Archive for 2026
- August 17, 2026
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1. CfP: seminar for ACLA, this year in Houston, TX, May 20-23, 2027
ACLA seminar, “The Best Companion: The Aesthetics of Book Love in Arabic Literature,” is now available on the ACLA website:
https://www.acla.org/seminar/05c7d866-cd74-46a7-8813-1779a18fd04e
The ACLA deadline for paper proposals is Sept 22, 2026.
2. Call for Contributions: Reframing Regions: Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East/North Africa in Comparative and Connected Perspectives [LASA Congress, Mexico City, Mexico, June 16-20, 2027
This roundtable brings together scholars working on the historical, cultural, and political connections between Latin America and the Caribbean and the Middle East and North Africa. Though scholarship on transnational and global Latin America has expanded considerably, exchanges between these regions remain relatively underexamined despite long histories of migration, commerce, diplomacy, religious exchange, political solidarity, and cultural production.
We invite participants to share works in progress, emerging research questions, methodological reflections, and conceptual approaches that illuminate the movements of people, ideas, texts, objects, and artistic practices across Latin America/the Caribbean and the MENA region from the early modern period to the present. We particularly welcome comparative and connected approaches, as well as work that considers these regions through the lenses of decolonial thought, translation, and transregional networks.
Rather than a series of formal paper presentations, the roundtable will center on conversation and collective exchange. Participants will offer brief interventions followed by an extended discussion among roundtable participants and audience members. We hope to foster a collaborative intellectual space in which scholars can share questions, approaches, and works in progress, identify connections across fields and regions, and explore possibilities for developing new research collaborations and conversations.
We welcome proposals from scholars at all career stages and from a range of disciplines, including history, anthropology, sociology, political science, religious studies, literary and cultural studies, media studies, art history, architecture, and related fields.
Submissions may describe a specific research project, a work in progress, a methodological or conceptual intervention, or a set of questions that would benefit from discussion in a roundtable setting. Submissions in Spanish as well as English will be considered for acceptance. Please reach out to elvira.blanco@columbia.edu by August 25.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Early modern and colonial encounters
- Migration, diaspora, exile, and transnational communities
- Comparative and connected histories of colonialism, nationalism, and state formation
- Anti-colonial thought, revolutionary movements, and political solidarities
- Literature, film, music, and other forms of cultural production across regions
- Translation, multilingualism, and the circulation of texts and ideas
- Religion, secularism, and identity
- Race, ethnicity, and indigeneity in comparative perspective
- Contemporary geopolitical, economic, and cultural relations between the regions
- Methodological and conceptual approaches to studying Latin America/the Caribbean and MENA in relation
Ali Noori PhD
Lecturer in Religion | Columbia University
Bahari Visiting Fellow (2026-27) in the Persian Arts of the Book | University of Oxford
alinoori@sas.upenn.edu | (404) 545 – 2785 | alinoori.net
3. The LOEWE Centre Dynamics of Religion (DynaRel) at Goethe University Frankfurt invites proposals for its first international annual conference, “Neighboring Textual and Intellectual Traditions: Dialogues, Polemics, and Translations.”
The conference examines textual and intellectual relationships between Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions from Late Antiquity to the present. It focuses on dialogue, polemics, and translation, asking how religious traditions relate to one another through processes of exchange, reception, appropriation, transformation, and demarcation. The Call for Papers may be of particular interest to scholars working on the medieval Islamic lands and their Jewish and Christian textual and intellectual contexts.
Contributions from both early-career and established scholars are welcome.
Conference: 1–3 February 2027
Venue: Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Conference language: English
Submission deadline: 31 August 2026
Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, together with a brief biographical note of no more than 100 words, to Selma Schwarz at schwarz.s@em.uni-frankfurt.de. Further information is available via the website link.
This announcement is submitted by Anja Glaser on behalf of the DynaRel Communications Team and the conference organisers.
Contact Information
Selma Schwarz
LOEWE Centre Dynamics of Religion (DynaRel), Goethe University Frankfurt
Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, together with a brief biographical note of no more than 100 words, by 31 August 2026.
Contact Email
URL
https://dynamiken-des-religioesen.uni-frankfurt.de/call-for-papers-erste-intern…
4. Call for submissions from Consequence Forum
For the Translations Feature in the spring 2027 issue, we invite previously unpublished translations from Farsi into English that examine the human, cultural, psychological, or historical consequences of war in Iran. We are particularly interested in work that moves beyond the battlefield to explore how violence is remembered, inherited, silenced, resisted, or reimagined, and how conflict reshapes memory, community, identity, and meaning across time.
We welcome:
1- Fiction and creative nonfiction up to 2,000 words
2- Up to five poems or ten pages of poetry
Submissions should include the English translation and the original Farsi text in a single Word document, along with brief author and translator biographies, a short cover letter, and confirmation that permission to translate and publish the work has been secured.
The reading period runs until October 15, 2026. Full submission guidelines are available here.
5. Call for Papers: ACLA Panel on the Question of National Allegory and Forms of Narrativity in the Global South
To propose a paper, please check this link.
The conference will be held in person at the University of Houston, May 20-23, 2027, and online, May 15 & 16, 2027.
If you have any questions about this panel, please reach out to either me (fshams@upenn.edu ) or Mohsen (mohsen.maleki@mail.utoronto.ca ).
Panel Abstract copied below:
“Beyond National Allegory: Forms of Narrativity in the Global South”
The emergence of the modern nation-state and the contested and uneven path of modernization generated a crisis of representation, giving rise to an extraordinary range of forms of narrativity throughout the Global South. Some writers depict this crisis-ridden era through nationalist narratives, while others frame it through allegories of ruin, exile, myth, apocalypse, fragmentation, oil, religion, the collapse of empires, or failed modernization. In his controversial essay “Third World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism”, Fredric Jameson argues that Third World literature must “necessarily” be national allegory, as in the Third World, the strict divisions between the libidinal-personal and the political-collective have not solidified. Aijaz Ahmad in “Jameson’s Rhetoric of Otherness and the National Allegory” reveals the problematic character of categories such as the Third World and the national allegory as master codes to explain “all” literary production.
Instead of asking whether Global South literature is or is not national allegory, this seminar asks how writers have navigated the shifting landscape of modernization and the turbulent formation and evolution of the nation-state through a diverse repertoire of narrative strategies and symbolic forms. If Jameson’s national allegory pinpoints one recurring strategy, what other allegorical modes arise from the heterogeneous experiences of colonization, partition, occupation, decolonization, oil extraction, ecological disaster, imperial collapse, migration, or religious tensions? As many of these nation-states brought together multiple linguistic, ethnic, and religious communities, what is the political significance of the narrative strategies through which writers have responded to the emergence of the nation-state and nationalism? How do these writers go beyond Jameson’s binary opposition of postmodernism and nationalism as the so-called cultures of the “first” and “third” world? What is the political significance of narrative strategies such as the recurring narrative of modernity as Fall? Going beyond Jameson’s “necessary” nationalist ideology, how do the writers of the Global South respond to what Ahmad calls “the multiplicities of intersecting conflicts based upon class, gender, nation, race, region, and so on,” and what narrative forms do they invent to capture this complex intersection? What other forms of collectivity beyond the category of the nation have these writers imagined? By mediating Jameson’s proposal through Ahmad, this seminar aims to show how “the national allegory” is one among many narrative strategies in the vast repertoire of allegorical responses through which writers have represented promises, contradictions, and failures of the modern nation-state and the modernization process. We welcome papers that examine the literary, cinematic, and artistic representations of modernity, modernization, and the nation-state across the Global South.
6. Hikmat International Institute is pleased to announce its
Each course consists of one live online session per week, providing an opportunity for sustained study, discussion, and direct engagement with the lecturer.
