Shii News – Academic Items
1.CONVOCATORIA Sexto encuentro sobre el Islam en América Latina
CALL Sixth meeting about Islam in Latin America
https://www.lacisa.org/convocatoria-sexto-encuentro-sobre-el-islam-en-america-latina
2. Call for Papers: Special Issue of MELA Notes in Honor of Jane Lewisohn and Nooshafarin Ansari
The editorial board of MELA Notes, the official journal of the Middle East Librarians Association (MELA), invites submissions for a special issue celebrating and critically examining the enduring legacies of two pioneering women in Iranian archives and library & information science: Jane Lewisohn and Nooshafarin Ansari. As foundational female leaders in the field, their scholarship, institution-building, and mentorship have profoundly shaped generations of librarians, archivists, and information professionals in Iran and beyond.
This pairing is intentional, as Lewisohn and Ansari belong to the same generation of Archivist/Librarians who served as bridges between local and global contexts. Both worked within Iran and contributed significantly to Iranian studies and cultural preservation in the diaspora. Their intertwined legacies highlight the connections between national and international perspectives, women’s leadership in knowledge institutions, and the transnational circulation of cultural heritage.
This issue aims not only to recognize their contributions but also to use their work as a lens for advancing scholarship in library and information science, archival studies, and Middle Eastern studies. We seek articles that situate their efforts within larger questions of knowledge production, gendered labor, cultural preservation, and the professionalization of LIS and archival practice in Iran, the Middle East, and diasporic contexts. In this way, the issue will extend beyond biography to generate new insights into the histories, challenges, and futures of the field.
The themes of the proposed articles may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Pathways, barriers, and breakthroughs for women in Iranian and Middle Eastern LIS/archives
- Gendered labor, recognition, and leadership models inspired by Lewisohn and Ansari
- The role of archives and oral history projects in documenting Iranian women’s history and contributions
Submission Guidelines:
- Abstracts: Please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words by October 31, 2025. The abstract should clearly outline the article’s research question, methodology, key findings, and its relevance to the special issue’s theme.
- Please consult the Guidelines for Contributors on our website for citation and transliteration styles.
- https://escholarship.org/uc/melanotes/Guidelines
- Full Articles: Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to submit a full article of 5,000 to 10,000 words. The deadline for full article submission is January 1, 2026.
- Submission Method: Abstracts should be sent via email to fsonboldel@ucsd.edu.
3. Call for Applications: The Holocaust, World War II, and Iranian Studies Research Workshop
June 22–26, 2026
Toronto, Canada
Applications due January 12, 2026
The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies and the William Levine Family Institute for Holocaust Education at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in cooperation with the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto invite applications for a research workshop on the connections between Iran, the Holocaust, and World War II. Arash Azizi, Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism, Yale University; Jennifer L. Jenkins, Department of History, University of Toronto; and Lior B. Sternfeld, Department of History, Pennsylvania State University, will serve as co-convenors for the program, which will be held June 22–26, 2026, at the Mir-Djalali Institute at the University of Toronto.
This workshop will bring together scholars working at the intersection of Iranian history and Holocaust studies to share their research and to lay the groundwork for a collective publication featuring the participants’ papers.
We seek to contribute to the growing body of scholarship on Iran in the 1930s and ‘40s that highlights the country’s role as a site of refuge, transit, and multifaceted political, social, and cultural exchange. Iran served as the most important non-combatant theater of World War II, and the Anglo-Soviet occupation of the country in 1941 fundamentally altered the trajectory of both the war and Iranian history, creating what some have termed a “lost decade” in the country’s national development. During the war years, Iran became a haven for hundreds of thousands of European refugees, including thousands of European Jews, mostly from Poland, who fled Nazi persecution through the Soviet Union. As a result, the country emerged as an important center for global Jewish and Zionist institutions, which established extensive operations in Tehran after 1942, drawn in part by the proximity of the estimated five million Jews in the Soviet Union.
