Shii News – Academic Items
1. Open Access Journal: Middle East – Topics & Arguments
Middle East – Topics & Arguments is a unique platform for innovative research on the Middle East combining disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches. Articles critically reevaluate established scholarly traditions and think beyond entrenched disciplinary boundaries. By bringing together well-known academics and young scholars with international backgrounds, a broad range of perspectives will ensure lively debates.
Middle East – Topics and Arguments wants to encourage interdisciplinary discussion on two levels: Firstly, between social sciences and humanities in the field of Middle Eastern studies, and secondly, between Middle Eastern studies and the systematic disciplines. We thereby aim at integrating regional academic discourse into a global setting. We hope to ensure trans-regional comparability, thus leaving behind the notion of cultural and religious exceptionalism which has for a long been connected with Middle Eastern studies.
Each issue of Middle East – Topics & Arguments focuses on one main topic. This allows for perspectives from different disciplines, such as:
cultural studies
literary studies
linguistics
history
political science
sociology
anthropology
economics
ancient studies
2. Call for Papers
Pahlavi Iran, 1941-1979:
A Global History Workshop
London School of Economics and Political Science
19 May 2016
Sponsored by the LSE Kuwait Programme and the British Institute of Persian Studies
The LSE Middle East Centre invites submissions for a one-day workshop on the global history of Pahlavi Iran at the London School of Economics on 19 May 2016.
In the four decades that passed between the Allied wartime occupation of Iran in 1941 and the fall of the Pahlavi monarchy in 1979, Iran was slowly transformed from a battleground of Cold War competition to a major regional and global actor. The Pahlavi state and Iranian society both witnessed profound social, cultural, and economic changes as rising oil revenues fuelled the developmental goals of the White Revolution, while global movements of ideas and activism shaped the growing opposition to the rule of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The roots of contemporary Iran, and the challenges and opportunities it presents, lie in those formative four decades that culminated in the political and social earthquake of the Iranian Revolution.
We seek applications from advanced graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and non-tenured faculty working on all aspects of Iran’s global history in the Pahlavi era from 1941 to 1979. Papers could examine Iran’s place and impact in the world, or the impact of global forces within Iran itself. We welcome submissions on a variety of topics spanning the cultural, diplomatic, intellectual, political, and social history of late Pahlavi Iran, with a common focus on global issues, forces and questions that transcended Iran’s borders. We particularly welcome submissions in three broad areas: 1) the international and transnational relations of Pahlavi Iran; 2) oil, development, and modernisation in Pahlavi Iran; and 3) ideas, culture, and dissent in Pahlavi Iran. Workshop participants will receive feedback at the closed-door workshop from three commentators: Roham Alvandi, Associate Professor of International History at the LSE; Houchang Chehabi, Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University; and Cyrus Schayegh, Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.
Applicants should submit a 300-word abstract and CV by email to the workshop convenor, Dr Roham Alvandi <r.alvandi@lse.ac.uk>, by 1 February 2016. Abstracts should indicate what sources your paper will draw on, as well as the global dimensions of your research. We anticipate selecting nine workshop participants, each of whom will receive funding for return economy air or train travel to London, and one night’s hotel accommodation. Participants will be asked to submit an 8,000-word working paper ahead of the workshop in London. Following the workshop, having received feedback on their work, participants will be invited to revise and resubmit their papers for publication as an edited collection.
For further information, please see: http://www.lse.ac.uk/middleEastCentre/vacancies/Pahlavi-Iran-workshop-.aspx
3. Publication – Mirjam Shatanawi, “Islam at the Tropenmuseum”
Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to announce my most recent book Islam at the Tropenmuseum (Arnhem: LM Publishers).
From the publishers website:
This beautifully illustrated book presents for the first time the rich Islamic collections of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. Highlighting over a hundred artworks and everyday objects, the author demonstrates how Muslims, from the beginning of Islam to the present day, have expressed their faith in art and culture. The book features a wide variety of artefacts from different regions of the world, from Southeast Asia of the Middle East, from West Africa to the Caribbean.