- Exploring and Understanding Islam in the West
Lecturer: Dr Chris Hewer
Schedule: Thursdays | 02:00 P.M UTC
This course explores Islam and the ways in which it has been understood and encountered in Western contexts, offering participants an opportunity to engage with important questions surrounding Islam, Muslim thought, and contemporary Western perspectives.
- Avicenna’s Metaphysics
Lecturer: Dr Jari Kaukua
Schedule: Wednesdays | 01:00 P.M UTC
An in-depth exploration of Avicenna’s metaphysics, covering key themes such as essence and existence, modal logic, the Necessary Existent, God’s knowledge of particulars, future contingency, and freedom of the will. The course brings classical Avicennian thought into conversation with contemporary philosophical questions.
- The Abrahamic Twelvefold: Authority, Anthropology, and Covenant
Lecturer: Dr Kurt Anders Richardson
Schedule: Tuesdays | 04:00 P.M UTC
A cross-tradition exploration of authority, anthropology, and covenant in Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Persian intellectual traditions. Drawing on scriptural, theological, philosophical, and mystical sources, the course examines themes including human nature, mortality, covenant, religious authority, and contemporary questions concerning ecology, technology, and human destiny.
Registration Deadline: September 1, 2026
For full course descriptions, schedules, lecturer information, and registration, please visit:
https://hikmat-ins.com/weekly-live-courses/
7. The Mohamed Ali Foundation Fellowship Advisory Panel welcomes applications for the 2027 Mohamed Ali Foundation fellowships, the residencies for which will run from 26 April-25 June 2027.
The Mohamed Ali Foundation is a UK charity whose aims include advancing the education of the public in the history of the Islamic World, of Egypt and of the Mohamed Ali Family in particular, especially the period of reign of Khedive Abbas Hilmi II (1892-1914).
In 2018 the Mohamed Ali Foundation announced the launch of this Fellowship Programme, and which is established to devote scholarly attention to the Abbas Hilmi II Papers held at Durham University and to make the collection’s strengths more widely known to scholars. It is hoped that the fellows’ work will foster deeper understanding of an important period of Egyptian history, and of a transformative era in East -West relations.
The fellowship programme is based at Durham University and managed by an international Advisory Panel comprising academic subject specialists. The programme began in 2019 with the residency of the first fellow Dr Pascale Ghazaleh of the American University in Cairo: her inaugural lecture and the lectures of subsequent fellows are now available online. More fellowships will be awarded over the next years. An Advisory Panel, chaired by Professor Anoush Ehteshami of the Institute for Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies will appoint one or two fellows each year.
Fellows will be early career (post-doctoral) or established scholars. The nature of the collection will often require good reading knowledge of Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, French, and English. The online catalogue of the collection indicates the languages of each file of material.
Fellows will research the Abbas Hilmi II Papers, on an agreed topic, and deliver a lecture at Durham University. Each lecture will ultimately form a chapter in a volume of high quality and original research to be edited by Dr Ghazaleh. In the interim the lectures will be published in the university’s Middle East Papers series. The breadth of material in the Abbas Hilmi II Papers will reward an interdisciplinary approach. In order to guide candidate fellows an outline plan of this volume is now provided in the fellowship application documentation. This is not intended to be prescriptive and the Advisory Panel will consider alternative suggestions so long as they are well-grounded in the Abbas Hilmi II Papers and this is evidenced in the application proposal.
The Fellowship, tenable jointly in IMEIS and Grey College, entitles the holder to full access during their residency to departmental and other University facilities such as Computing and Information Services and the University Library. Accommodation is provided at Durham during the Easter term (28 April-27 June 2025), but there is flexibility to arrange residencies in different terms to suit fellows’ availability, and fellows may be permitted to reside in Cairo or Istanbul for the duration of the fellowship and using the digitised collection which is freely accessible online. All fellows will visit Durham, if only briefly, in order to deliver their lecture in June. Lectures and other activities elsewhere during the fellowship will be encouraged.
Fellows who reside at Durham will also be encouraged to take a full part in academic and collegiate life, delivering the already mentioned lecture and perhaps also contributing to seminars.
Fellows will be awarded an honorarium upon completion of their fellowship, and accommodation and all meals will be provided for the duration of the fellowship; a research travel grant is also available to each fellow.
In this, the final year of the fellowship programme, the panel is particularly interested in applicants working on the following topics:
- Infrastructure in its social and political context;
- The use of new technologies in promoting and publicising the Khedive to a wide audience;
- Gender dynamics within the Khedival family and Egyptian society at large during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries;
- The Khedive’s estate and holdings, with a focus on the management of these assets through such mechanisms as waqf;
- The nationalist movement and its relation to the Khedive;
- Political activism, especially by secret organizations using e.g. assassination as a means of protest
Applicants are advised to familiarise themselves with the online catalogue of the Abbas Hilmi II Papers, or the collection itself, and to review the outline plan of the edited volume provided below. More detailed information on the fellowship programme is also provided.
Application Process
The application period for the 2027 fellowship begins in August 2026.
Applicants are required to undertake the following:
- Complete the Application Form
- Send a copy of your Project Proposal (2-3 pages) alongside a copy of your CV (Curriculum Vitae) in support of your application to maf.fellow@durham.ac.uk
*Please note you will be required to complete both stages of this process in order for your application to be considered.
The deadline for 2027 Fellowship programme applications to be received is Tuesday 20 October 2026.
Enquiries can be directed to maf.fellow@durham.ac.uk
8. CFP: Byzantium from the Margins: Critical Perspectives on the Historiography of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean Panel at the International Congress on Medieval Studies
Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture Sponsored Panel
62nd International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
May 13–15, 2027
Organizers: Catherine McNally (MIT) and Andy Chen (Harvard)
This panel will bring into conversation emerging scholars working across Byzantine studies to reevaluate inherited historiographical traditions and to reflect on the epistemological conditions through which Byzantium has historically been construed. Papers will reexamine the twentieth-century historiographical frameworks that have shaped the study of the medieval Eastern Mediterranean, with particular attention to the scholarly marginalization of communities that resist clear confessional, ethnic, or imperial categorization. Long governed by disciplinary models rooted in nationalism, positivism, and colonialism, Byzantine historiography has often privileged imperial centers rooted in doctrinal orthodoxy at the expense of peripheral, typically heterodox communities that complicate fixed notions of empire. However, disciplinary predispositions towards normative accounts which present Byzantium as monolithic become untenable when confronted with the reality of the medieval Eastern Mediterranean’s fractured geopolitical landscape, linguistic hierarchies, and diverse forms of social organization.
The papers may come from relevant disciplines in Byzantine, Islamic, and eastern Mediterranean studies such as, but not limited to, history, art and architectural history, and comparative literature, with a preference for those incorporating innovative technological applications and/or integrating understudied archives into their approach.
Abstracts of 300 words are due September 15, 2026, and must be submitted using the conference portal (https://icms.confex.com/icms/2027/prelim.cgi/Session/8539 ). The session will take place in-person.
Please submit any questions to Catherine McNally at csmcn@mit.edu.
Questions that papers might address could include (but are not limited to):
How did particular political, economic, and social conditions in the twentieth century predispose scholars towards certain perspectives and conclusions in Byzantine studies? What methodological prejudices can the reevaluation of historiographical commonplaces reveal and resolve?
Funding
The Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse session participants up to $800 maximum for scholars based in North America and up to $1400 maximum for those traveling from outside North America. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided. Eligible expenses include conference registration, transportation, and food and lodging. Receipts are required for reimbursement.