The global war profoundly reshaped Iran’s national politics, fostering the growth of civil society organizations while various nationalist, internationalist, fascist, and anti-fascist commitments animated the Iranian political scene. Iranian political actors found themselves advocating for both Allied and Axis forces. Some embraced the notion that Iranians belonged to a mythical “Aryan race,” an idea that would persist in certain intellectual and political circles in the years to come. This terminology served multiple purposes: Iranian diplomats in Europe deployed it strategically in relations with Nazi Germany, while domestic political actors invoked it to advance nationalist projects at home.
Iranian responses to the war itself were equally diverse. Many celebrated their country’s role as a “bridge to victory” for the Allied war effort, even as increasing numbers gravitated toward the emerging anti-colonial political movement led by Mohammad Mossadeq. These wartime transformations of Iran’s political landscape had lasting effects on political movements and remain an understudied dimension of this period.
While Iranian Jews in Europe were targeted by the Nazis and their collaborators and some Iranians were imprisoned and/or killed in concentration camps, the Iranian diplomatic apparatus in Europe worked to aid Iranian citizens in distress, including rescuing Iranian Jews from the Holocaust and facilitating their safe passage to Iran. The war years brought profound change for Iranian Jews at home, expanding their involvement in the political and cultural life of the country and bringing them into contact with Jewish populations beyond Iran and across the Middle East. Interactions with European Jewish refugees and transnational Jewish aid organizations proved pivotal in shaping Iranian-Jewish responses to Zionism.
In later years, the memory of the Holocaust and the war experience would become contested subjects. Iranian Jews and non-Jewish Iranians commemorated the Holocaust in media and art, while other Iranians denied it—a stance that the Islamic Republic, founded in 1979, adopted and institutionalized as state-sponsored Holocaust denial that continues today.
To deepen our understanding of this crucial period and its enduring impact, we invite applications that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- Iranian survivors and victims of Nazi persecution and the Holocaust
- Iranian experiences in wartime Europe (as rescuers, witnesses, and bystanders)
- European refugee experiences in Iran during the 1930s and 1940s, with particular attention to Jewish refugees
- Nazi propaganda targeting Iranians
- Refugee transit through the Soviet interior to Iran
- The Anglo-Soviet invasion and occupation of Iran
- Relations among British, American, and Soviet occupiers in Iran
- The Soviet Union’s role in wartime Iran, especially based on Soviet archives
- German-Iranian diplomatic, political, and economic relations during the interwar period and World War II
- The activities of the Polish government-in-exile in Iran and its relationship with the Iranian and Allied governments
- The activities of Jewish and Zionist organizations in Iran during the war
- Pro-Nazi and fascist networks in Iran and their subsequent legacies
- Anti-fascist organizing and discourse in wartime Iran and its legacies
- “Aryan race” discourse in politics, arts, and culture, including conflicts with Nazi officials over Iranian nationalist appropriations of the concept
- Depictions of the Holocaust in Iranian film and television
- Holocaust commemoration and historiography in Iranian political and cultural discourse and media
- Iranian-Polish ties and postwar memorialization of Polish refugees in Iran, including the marginalization of Polish-Jewish experiences
- Holocaust denial by Iranian state and non-state actors
We particularly encourage contributions that adopt transnational perspectives or engage innovative methodological approaches. Scholars whose work draws on understudied sources, such as Persian-language material and Soviet archival sources, are particularly encouraged to apply.
Daily sessions of the workshop will consist of presentations of participants’ research as well as opportunities to consult with Museum staff about its educational outreach and academic programming. In Toronto participants will have access to the Tavakoli Archives, a unique repository of Persian-language rare books, manuscripts, lithographs, newspapers, and other written ephemera documenting the transnational Persian literary and print culture of the 19th and 20th centuries. Of particular interest is the archive’s extensive newspaper collection, which reflects the evolution of Iran’s press landscape from strict censorship in the 1930s to the flourishing of diverse political journalism in the 1940s and early 1950s, when publications across the ideological spectrum—from nationalist conservative to communist—served as organizational hubs for emerging political movements and fostered dynamic public discourse despite wartime censorship by the Allied occupiers. The wartime press coverage held by the archive runs to around 250,000 pages printed between 1938 and 1956 and includes unique material. Holdings include a number of daily and weekly publications from across the political spectrum, such as Iran-e Ma, Iran-e Bastan, Nasim-e Shomal, Mard-e Emruz, Parcham-e Eslam, and Setareh-e Islam; the satirical weekly Baba Shamal; literary and scientific journals such as Sokhan, Yaghma, and Mehr; the record of parliamentary proceedings Mozakerat-e Majles; and numerous other rare publications.
