, see the google form).

For questions and inquiries, please write Jonathan.Brack@northwestern.edu.

 

 

 

 

 

5. Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis 1967-1977 جشن هنر شیراز

M Afshar

Mage, 2025

https://mage.com/festival-of-arts-shiraz-persepolis-1967-1977-%d8%ac%d8%b4%d9%86-%d9%87%d9%86%d8%b1-%d8%b4%db%8c%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%b2/

For an interview with the author, produced by Pejman Akbarzadeh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etoaEjSR7WM

 

 

 

 

6. The Society for the History of Discoveries announces its 2025 Student Prizes for best graduate and undergraduate student research papers in the history of geographic discoveries.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Monday, June 16th, 2025.

Areas of eligible research include: voyages of exploration, travel narratives, biography relevant to the history of discoveries and exploration, history, cartography, the technologies of travel, impact of travel and cultural exchange, and other aspects of geographic discovery and exploration.

Who is Eligible: Students from any part of the globe currently enrolled in a college or university degree program and who will not have received a doctoral degree prior to 1 June of the submission year. Note: Graduating high school or college students accepted into a program but who do not begin classes until fall of the submission year are NOT eligible. The Research Paper: An eligible research paper shall be original and unpublished, written in English, between 3,000 and 8,000 words, plus footnotes or endnotes. Papers written for college or university class assignments are encouraged, but students may write specifically for this prize. A reasonable amount of illustrative and tabular material will be welcome, but is not required.

The awardee in the graduate student category will receive a prize of $500.00 (US) and the awardee in the undergraduate category will receive a prize of $250 (US). Both winners will be invited to present a version of the paper at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Discoveries. Information about participation in the conference will be provided to the awardee upon notification of the award, including details concerning costs and travel funding. Acceptance of the prize is not contingent upon your ability to attend the conference. Additionally, the awardee will be invited to submit the winning paper to the society’s peer reviewed journal, Terrae Incognitae, for which it will undergo the usual review process prior to formal acceptance for publication, of which there is no guarantee.

For more information on submission format and eligibility see https://discoveryhistory.org/student-prize

Questions? Contact Dr. Cardona, committee chair Mylynka.Cardona@tamuc.edu

Contact Information

Dr. Mylynka Cardona

Contact Email

mylynka.cardona@tamuc.edu

URL

https://discoveryhistory.org/student-prize

 

 

 

 

7. North Carolina State University – Assistant Professor in the history of Arab Migration, Mobility and Diaspora

https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=68790

Closing date: Open until filled

 

Application Deadline: 14th June 2025