Contact Information
Panel Organizers: Catherine McNally (csmcn@mit.edu ) and Andy Chen (achen1@g.harvard.edu )
Contact Email
9. The Great Lakes Adiban Society (GLAS) invites submissions for its tenth annual workshop, scheduled to take place in Kalamazoo, MI, on October 3-4, 2026. We welcome works in progress that would benefit from extensive discussion and feedback, and especially encourage graduate students to participate.
The Society aims to provide a regional forum for scholars of Islamicate adab to meet and share their work, particularly on the medieval and early modern periods. We leave our parameters of language and genre intentionally open in order to invite as wide a collaboration as can be useful, but as a group we are generally interested in the literary production of the broad complex of premodern Muslim societies across the Eastern Hemisphere. This includes the major Islamicate languages of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu, as well as many others (Armenian, Kurdish, Georgian, Hebrew, Spanish, etc.) that participate in similar literary conventions.
Those who wish to participate can apply by filling out our online application before August 30, 2026.
Please note that each accepted participant will be given 45 minutes to present and discuss their work; because of this, we have limited space and may have to turn down some submissions if we receive too many. In such an event, preference will generally be given to graduate students, junior scholars based in the Great Lakes region, and works in progress. This year we have funds to cover the usual meals—Friday dinner through Sunday lunch—plus accommodation for two nights at a local hotel.
All applicants can expect to hear back from us by early September when the schedule is finalized.
10. We are pleased to announce that Digital Collections, the online collections platform of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (State Museums of Berlin), is now available with a brand-new interface and new features.
The Museum for Islamic Art’s collection can be explored directly through Digital Collections, with dedicated filters that allow you to discover objects from our collection.
More than 12,500 objects from the Museum for Islamic Art are currently available online, with detailed information about each object. The collection is continuously expanded and updated by our team.
The platform includes a download feature, making it easier to access available images with the Creative Commons License.
You can access Digital Collections directly, or reach the collection through the Research module of the Online Portal Islamic·Art, which also offers stories, insights, and background information about objects from the Museum for Islamic Art.
Contact Information
Museum für Islamische Kunst (im Pergamonmuseum)
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz
Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 6
D-10117 Berlin
Contact Email
URL
https://search.smb.museum/en?sammlungen=Museum+f%C3%BCr+Islamische+Kunst
11. The journal Arts (ISSN 2076-0752, IF 0.5) is currently running a Special Issue entitled “Islamic Art Past and Present in Aesthetic-Critical Perspective”. Dr. Valerie Gonzalez is serving as Guest Editor for this issue.
Please visit the Special Issue website at:
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special_issues/464A809POE
The submission deadline is 28 February 2027. You may send your manuscript now or up until the deadline, as papers will be published on an ongoing basis if accepted for publication following peer review. Submitted manuscripts should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. We also encourage authors to send a short abstract or tentative title to the Editorial Office
in advance (arts@mdpi.com).
Arts is an open-access journal publishing peer-reviewed papers under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0). This allows all published papers to be freely and permanently available online. Open access increases the visibility and discoverability of your research, and is supported by authors, institutions, and funding organizations from around the world.
Contact Information
Valerie Gonzalez
Contact Email
Valerie.gonzalez152@goglemail.com
URL
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special_issues/464A809POE
12. Call for Papers
Environments of Healing: Art, Nature, and Medicine in Medieval Communities, East and West
International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK
5–8 July, 2027
This panel will explore the relationships between art, medicine, and nature in western and eastern communities across the Middle Ages. Medieval art historians have studied medical images for as long as the discipline has existed, but scholarship has often treated medical art as merely representing natural and cosmological phenomena. Moving beyond iconography, this panel invites papers that consider how images and objects actively mediated bodies, environments, and medical practices
The connection between medieval healers and nature was complex; nature inflicted illnesses but also provided cures. Visual art played a central role in communicating and negotiating this fraught relationship. Art was used to teach and record medical knowledge, but art objects were also employed as apotropaic, protective, and powerfully curative in themselves.
Potential themes include, but are not limited to:
- Cosmological medical diagrams
- Illustrated herbal manuscripts
- Apotropaic and curative amulets, stones, and scrolls
- Natural materials and motifs in hospitals and pharmacies
- Animals and insects in medical manuscripts
- Depictions of healers, patients, and remedies
Submissions are due on Friday, September 11, 2026, to zka5@case.edu and ceh160@case.edu. Please ensure your submission includes:
- Your name
- Your current affiliation
- Paper title
- Abstract (max 250 words)
- An updated CV
Decisions will be announced by Monday, September 28. If accepted, this session will take place in person at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds, 2027.
Questions and concerns can be directed to the co-coordinators:
Zoe Appleby, zka5@case.edu, Doctoral Candidate, CWRU
Claudia Haines, ceh160@case.edu, Doctoral Candidate, CWRU
13. ONLINE Lecture “The Suppressed Mother: Sarah and Khadījah in Muslim and Jewish Tra-ditions”, by Zohar Hadromi-Allouche, Islamic Studies and Islamic Theology, University of Helsinki, 17 September 2026, 17:00 – 19:00 CET
This talk will examine the construction of two prominent matriarchal figures: Sarah and Khadījah. Through examining the construction of each character through reception history, from Late Antiquity to modern times, this talk will demonstrate the systematic suppression of feminine authority across literary, religious, and scholarly traditions, with special emphasis on modern and academic writings.
Information and registration: https://tinyurl.com/4ea2x7es
14. Panel on “Byzantium from the Margins: Critical Perspectives on the Historiography of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean” at the “62nd International Congress on Medieval Studies”, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, 13-15 May 2027
This panel will reevaluate inherited historiographical traditions and reflect on the epistemological conditions through which Byzantium has historically been construed. Papers will reexamine the twentieth-century historiographical frameworks that have shaped the study of the medieval Eastern Mediterranean, with particular attention to the scholarly marginalization of communities that resist clear confessional, ethnic, or imperial categorization.
Deadline for abstracts: 15 September 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/9vpkhpxa
15. Conference “Literatures of the Global South: Space, Place, Environment” (Focus Middle East), University of Toronto, 2-4 June 2027
Space: How complicated minor spaces – such as the home, field, or street index – material ties across regions? – Place: How does a shared experience of neocolonialism shape literary produc-tions across the Middle East and Latin America? – Environment: How do characters perceive envi-ronmental collapse, and how might the latter inspire new forms of thinking the self and its belonging to a greater collectivity?
Deadline for abstracts: 31 August 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/yvb7hx49
16. Associate Professor or Professor in the History of Political Thought and Institutions (Focus MENA), Stanford University, California
We invite applications from scholars working in any time period and region, and encourage candidates whose work brings non-Western, transnational, comparative, or global perspectives.
Qualification: – Ph.D. in History or a closely related field. – Outstanding record of research and publication. – A demonstrated commitment to excellent teaching and mentoring. – Capacity to sus-tain a world-class research program.
Deadline for applications: 15 October 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/3vbv2zy3
17. General Membership (7 Months) at the School for Historical Studies (Focus Islamic World), Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey
Accepted Members receive access to the extensive resources of the Institute, including offices, access to libraries, subsidized restaurant and housing facilities, and some administrative services. Applicants must have a substantial record of publication and a Ph.D. awarded no later than 31 July 2026. Scholars are not required to hold a current institutional affiliation. Qualified candidates of any nationality are invited to apply.
Deadline for applications: 15 October 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/3zxzu8sd
18. Mellon Fellowship (1 Academic Year) for Assistant Professors at the School for Historical Studies (Focus Islamic World), Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey
The accepted fellow receives access to the extensive resources of the Institute, including offices, access to libraries, subsidized restaurant and housing facilities, and some administrative services.
Qualification: – Received Ph.D. between 1 January 2020 and 31 July 2026. – Currently Assistant Professors at a college or university in the U.S. or Canada. – Able to return to the current institution after the fellowship.