Participants will also have the opportunity to learn more about archival resources related to Iran in the Museum’s David M. Rubenstein National Institute for Holocaust Documentation, which houses an unparalleled repository of Holocaust evidence that documents the fate of victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others. The Museum’s holdings chronicle the experiences of European Jewish refugees in Iran and Iranian citizens in Europe during World War II through oral histories, personal papers, and institutional records. Extensive collections from major Jewish aid organizations operating in Tehran, combined with personal collections of letters, memoirs, photographs, music, and artifacts from refugees, illuminate the complex networks of refuge, aid, and cultural life in Iran during the war and its aftermath.
To Apply
Applications are welcome from scholars and researchers affiliated with universities, research institutions, or memorial sites and in any relevant academic discipline whose research addresses Iran during the Holocaust and World War II and their aftermath.
The Mandel Center will reimburse the costs of round-trip economy-class air tickets to/from Toronto, and related incidental expenses, up to a maximum reimbursable amount calculated by home institution location, which will be distributed within 6–8 weeks of the workshop’s conclusion. The Mandel Center will also provide hotel accommodation for the duration of the workshop. Applicants should submit abstracts for papers that will be developed for publication in a special journal issue and/or edited volume. Participants are required to attend the full duration of the workshop and to circulate a draft paper in advance of the program.
The deadline for receipt of applications is January 12, 2026. Applications must include:
- A short biography
- A curriculum vitae
- A list of any related publications and/or on-going research projects
- An abstract of no more than 500 words for the paper the applicant is prepared to present during the program
All application materials must be submitted in English online at ushmm.org/iran-workshop.
Questions should be directed to researchworkshops@ushmm.org.
Co-Organizers
The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto offers a transdisciplinary hub for scholars, students and community partners to engage in conversation to celebrate, study and preserve Iranian history and culture. The Institute represents faculty and students working on Iranian history, literature, religion, languages and arts across the University of Toronto’s three campuses, and offers a meeting place to engage community in this discipline across Canada.
An international leader in the field of Holocaust scholarship, the Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies provides for continued growth and vitality in the field of Holocaust studies, promotes networking and cooperative projects among Holocaust scholars around the world, and ensures the training of future generations of Holocaust scholars in the US and abroad.
The Initiative on Holocaust Denial and Antisemitism at the Museum’s Levine Institute, in collaboration with IranWire, has sought to educate Iranian audiences about the intersections between Iran and the history of the Holocaust, highlight its contemporary relevance, and counter the Islamic Republic’s state-sanctioned Holocaust denial through The Sardari Project: Iran and the Holocaust. Since launching in 2020, The Sardari Project has introduced Iranian audiences to Holocaust history through articles and videos on topics ranging from Nazi propaganda to Muslim rescuers, a Persian translation of a graphic biography about Anne Frank, fabricated texts like the “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and original research on Iranian victims of the Nazis, Persian newspapers from the Holocaust era, Iran as a refuge to those fleeing German occupation, and more. To date, Persian-language content produced through the project has received more than 15 million views across multiple social media platforms.
Contact Email
URL
https://www.ushmm.org/iran-workshop
4. Smarthistory’s new “syllabus” of Islamic art and architecture
a new Islamic Art and Architecture “syllabus” of Smarthistory content has just been published. This curated guide of Smarthistory content is organized into 13 units and, as of today, includes 137 essays and videos: https://smarthistory.org/curated-guide/islamic-art-and-architecture-syllabus/
Unit 1: Introduction and context
Unit 2: Art and architecture for a new Islamic world
Unit 3: The Umayyad Dynasty (661–750 C.E.)