Deadline for applications: 15 October 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/3zxzu8sd
19. Three Postdoctoral Fellowships (1-2 Years) at the School for Historical Studies (Focus Islamic World), Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey
The accepted fellow receives access to the extensive resources of the Institute, including offices, access to libraries, subsidized restaurant and housing facilities, and some administrative services.
Qualification: – Received Ph.D. between 1 July 2024 and 31 August 2026. – One opening for a scholar in the field of Medieval Studies. – Two openings for scholars in the field of Europe & the World post 1800. – At least one writing sample published in a peer-reviewed source.
Deadline for applications: 15 October 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/3zxzu8sd
20. Doha Residence Program in Advanced Arabic & Social Studies Spring 2027, Language Center at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (DI), 10 January – 29 April 2027
This immersive, semester-long program offers a unique opportunity for international non-native and heritage Arabic-speaking graduate students to deepen their linguistic, cultural, and academic profi-ciency while engaging in a vibrant intellectual exchange. The program is delivered entirely in Arabic, ensuring maximum language exposure and practice.
Deadline for applications: 1 September 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/ujusn7w8
21.Articles for “The Journal of World Religions and Interfaith Harmony (JWRIH)” (Focus Islam)
JWRIH welcomes original research papers on a wide range of religious, philosophical, and theolog-ical topics: – Interfaith Harmony & Dialogue (Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc.). – Comparative Reli-gion & World Religions. – Philosophy of Religion & Theological Studies. – Ilm ul-Kalam (Islamic Systematic Theology). – Orientalism & Occidentalism. – Religious Ethics, Morality, and Contemporary Society. – Sociology and Anthropology of Religion. – Historical Perspectives on Religious Co-existence.
Deadline for contributions: 31 August 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/3dra7b7u
22.Articles for the “Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (ZDMG)”, Sec-tion Islamic Studies
The ZDMG invites the submission of original and innovative contributions to the field of Islamic Studies. We particularly welcome articles with a historical orientation grounded in philological anal-ysis. Contributions should focus on pre-modern Muslim societies (up to approximately 1800 CE) and address topics such as history, religion, culture, law, literature, or social structures.
Deadline for contributions: 15 October 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/y8rxpjj8
- August 15, 2026
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Institute of Ismaili Studies Events
Ismailis of China: history, culture and tradition
In China’s Xinjiang region, a small Ismaili community sustains its faith through ritual and story. IIS hosts a lecture on the Ismaili Tajiks of this community. The hybrid event takes place on Wednesday 16 September at the Aga Khan Centre, London, and online. Dr Amier Saidula will explore how rituals, oral traditions and vernacular knowledge sustain religious heritage and identity.
Register to attend
Annual Graduate Conference 2026
IIS will host its Annual Graduate Conference on Monday 28 September at the Aga Khan Centre in London and online. This year’s theme, “Muslim Lives in Transition: Continuity and Change in Contemporary Times”, explores how Muslim lives are shaped by both continuity and change.
Register now
Fatimid Sicily: History, Memory, and Legacy
How is the Islamic past imagined in contemporary Palermo, Sicily?
The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) hosts a two-day conference on Fatimid rule in Sicily. The event runs Monday 19 and Tuesday 20 October at the Aga Khan Centre, London, and online. A parallel exhibition, Islamic Traces, follows Palermo residents of different faiths and none as they search for the city’s Islamic past. Through architecture, landscape, language and the arts, they bring their imagined pasts to life in the present.
Register to attend
- August 14, 2026
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – ONLINE “Alevi Pasts Contested: Neglected Narratives and New Methodologies”
New Issue on “Alevi Pasts Contested: Neglected Narratives and New Methodologies” Edited by Markus Dressler & Hege Markussen, European Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. 42, 2026, 98 Pages
This special issue aims to address persistent gaps in the historical record of Anatolian Alevi communities and to rethink how such gaps can be studied. The contributions engage diverse sources, including archival documents, oral traditions, poetic texts, and ritual practices, highlighting the productive inter-play between written and embodied forms of knowledge. The analyse the cultural memory in Alevi poetry, the ritual production of historical consciousness, and ethnohistorical reconstructions of community formation.
View: https://journals.openedition.org/ejts/10683
- August 12, 2026
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1. The Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago invites applications for a tenure-track position, at the rank of Assistant Professor, in the Pre-Modern History of the Islamicate Middle East or Central Asia, with an expected start date of July 1, 2027, or as soon as possible thereafter. We invite applications from historians whose research focuses on the social, political, economic, or intellectual history of Muslim/Islamic societies within the Late Antique to Early Modern Periods (approx. 600–1700, C.E.).
Applicants must upload the following materials to the University of Chicago’s recruitment website at apply.interfolio.com/190288 by 10:59 PM Central Time/11:59 PM Eastern Time on October 19, 2026.
For more information, see the above interfolio site.
2. The Department of History at the University of San Diego invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professorship in South Asian and/or Central Asian History with an emphasis on the premodern period (ca. 500-1500 CE) beginning in Fall 2027.
https://networks.h-net.org/jobs/70195/university-san-diego-assistant-professor-history
Closing date:
September 15, 2026.
3. “MERI Forum 2026 – The Region We Share: Advancing Stability, Cooperation and Prosperity”, Middle East Research Forum, Erbil, Kurdish Region of Iraq, 12-13 October 2026
This event will bring together local, national, and international policymakers, academics, opinion lead-ers, civil society activists, journalists, and diplomats. Themes will include evolving global and regional power dynamics, U.S. policy in the Middle East, prospects for peace in the Levant, addressing Iraq’s fragility, reforming key state institutions, institutionalising centre-periphery relations, promoting ethno-religious coexistence, and more.
Information, panels and registration: https://tinyurl.com/2b2uj77v
4. Workshop “Translation and Multilingualism Across the Premodern Arabo-Islamic World and Europe”, Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA), Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Toledo, Spain, 3-4 December 2026
The organisers are looking for focused historical case studies that illuminate multilingual exchange, textual circulation, translation practice, and cross-cultural knowledge production. Focusing on scholars, translators, and intermediaries working across languages such as Arabic, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Persian, it explores how knowledge was shaped and reshaped as it moved between intellectual and institutional contexts.
Deadline for abstracts: 31 August 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/4574krfy
5. “20th Annual International Conference on Mediterranean Studies”, Athens Institute, Athens, Greece, 22-26 March 2027
The aim of the conference is to bring together scholars and researchers from various areas of Mediter-ranean Studies, such as history, arts, archaeology, philosophy, culture, sociology, politics, international relations, economics, business, sports, environment, ecology, and other related disciplines. The con-ference is designed to facilitate discussions among academics from Mediterranean countries and those conducting research on Mediterranean-related issues, fostering cross-disciplinary collaborations.
Deadline for abstracts: 15 September 2026. Information: https://www.atiner.gr/mediterranean
6. Conference “Foreign Language: Prospects for Interaction and Communication with Arab and Eastern Cultures”, College of Languages, University of Baghdad, 24-25 March 2027
Themes include the challenges of translation; literary and intellectual translation between Arabic and Eastern languages on one side and Western languages on the other; comparative literature; contem-porary Orientalism and Occidentalism; the image of the Other in translated fiction; cultural identity; and language education and technology.
Deadline for abstracts: 20 September 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/466hkx52
7. 12 Doctoral Positions (4 Years) in Research on “Reconciliation and its Equivalents in a Transcultural Comparison”, University of Bonn
The programme seeks to promote early career researchers through specialised training groups. The selected candidates will participate in the group’s research activities while writing their doctoral theses. Qualification: A completed Master’s degree in a relevant Humanistic discipline. – Ability to work as part of a team. – An interdisciplinary mindset. – A C1-level proficiency in English.