Unit 4: The Abbasids (750–1258) and the Fatimids (909–1171)
Unit 5: The political mosaic of the 10th–13th centuries
Unit 6: In the wake of the Mongols (1256–1507)
Unit 7: A medieval world, connected (c. 13th–15th centuries)
Unit 8: Shifting landscapes in the Maghreb (before and after 1492)
Unit 9: The Mughal Empire (1526–1857)
Unit 10: The Safavid Empire (1501–1736)
Unit 11: The Ottoman Empire (1299–1922)
Unit 12: Islamic art in the 19th and 20th centuries
Unit 13: “Modern Islamic Art”? “Contemporary Islamic Art”?
The curation of this body of public scholarship was only possible because of the many authors who have already contributed essays to Smarthistory. Thank you all! More directly, my work on this syllabus is indebted to the editorial guidance of Marika Sardar and the encouraging support of Smarthistory leadership.
Over the next few months, we hope to augment this syllabus and fill in gaps where we can. If you would like to contribute an essay to this syllabus, or if you would like to share any questions or comments, please reach out to me at courtney@smarthistory.org with a short note.
I look forward to collaboratively expanding Smarthistory’s content on Islamic Art and Architecture over this academic year.
Autumnally,
Courtney
Contact Information
Courtney Lesoon
Macaulay Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Islamic Art History
Smarthistory
Contact Email
URL
https://smarthistory.org/curated-guide/islamic-art-and-architecture-syllabus/
5. CFP: Virtual Islamic Art History Seminar Series, Spring/Fall 2026
We are pleased to announce the Call for Proposals for the 2026 Virtual Islamic Art History Seminar Series (VIAHSS). We invite proposals for individual papers and workshops for our Spring and Fall 2026 series. Please see full details below and submit proposals via our online form by Friday, November 14, 2025.
Founded at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020, the Virtual Islamic Art History Seminar Series (VIAHSS) has brought together a diverse community of researchers from around the world interested in the history of art and visual culture in the Islamicate world. The series’ monthly virtual seminars and workshops have successfully filled a new niche in academic discourse. While travel has resumed and in-person events have begun again, the need for a forum which brings together international and intergenerational audiences in an inclusive and supportive fashion remains.
We are now inviting proposals for paper presentations on topics related to the history of art, architecture, and visual culture of any time period from the Islamic world for spring and fall of 2026. We welcome submissions from current graduate students, faculty, curators, and independent scholars.
The virtual seminar series will take place on Zoom from mid-January onwards. Each session will include a 20–30 minute presentation followed by a 20-minute discussion in a constructive and friendly manner. In addition to individual proposals we are also open to workshop proposals, which might include moderated discussions of pre-circulated papers, roundtables, discussions with practicing architects or artists, or other formats.
If you are interested in presenting, please upload an abstract detailing your topic (not more than 500 words) and your CV or resume by Friday, November 14, 2025, to this form.
If you have any questions, please contact co-organizers Dr. Alexander Brey (alexander.brey@wellesley.edu), Dr. Rachel Winter (winterr6@msu.edu), and Dr. Jaimee Comstock-Skipp (jaimee.comstock-skipp@ames.ox.ac.uk) with the phrase “VIAHSS 2026 proposal” in the subject line.
Contact Information
Drs. Alexander Brey, Jaimee Comstock-Skipp, and Rachel Winter
Contact Email
6. Exhibition – The Bumiller Collection / University of Bamberg Museum of Islamic Art relaunched
After two years of refurbishing the private collection of founder M. Bumiller, the permanent exhibition is open again.
With a new educational concept, the museum presents topics related to art and craftsmanship in Iranian lands.
Covering an area of around 400 m² visitors experience the history of arts and crafts, production, science and medicine, and the history of the Central Asian Ghaznavid dynasty through the objects on display.