Deadline for applications: 17 September 2026. Information: https://www.thoughtfox.xyz/bits/rhenish-friedrich-wilhelm-university-of-bonn-12-doctoral-reconciliation-studies-2026
8. Articles on “Literature Beyond Borders: Festschrift in Honour of Ferial Ghazoul” for “Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics”, American University in Cairo, 48, 2028
Ferial Ghazoul, Professor of English and Comparative Literature and founder of Alif, is honoured on her retirement with the journal’s forty-eighth issue. The call invites colleagues, students, and collabora-tors to engage with her scholarship on medieval and contemporary Arabic literature, and particularly the Arabian Nights; on translation studies, untranslatability, and comparative method; on the formation of comparative literature as a discipline in Egypt and the Arab world; and on her editorial legacy in shaping Alif and other Arab scholarly journals.
Deadline for abstracts: 1 October 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/yr68v8vd
9. Chapters on “The Muslim Brothers through the Eyes of the Others a Century on: A Battle of Perceptions and Narratives in the Middle East and Beyond” for a Volume Edited by Panos Kourgiotis (University of Macedonia), Vernon Press
Scholars from the field of modern and contemporary history, political sciences, international relations and law, religious studies, anthropology, sociolinguistics and Middle Eastern and Islamic studies are invited to contribute using their expertise on how others perceive the Muslim Brotherhood. Chapters are expected to cover a large repertoire of political parties, foreign governments, religious and academic institutions, minority groups, think tanks and international fora across the globe etc.
Deadline for abstracts: 25 October 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/4ss3v2ej
10. ONLINE New Article: “Technopolitical Energy Governance as Administrative Closure: Digi-talisation and the Depoliticisation of Energy Politics in Iran and Saudi Arabia” by Arash Beidol-lahkhani (University of Manchester/ZMO), 10 July 2026, 16 Pages
The article analyses how digital infrastructures reshape energy policy making and redefine who is en-titled to participate. Focusing on Iran and Saudi Arabia, it traces two converging logics. In Iran, digital systems become most visible during crises such as fuel price reforms and blackouts. In Saudi Arabia, digitalisation is embedded within long-term development planning, where grassroots engagement is selectively structured, narrowing opportunities for meaningful participation in energy policy.
View: https://tinyurl.com/5e35w69j
11. New Volume: “A History of Middle Eastern Modernism” Edited by Levi Thompson, Cam-bridge University Press, August 2026, 452 Pages
A wide-ranging examination of Middle Eastern modernism across Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and other regional languages from the nineteenth century to the present. The volume connects literary and artistic modernist forms across the Arab world, Ottoman and Turkish contexts, Iran, Central Asia, and India, offering a comparative frame for modernist studies well beyond Euro-American norms – a natural com-panion to current work on the Arabic prose poem, free verse, and the periodical cultures of modernism.
Information: https://tinyurl.com/5n8prn45
12. New Volume: “Texts as Living Objects: Dhayls and Knowledge Transmission in the Islamic World” Edited by Sacha Alsancakli and Philip Bockholt, Brill, 6 August 2026, 270 Pages
Nine contributions on dhayls, supplements, and textual transmission in the Islamic world, spanning a wide geographical and chronological range and integrating case studies of texts in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Samaritan Hebrew. The volume proposes a renewed definition of the dhayl as a cultural and historical phenomenon. Of direct value to anyone working on Arabic historiography, continuation and compilation, or the material life of texts
Information: https://tinyurl.com/yatvkw87
13. New Book: “The Islamic World of Education 2027”, Asia Pacific Infoserv Pty Ltd., Sydney, August 2026, 800 Pages
A comprehensive directory and guide to the organizations and institutions throughout the Islamic World of higher education and learning. Facts and figures: • Thousands of universities, colleges, schools of art and music, libraries, learned societies, research institutes, museums and art galleries. • Details on many thousands of staff and officials. • Information on international cultural, scientific and educational organizations. • Completely revised and updated throughout the year.
Information: https://tinyurl.com/3ks8dd78
14. New Book: “The Ottoman Ulema and the Quest for an Islamic Constitution: Revolution and Revelation”, Yakoob Ahmed, Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire, July 2026, 304 Pages
The Constitutional Revolution of 1908-1909 is one of the most transformative yet misunderstood mo-ments in late Ottoman history. This book challenges conventional narratives of this period as a secular rupture by the Young Turks from Islamic tradition, instead spotlighting the pivotal role of the Sunni ulema in shaping and sustaining the new constitutional order. This book reframes the late Ottoman constitu-tional experience as a dynamic synthesis of faith, reform and political modernity.
Information: https://tinyurl.com/5abhfxff
15. New Book: “Conscripting Breadwinner Soldiers in the Late Ottoman Empire: Family, Law and War” by Kate Dannies, Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire, July 2026, 272 Pages
This book examines the gender and family dimensions of mobilisation for the First World War in the Ottoman Empire, situating the war in a long-nineteenth-century social history of Ottoman military reform for the first time. It focuses on the military legal concept of muinsizlik (sole breadwinning) and how this concept shaped Ottoman military policy – namely, how militarisation and mobilisation were supported by the exploitation of women’s care and social reproductive labour, as well as the extraction of material and physical resources from Ottoman families.
Information: https://tinyurl.com/ysh2svuf
16. New Book: “The Architecture of Bibliophilia: Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Libraries” by Ya-vuz Sezer, Contributions by Kristel Smentek, Çiğdem Kafescioğlu, Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire, July 2026, 384 Pages
This book provides a rich account of the social, intellectual and architectural worlds of Istanbul’s library patrons and readers: – First book-length study of the Ottoman library movement. – Anchors the schol-arship on Ottoman cultural and intellectual history in architecture. – Establishes patterns of cross-ref-erences in architecture and decoration. – Discusses the trans-imperial connections of the Ottoman library movement.
Information: https://tinyurl.com/bddnzp9m
17. The Library of Congress Asian Division, as part of the“Fashion at the Library” series, will be hosting a virtual discussion on August 13th(3:00PM-4:30PM EST) “From South Asia to the American South: A Discussion about the History and Trade of Seersucker” (Library of Congress).
Ever wonder how a lightweight fabric from India became the ultimate uniform for Southern summers? To mark one of the final Seersucker Thursdays of 2026, Dr. Giorgio Riello and Dr. Prasannan Parthasarathi will come together for a conversation about the historical trade of the famous cloth, from its place of origin in India, to the American South, where it has become a part of the Southern dress code.
Thursday, August 13, 2026, 3:00PM-4:30PM EST
Register here for the Zoom event: https://tinyurl.com/kn4cbdsc.
For those unable to attend, this talk will be recorded and posted on the Library’s website and Youtube page.
Giorgio Riello is Professor of Early Modern Global History at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy and Professor of Global History and Culture at the University of Warwick, UK (currently on secondment). He has published widely on the material exchange between Europe and Asia in the early modern period. Among his books Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World (2013), Luxury: A Rich History (2016), and the forthcoming In Times of Wealth (2027). He co-edited with Prasannan Parthasarathi a book entitled The Spinning World (2009).
Prasannan Parthasarathi is Professor of History at Boston College. He is the author of The Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings in South India, 1720-1800 (Cambridge, 2001), The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles (Oxford, 2009), and Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence 1600-1850 (Cambridge, 2011). He is now working on a study of agriculture and the environment in nineteenth-century South India.