The collection focuses on metalwork from the 9th to 13th centuries from the Iranian region, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Ceramics, glass and coins complete the collection.
Contact Information
Dr. Verena Daiber, curator
The Bumiller Collection
Bamberg University Museum of Islamic Art
Austraße 29
96047 Bamberg
Germany
+49 (0)951 25954
www.the-bumiller-collection.com
Contact Email
v.daiber@the-bumiller-collection.com
URL
http://the-bumiller-collection.com
7. Fall 2025 AKPIA Lecture Series: A Forum for Islamic Art & Architecture at Harvard University
October 16, 2025, 6:00pm
“A Technology of Femininity: The Imperial Camera in the Abdülhamid II Albums”
Erin Hyde Nolan
AKPIA Fellow; Visiting Assistant Professor, Bates College
485 Broadway, Lower Lecture Hall
This event will not be livestreamed.
October 30, 2025, 6:00pm
“Fictions of Capital: Inventing, Extracting, and Fabricating Islamic Ceramics for a Global Market”
Margaret Graves
Adrienne Minassian Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture in Honor of Marilyn Jenkins-Madina, Brown University
485 Broadway, Lower Lecture Hall
This event will not be livestreamed.
November 20, 2025, 6:00pm
“The Erotics of Empire: Mughal Albums and Visible Bodies, ca. 1720–1800”
Yael Rice
Associate Professor of the History of Art & Asian Languages and Civilizations, Amherst College
485 Broadway, Room 422
This event will be livestreamed. To register, visit
https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TvIUvmEuTxmIua_Cbv-uhA
THE AGA KHAN PROGRAM FOR ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Lectures are open to the public and held Thursdays, 6:00-7:30pm, at 485 Broadway
(HAA Lower Lecture Hall, or Room 422), Cambridge, MA 02138.
Registration is required to view lectures streamed via Zoom Webinar.
For further information, call 617-495-2355 or email agakhan@fas.harvard.edu.
For registration information, visit https://agakhan.fas.harvard.edu/news-events.
Contact Information
THE AGA KHAN PROGRAM FOR ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
485 Broadway, HAA Lower Lecture Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-495-2355
Contact Email
URL
https://agakhan.fas.harvard.edu/news-events
8. Zoom: The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies and Invisible East
Please join us on Wednesday 12 November at 12PM EST / 5PM GMT to hear from Martina Massullo of the Louvre Museum on ‘Framing the Past: Exploring the Godard Photographic Archives of Iran and Afghanistan’. Pre-registration is essential.
https://utoronto.zoom.us/meeting/register/azuvuYKIRh-yNsSYNoA_5A#/registration
9. “Re-Introducing the Classics: Teaching Classical Persian through the Works of Saʿdi”
Prof. Cameron Cross
University of Michigan
Prof. Matthew Thomas Miller
University of Maryland
Saturday, November 1, 2025, 1:00 p.m. EDT
Zoom Registration Link:
https://utoronto.zoom.us/meeting/register/rJS6O8qgTkqDnOa-scg49A
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
10. The Arabic and Latin Science of Compound Medicaments
A New Reading of Book Ten of the «Practica Pantegni»
Anna Gili
11 November 2025 – 5 PM (CET)
The Royal Book (al-Kitāb al-Malakī), a medical encyclopaedia written by the Arabic physician al-Majūsī (930–994), includes an entire book devoted to the science of compound medicaments in its practical section. Rather than merely compiling lists of antidotes, it begins with a passionate defence of rationalist physicians’ views on the necessity of using compound antidotes, emphasising their effectiveness as an essential tool in the battle against disease.
Notably, the Latin translation by Constantine the African (1020–1087), preserved in a single manuscript from Toledo, goes beyond simply translating al-Majusi’s doctrines. It transforms them into a more philosophically informed discussion, substantiating the rationalist physicians’ claims by explaining how medicaments exert their virtues, while also incorporating fragments of earlier Latin learning.
This talk will present a selection of passages to highlight the main features of this neglected text and its Latin adaptation.