Contact Information
Charlotte Giles
South Asia Specialist, Library of Congress
- August 11, 2026
- by Andrew Newman
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- August 10, 2026
- by Andrew Newman
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Shii News – Academic Items
1. The non-human mystics of Islam: animals as pious worshippers in early Sufism’
A Salamah-Qudsi
BSOAS, June 2026
2. RGQ 2026 (Review of Global Qur’anic Studies of the Year): 2end meeting
Sponsored by Ind. Int. Quranic Parliament (IQP)
Aug 18-19, 2026
Review of IQSA Vienna 2026 papers With participation of:
Prof. Ghassan El-Masri, Europe
Prof. Abdulla Galadari, Asia
Prof. Roberta Sabbath, America
Prof. Abdelmajid Benhabib، Africa
More info. via:
https://event.fourwaves.com/iqp2026
🔺 Registration:
https://event.fourwaves.com/iqp2026/registration
____
🔸 المجلس الدولي المستقل للقرآن الکریم
🔹Ind. Int. Quranic Parliament (IQP)
http://zabanshenasitarikhi.ir/
ahmadi_mh@ut.ac.ir
3. Call for Papers: Festschrift in Honor of Professor Ibrahim Pour-Davoud
TentativeTitle: Studies in Ancient Iranian Culture, Avestan Literature, and National Identity: Essays in Memory of Ibrahim Pour-Davoud.
We are pleased to invite submissions for an upcoming edited volume (Festschrift) dedicated to honoring the monumental legacy of Professor Ibrahim Pour-Davoud (1886–1968)—pioneer of Iranian studies, scholar of the Avesta, and champion of ancient Persian literature and culture.
Pour-Davoud’s groundbreaking translations and commentaries on the Avesta and Old Iranian texts laid the foundation for modern Iranian philology and inspired generations of scholars in the fields of Indo-Iranian linguistics, ancient history, Zoroastrian studies, and Persian literary history.
Suggested Topics & Themes
We welcome original, unpublished research papers from established scholars, early-career researchers, and independent specialists. Contributions may focus on, but are not limited to, the following thematic areas:
- Avestan & Old Iranian Philology: Textual criticism, linguistics, and translations of Old and Middle Iranian languages.
- Zoroastrianism & Ancient Iranian Religions: Rituals, theology, iconography, and historical development of Iranian belief systems.
- Historiography & Memory of Pre-Islamic Iran: The reception of ancient Iranian history and mythology in Persian literature (e.g., the Shahnameh).
- Intellectual Legacy of Ibrahim Pour-Davoud: Re-evaluations of his life, translations, national vision, and impact on modern Iranian cultural identity.
- Iranian Cultural Contacts: Interdisciplinary studies exploring connections between ancient Iran and neighboring civilizations (Mesopotamia, Greece, India, Central Asia).
Submission Guidelines
- Abstract Submission: Please submit an abstract of 300–500 words along with a short bio (max 150 words) by November 15, 2026.
- Acceptance Notification: Authors will be notified by January 10, 2027.
- Full Chapter Submission: Completed manuscripts should be between 6,000–8,000 words (including references and endnotes) and are due by July 25, 2027.
- All submissions must be written in English.
Note to Contributors: All submitted chapters will undergo a rigorous double-blind peer-review process prior to final publication.
For more information, please contact Mr. A, K, Jabbari, Publisher.
4. The Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World at the University of Edinburgh is seeking to appoint a Postdoctoral Research Associate (0.8 FTE, fixed term for 24 months) to join the internationally funded research project ‘The Global Landscapes of Muslim Lives: Latin American and Caribbean Intersections’, led by Dr Kholoud Al-Ajarma (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Kenneth Chitwood (University of Bayreuth), and funded by the AHRC and DFG.
This is an exciting opportunity to develop and deliver an independent programme of ethnographic and qualitative research on contemporary Muslim communities in Latin America and/or the Caribbean. Working within the Alwaleed Centre, you will undertake original fieldwork, contribute to high-quality publications, collaborate with an international research team, and play a key role in shaping new understandings of Muslim lives, networks and institutions in an under-researched global context.
The closing date for applications is Wednesday 26 August at 11:59pm BST. To view the full advert and submit your application CLICK HERE.
5. GLOBAL GULF
Geo-Economic, Geo-Political, and Geo-Technological Transformation
in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar
N Janardhan
Gerlach
Hardcover, 214 pages, ISBN: 9783959941990
https://gerlachpress.com/9783959941990
6. Belonging on Both Shores: Mobility, Migration, and the Bordering of the Persian Gulf. Lindsey R. Stephenson (Stanford University Press, 2026). Pp. 218. $70.00 cloth.
7. CfP: CAA Session: Picturing Entanglements: Transcultural Creatures in Medieval Eurasian Art
The session will be held on location.
From the simurgh perched on Sasanian textiles to dragons coiling through Yuan porcelain, creatures—real and imagined—were among the most mobile and mutable figures of the medieval Eurasian visual world. They migrated across textiles, metalwork, ceramics, paintings, manuscripts, and prints, shedding and acquiring attributes as they crossed linguistic, religious, and political frontiers. A phoenix in East Asia was not quite a simurgh in the Islamic world, yet the two could share a silhouette, or hybridize altogether. Such creatures did not merely illustrate cross-cultural exchange; they were the very vehicles through which artists, patrons, and viewers co-produced meaning, continually transforming and reinvesting these figures with new significance in the process.
This panel convenes scholars working across the art histories of the Eurasian visual world to examine how zoomorphic imagery materialized transcultural entanglement between roughly 500 and 1500 CE. We invite papers that treat creatures as agents rather than ornaments: as carriers of diplomatic meaning, as sites of iconographic negotiation, as problems of translation, and as catalysts for artistic invention. Why did artists adapt foreign beasts to local visual idioms? What was lost, gained, or generated in the passage? How might attention to creaturely imagery help us move beyond diffusionist models toward richer accounts of medieval connectivity? Interdisciplinary approaches, including those drawing on the environmental humanities and material studies, are especially welcome.
The call for papers is open until 31 August.
Please submit your title, abstract, and CV through the CAA website.
Contact Information
Yuxi Pan, SOAS University of London
Contact Email
URL
https://caa.confex.com/caa/2027/webprogrampreliminary/Session18322.html
8. Fons Vitae: Rumi Series
https://fonsvitae.com/product-category/sufism/jalaluddin-rumi/
9. Conference – “From the Balkans to Bengal in Baltimore: Engaging Diasporas, Shaping Publics, and Reimagining Islamic Art in American Museums”
“How should American museums that present Islamic art engage the diasporic communities that are increasingly recognized as key public constituencies? What strategies might best encourage communities to move from viewing art to responding to it—and in doing so, reshape how it is interpreted in public spaces? Join curators, practitioners, and scholars of Islamic art, art history, and history for this two-day conference, hosted at the University of Maryland and the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore.