Centre for the Study of Medicine and the Body in the Renaissance (CSMBR) – Assistant Coordinator
Domus Comeliana, Via Cardinale Maffi 48, 56126 Pisa, Italy
Tel.: +39.02.006.20.51 – Mobile: +39.333.13.12.203
Email: ah@csmbr.fondazionecomel.org
To register for this event please follow the link:
The Arabic and Latin Science of Compound Medicaments
11. HYBRID Conference “Decolonizing Archaeological Epistemologies”, Leiden, 29-30 October 2025
The conference will critically examine archaeological histories and practices, proposing instead more expan-sive, democratic, and liberatory approaches to the past and material culture, challenging extant museological, academic, economic, and legal systems governing the ways that material culture is collected, studied, and traded.This conference proposes a counter-colonial approach that rethinks the status of the historical object in the public eye.
Information: https://iismm.hypotheses.org/133323.
Registration: https://www.decolonizingarchaeology.com/registration/
12. Journée d_’étude„Patrimoine_et mémoire du monde iranien. Autour des archives d_’André Godard (1881-1965) et Yedda Godard (1889-1976)“ – Musée du Louvre, Paris, 4 novembre 2025
Information et programme : https://tinyurl.com/4yvd3ncd
13. HYBRID International Conference “Poetry and Knowledge: The Production and Transmission of Knowledge in Arabic Verse (1100–1800)”, Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Münster, 20-22 November 2025
The conference will explore the intersection of literature and the history of knowledge by focusing on Arabic didactic poetry, a genre in which knowledge was composed, transmitted, and performed in verse rather than prose. This event will bring together scholars from various disciplines to discuss the poetic, linguistic, and epistemic dimensions of this tradition.
Information, program and online participation: https://tinyurl.com/3rt5rkdz
14. ONLINE Virtual Seminar Series “Islamic Art History (VIAHSS)”, Michigan, Spring/Fall 2026
We invite proposals for paper presentations on topics related to the history of art, architecture, and visual culture of any time period from the Islamic world for spring and fall of 2026. We welcome submissions from current graduate students, faculty, curators, and independent scholars.
Deadline for abstracts: 14 November 2025. Information: https://tinyurl.com/3cpc973d
15. Yale`s “Central Asia Workshop” (Including Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey), University of Almaty, Kazakhstan, 25-26 May 2026
Participation is open to advanced graduate students and junior scholars in the humanities and social scien-ces. Advanced graduate students must be in the second or third year of a doctoral program. Scholars with PhDs and junior faculty must be no more than five years beyond the degree. Travel, accommodation, and meals will be provided to all selected candidates.
Deadline for applications: 9 January 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/4u49n9nj
16. MA in “Critical Asian and Middle Eastern Humanities”, Duke University
The MA is training students in the written, visual, and performance cultures of East Asia and the Middle East. The program integrates approaches and methodologies from literary studies, film studies, and cultural studies, providing skills for either a doctoral or professional degree.
Deadline for applications: 17 February 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/muvy8psa
17. Call for Articles on “Non-Orientalist Approaches to Modern Uyghur Studies” for a Special Issue of a Journal TBA
Uyghur Studies has gained unprecedented global attention, yet much of the scholarship remains entangled in Orientalist assumptions, securitization discourses, and Eurocentric epistemologies. This special issue seeks to move beyond such paradigms by fostering non-Orientalist, decolonial, and critical perspectives on the modern Uyghur experience within China, Central Asia, and the broader transnational context.
Deadline for submissions: 1 January 2026. Information: Guest Editor immanuel.ness@brooklyn.cuny.edu
18. Call for Articles for the Journal “Global Discourse” (Focus Middle East)
The journal is welcoming contributions for a special edition critically assessing frame theory in the study of conflict. We invite contributions focused on current events from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines, to explore how discourse can be examined using frame theory.
Information: https://tinyurl.com/mvm25w99
Posted in: Academic items
- October 25, 2025
- 0 Comment