To find out more and register, please go to https://arthistory.umd.edu/research-innovation/balkans-bengal-baltimore-engaging-diasporas-shaping-publics-and-reimagining
The schedule is as follows:
Thursday, September 24, 2026
Location: Ulrich Recital Hall, Tawes Hall, University of Maryland
9:30-10:00 Registration
10:00-10:30 Welcome and Introductions
10:30-12:00 Panel #1: Interpreting and Presenting Islamic Art, moderated by Ünver Rustem, Johns Hopkins University
Ekin Akalın, University of Nantes and the Autonomous University of Madrid, The Missing Showcase of Modernity in Islamic Art Galleries and the Ottoman Military Painters (1839-1939)
Elnaz Latifpour, University of Virginia, Rewriting the Label: Interpreting Qashqai and Southern Iranian Weavings in Western Museums
Constance Jame, Musée d’art Roger-Quilliot, Performing the Objects: Beyond Materiality and Art Historical Discourses
12:00-1:30 Lunch
1:30-4:00 Panel #2: Curating Islamic Art and Muslim History in American Institutions, moderated by Karin Zitzewitz, University of Maryland, College Park
Nadirah Mansour, Lake Forest College, Building a Collection of Arabic Calligraphy by Living Artists at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Acquisitions, Interpretation and Community Outreach
Rachel Winter, Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, When Paintings Become About Palestine: Samia Halaby in Michigan
Hiba Abid, New York Public Library, Uncovering Islamic Heritages in New York: Fostering Community Connections via Niyū Yūrk and Further Initiatives
Amy Landau, Fowler Museum, University of California, Los Angeles, Curating the work of an Iranian American artist in “Tehrangeles”
Ladan Akbarnia, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Silent Revolutions and Small Victories: Reflections on curating Islamic visual culture
Location: Parren J. Mitchell Art-Sociology Building, University of Maryland
4:15-4:45 Tour of LANDLINE, curated by Islam & Print, University of Maryland Art Gallery
4:00-5:30 Reception, Atrium
5:30-7:00 Keynote, Stefan Weber, Museum for Islamic Art, Berlin, moderated by Peter Wien, University of Maryland, College Park, Rm. 2203
Friday, September 25, 2026
10:00-10:15 Meet at Walters Art Museum
10:15-12:15 Guided Tours of Islamic Galleries at Walters and Making Space/Islam & Print
12:15-1:30 Lunch at the Helmand, registration required
Location: Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral Street Baltimore, MD 21201
1:30-2:30 Special Collections Tour, Pratt Library
2:30-4:30 Panel #3: Engaging Communities, Reimagining Publics, moderated by Harold Morales, Morgan State University
Alison Kysia, Independent Artist, Muslim American Artist in the U.S.: Contemporary perspectives on art, faith, and identity
Melissa Forstrom, Purchase College, SUNY, and Ashley Dimmig, Crossman Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Sharing Authority: Engaging Historic and Contemporary Diasporic Community Members at the Walters Art Museum
Basmah Arshad, University of North Texas, ‘If Not Now, When?’: The Arab American National Museum During the Post-9/11 Era and Afterward
Sarah Slingluff, University of Maryland, College Park, Beyond the Museum Walls: Challenges and Opportunities in Curating Islamic Art for Virtual Audiences
4:30-5:30 Social Gathering at Stem & Vine
10. Conference: God, Human, Machine | 28 – 30 September 2026 | University of Erfurt (Hybrid)
We are pleased to announce our upcoming conference God, Human, Machine: Images and Imaginaries of Religion in the Age of AI at the University of Erfurt, Germany. Addressing a critical but underexplored dimension of the AI–religion nexus, the conference brings together theoretical and empirical perspectives, connecting scholars and practitioners working at the intersections of Religious Studies, Anthropology, Art History, and Science and Technology Studies. The programme features two keynote lectures by Christiane Gruber (University of Michigan) and Gregory Price Grieve (UNC Greensboro), a conversation with religious digital image creators, and seven panels exploring the relationship between human imagination, religious knowledge, and AI systems.
The detailed conference schedule is on our event webpage: https://www.uni-erfurt.de/to/godhumanmachine
Registration via the conference webpage is open until 16 September.
For any queries, please contact Afaf Abdelrazek via aiimagery@uni-erfurt.de
Please join us for this exciting opportunity to engage with cutting-edge research and critical debates about the ways in which AI image systems and human imaginaries of religion shape each other across traditions, cultures, and social contexts.
Best wishes,
Christoph Günther
Programme
Day 1: 28 September 2026
09:30 – 10:00 Opening remarks
10:00 – 12:00 Panel 1: Sensory and Spatial Aspects (Chair: Christoph Günther)
Tino Grisi (Politecnico di Milano): The “How” of the Rite: AI-Generated Polyhedral Synthesis and the New Imagery of Ecclesial Spaces
Nesrine Mansour (University of Colorado Boulder): What the Machine Cannot See: A Manifesto for Sacred Imagination in the Age of AI
Isobel Dickson (Dublin City University): Envisioning Artificial Intelligence: Mysticism, AI Ethics, and the Religious Imaginary of Starmirror
13:30 – 15:30: Panel 2: Revealing the Hidden and Unimaginable (Chair: Afaf Abdelrazek)
Wajeeha Naween (Bahria University Karachi Campus): The Ghost in The Pen: AI, Barakah and the Future of Islamic Calligraphy
Barbara Denuelle (University of Kent): Seeing with the Eye of the Heart: Sufi Epistemology, Visual Imagination, and AI-Generated Images
Fitri Murfianti (Leiden University): Seeing the Unseen: AI Images, Digital Miracles, and the Remaking of Religious Imagination in Indonesia
15:45 – 17:30 Traversing Design, Art and Devotion: A Conversation with Religious Digital Image Content Creators (Roundtable)
17:45 – 19:15: Keynote (Chair: Christoph Günther)
Christiane Gruber (University of Michigan): Pandora’s Black Box: Techno-Orientalist Images of the Prophet Muhammad in the Age of AI
Day 2: 29 September 2026
09:00 – 11:00: Panel 3: The Politics of AI-charged Imaginaries (Chair: Farwa Ejaz)
Efstathios Kessareas (University of Erfurt): Reimagining Hellenic Polytheism through AI: Aesthetics, Ideology, and Power
Rasool Akbari (University of Bonn): Ambivalences of AI-Rendered Iranian Cultural Imaginaries: A Case Study of the Sun and the Lion
Kathrin Trattner (University of Zurich): “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” The role of generative AI in the digital martyrdom of Charlie Kirk
11:15 – 12:15 Bias Datasets, Artificial Hate and Racist Intelligence: A Conversation with Ari Temkin, followed by the art installation The Jewish Dataset (2025)
13:15 – 14:15 Guided VR Demonstrations: ThePuja.App, VR Hajj, and VR Karbala
14:15 – 16:15: Panel 4: Interactions with AI-generated Imagery (Chair: Jasmin Eder)
Jan Philipp Hahn (EZW, Berlin): Visualizing Divine Authority: The Persuasive Power of AI-Imagery in Interreligious Online Debates
Feeza Vasudeva, Katja Valaskivi (University of Helsinki): Godbots and Religious Mediation: An Exploratory Study of Religious AI Interaction
Sofia Tsourlaki (SOAS University London): Reclaiming Revelation: Use AI to Visualise Qur’anic Meanings Beyond the Authority of the ʿUlamāʾ
16:30 – 18:00: Keynote (Chair: Fouad Gehad Marei)
Gregory Price Grieve (UNC Greensboro): Cave of Dreams: Designing Ethical AI Worlds for the Study of Religion and Human Responsibility
Day 3: 30 September 2026
09:00 – 11:00: Panel 5: Re-Conceptualising AI & Religious Imagination (Chair: tba)
Thowhidul Islam & Nurul Amin (International Islamic University Chittagong), Iftekharul Islam (University of Dhaka): Between Khayāl and Code: Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Philosophy of Imagination
Arulchelvan Sriram (Anna University): From Darshan to Dataset: AI-Generated Divine Images & the Transformation of Seeing in Hindu Practice in Tamil Nadu
Kris Ramlan (Goethe University Frankfurt): Artificial Imagination? Ibn ʿArabi’s Ontology of the Imaginal and AI-Generated Presence
11:15 – 13:30: Panel 6: AI Images and Imaginaries of Religious Pasts and Futures (Chair: Christiane Gruber)
Murtala Ibrahim (FU Berlin): Machines of the Final Hour: AI as Eschatological Portent in West African Islam
Katharina Yadav (University of Zurich), Feeza Vasudeva (University of Helsinki): Aesthetics and (Religious) Imagination in Hindu and Christian AI Images
Babak Rahimi (UC San Diego): AI Karbala: Artificial Visuality, Shiʿi Mourning, and Futurity
Christoph Günther (University of Erfurt): “Your first day in jannah” vs. “POV: you wake up in jahannam”: AI Images of Paradise and Hell
15:30 – 17:30: Panel 7: Ethical Entrainment, Moral Cultivation, and Postcolonial Subjectification in the Age of AI (Chair: tba)
Maria Majorie Purino University of San Carlos): Hsing Yun’s Humanistic Buddhism: Cultivating AI & Digital Humanities
Myra Abubakar (National University of Singapore): Selective Legacy 2.0: AI-Generated Imagery and the Algorithmic Curation of Postcolonial Islamic Memory
Mohamad Zreik (Sun Yat-sen University): AI and the Revival of Confucianism: Virtual Teachings and Moral Imagery in Contemporary China
11. Ars Orientalis invites submissions of innovative articles on the arts of the broad geographic area of Asia, from the ancient period to the contemporary. We seek original, previously unpublished work that reflects insightful interventions, including but not limited to comparative or interdisciplinary approaches, multimedia content, and digital humanities methods.
Manuscripts should be 8,000 to 12,000 words (including endnotes).
Ars Orientalis is a digital publication with a print-on-demand option. The digital volume also allows for the incorporation of other media, such as video, sound, and 3D models. Visual material must include permissions for print and online reproduction.
We are currently accepting submissions for volume 58 to be published in December 2028. Articles must be received by September 1, 2026, to be considered.
Submissions should be sent to ArsOrientalis@si.edu.
Guidance, submission, and style guide for articles can be found here https://asia.si.edu/research/publications/ars-orientalis/submit-research/.
Contact Information
Ars Orientalis
Freer Research Center
National Museum of Asian Art
Contact Email
URL
https://asia.si.edu/research/publications/ars-orientalis/submit-research/
12. Grabar Travel Grant
Deadline: August 15, 2026
This competition is open to graduate students (doctoral candidates) who have been invited or accepted as participants in a scholarly conference or other professional meeting for the purpose of presenting papers, chairing sessions or moderating discussions.
The maximum amount of the award is $2,500 USD.
Applicants must be HIAA members in good standing at the time of application. Grabar Travel Grants must be used within 12 months of the award date.
Applications must include the following five components and be submitted in a single PDF to the Grabar Travel Committee Chair (grabar.hiaa@gmail.com) by August 15, 2026:
- Application cover sheet, available here
- A cover letter explaining the applicant’s purpose in participating in the conference, the expected benefits of participation, and an itemized travel budget
- Curriculum vitae
- Letter of acceptance from the conference/session organizer(s)
- Abstract of the paper to be presented
In addition, a letter of recommendation from the applicant’s primary supervisor should be sent directly to the Grabar Travel Committee Chair (grabar.hiaa@gmail.com) by the deadline.
Applicants from outside the United States are responsible for meeting the requirements and obtaining any visas necessary for visits to or residence and research in the United States. Upon request, HIAA will supply documentation of the grant and/or fellowship award, the dates of the award, and financial support.
For further details and to apply, please visit: https://www.historiansofislamicart.org/opportunities/hiaa-prizes/grabar-grants-and-fellowships
13. The Critical Studies on Terrorism annual conference will take place at the University of Edinburgh (UK) on Tuesday 8 September and Wednesday 9 September 2026.
Venue: G.06, 50 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JU
The Critical Studies on Terrorism annual conference will take place at the University of Edinburgh (UK) on Tuesday 8 September and Wednesday 9 September 2026. Critical Terrorism Studies has witnessed a growing engagement with decolonial and postcolonial perspectives over the past years that have challenged the continued, even if inadvertent, Eurocentrism of the discipline and its dominant approaches. Despite these advances, the field continues to grapple with enduring forms of Eurocentrism in its conceptual frameworks, research agendas, and scholarly conversations. It is therefore time for CTS to consider a more radical re-orientation of the direction it has been taking since its foundation. In light of this, The Critical Studies on Terrorism working group is calling for an initiative that bridges the fields of CTS and Critical Muslims Studies (CMS)
Information and Registration:
14. “Multilingual Transmission and Sufi Lexicography: ʿAbdul Razzāq Kāshānī and the Transmission of Ibn ʿArabī”,
in Religions as part of the Special Issue
Multilingualism, Translation, and Religion in the Premodern Islamic World(s):
Texts, Contexts, and Crossroads.
Leila Chamankhah
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/17/7/837
15. Workshop “Migration and Mobility in the Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Borderlands (19th – 21st Centuries)”, University of Vienna, 13-14 November 2026
We particularly invite contributions from fields such as history, sociology, anthropology, ethnology, spa-tial and border studies, which address various instances of trans-border mobility, specific borderlands border-zones, transnational diaspora networks, minority histories, memory, and memory production within the context of Ottoman and post-Ottoman space.
Deadline for abstracts: 17 August 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/yjuphfjx
16. Editor (5 Years) for the Journal “Turkish Studies”, London
This role is a great opportunity for an academic with a strong research background in Turkish Studies and who has the commitment, drive and ability to help further develop this leading academic journal. The role would suit mid-career or senior scholars who are keen to make a significant impact on the scholarly field and are able to dedicate the requisite time and attention to the journal. Applicants should have the capacity to devote approximately 10-12 hours each week to the role.
Deadline for applications: 13 August 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/2anhmd2p
17. Two Associated Editors (3 Years) for the Journal “Turkish Studies”, London
Qualification: A PhD in a relevant discipline. – Working in a Social Science discipline and active in research pertaining to Türkiye. – Experience with academic publishing. – Excellent skills of written and spoken English, and a commitment to linguistic detail. – The capacity to devote approximately 5-6 hours each week to the role. – Experience with working effectively with independent peer reviewers.
Deadline for applications: 14 August 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/2phw25n7
18. Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) in the Pre-Modern History of the Islamicate Middle East or Central Asia, University of Chicago
Qualification: PhD in a relevant field. – Demonstrated ability to carry out original independent research in the areas of the search, resulting in publications in leading venues. – Excellent command of either Classical Arabic or Persian required. – Research competency in an additional Middle Eastern/Central Asian language (Arabic, Persian, Turkic languages, or other relevant language). – Demonstrated ability or potential for excellence in undergraduate and graduate teaching.
Deadline for applications: 19 October 2026. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/190288
19. Articles for the “Journal of Arabic Linguistics Tradition”, Volume 24
We welcome scholarly articles that contribute to the study and research in the field of Arabic linguistics tradition, encompassing the whole range of phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, lexico-graphic, and other related analyses and specific contributions of linguists since the tradition’s earliest inception (around the 8th Century) until the end of the 15th Century. The journal also welcomes trans-lation articles, especially those accompanied by commentary and/or analysis sections, as well as book reviews.
Deadline for contributions: 15 August 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/ykt7w6a8
20. Chapters on “Lives Beyond the Archives: Alf Muslimah Research Competition” for an Ency-clopaedia of Leading Muslim Women, Al-Mujadilah Research, Doha
Proposals are invited for research-based entries for “Alf Muslimah”, a forthcoming encyclopaedia doc-umenting the lives, intellectual contributions, and social impact of leading Muslim women across the globe and throughout the ages. The project sets out to recover the stories of exemplars whose achieve-ments and legacies have been overlooked, underrepresented, or preserved only through local commu-nity histories, oral traditions, or regional archives.
Deadline for abstracts: 31 August 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/b2f46jk2
- August 08, 2026
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
- August 07, 2026
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Online – ‘Two Opposing Pictures of the Imam in Contemporary Shiʿi Theology’ – Y Mirdamadi (7.9.26, 5pm UK time)
- August 06, 2026
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – ‘Twelver Shia Beliefs and Religious Financing for Social Welfare’ – S R Jafree
- August 05, 2026
- by Andrew Newman
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