The Tropenmuseum Islamic collections are wide ranging including everyday household objects and popular art, colonial-period artefacts and contemporary art. The book presents the multiple histories of how these objects were collected and displayed, beginning in the 19th century with the founding of the Colonial Museum in Haarlem. It explores the changing ways in which the idea of Islam, as a religion, and as a set of practices, has been understood throughout time and how these changing ideas influenced the museum’s collections. This is the fifth volume of a series of ten books that discuss the collections of the Tropenmuseum and the histories and stories that accompany them.
For more information please visit:
https://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/SHAISL.html
The book is also available at a considerable discount from major sellers.
Best regards,
Mirjam Shatanawi
Curator Middle Eastern and North African collections
Tropenmuseum, Afrika Museum and Museum Volkenkunde
The Netherlands
E-mail: mirjam.shatanawi@nmvw.nl
4. Freie Universität Berlin Lecture Series Winter semester 2015/2016
“Engaging with Contemporary Philosophy in the Middle East and Muslim South Asia: Themes, Approaches, and New Perspectives”
Iran related lecture, Thursday Dec. 10, 2015, 6-8 pm. For details: http://www.bgsmcs.fu-berlin.de/en/dates/lecture_2015_gheissari.html
For details on the entire series: http://www.bgsmcs.fu-berlin.de/en/events/lecture_series/lecture_series_2015_2016/index.html
Place:
Freie Universität Berlin
Fabeckstr. 23-25, 14195 Berlin,
Seminarraum 2.2058 , 2. OG)
5. The 2016 Indiana University Summer Language Workshop (June 6-July 29, 2016) is accepting applications for intensive study of Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS), Chinese, Estonian, Hungarian, Kurdish (Sorani), Latvian, Lithuanian, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, and Ukrainian.
The program features 20 contact hours weekly; twice-weekly language tables; films; food tastings; student-run graduate research groups and other culturally rich extracurricular programming. The Workshop is well-suited for graduate students and professionals preparing for field research, offering opportunities to present papers and research to the Indiana University community.
- All students pay in-state tuition
- Competitive funding available to qualified students:
- Project GO scholarships for undergraduate students in ROTC in Arabic, Chinese, Persian, Russian, or Turkish
- Title VIII fellowships for graduate students and area studies scholars in Azerbaijani, BCS, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Mongolian, Russian, or Ukrainian
- FLAS funding available for Arabic, Azerbaijani, BCS, Estonian, Hungarian, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Mongolian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, and Ukrainian
- Classes held June 6 – July 29, 2016
- All levels of Arabic begin May 31, 2016
- 4-week option available for Russian (ending on July 1)
- Students earn 4-8 credits
Priority application deadline: February 1, 2016.
See http://www.indiana.edu/~swseel for more information and to apply.
Questions? Please contact swseel@indiana.edu or 812-855-2889.
6. Dear colleagues,
This is to inform you of a Call for Publication for a special issue of Geopolitica that I am going to co-edit with prof. Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti. I would be grateful if you could circulate the call and why not submit an essay.
Best wishes,
Raffaele
GEOPOLITICA. Rivista dell’Istituto in Alti Studi di Geopolitica e Scienze Ausiliarie is accepting submissions for its second 2016 issue (July-December).
The volume’s subject matter is: Empire, Shi‘ism and Iranism: Iran After the Sanctions (editors: Prof. Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti and Prof. Raffaele Mauriello).
Deadline for proposals: 31 December 2015
Deadline for articles: 15 March 2016
*********************************************************
Raffaele MAURIELLO, Ph.D.
Research Fellow
Faculty of World Studies
University of Tehran (Northern Campus)
North Kargar Avenue
Office: (+98) 021 61119275
Mobile Iran: (+98) 09102112665
Mobile Italy: (+39) 339755665
7. Three PhD studentships and additional scholarships available at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, UK
8. International Conference: “Anti-Muslim Racism and Anti-Islamic Hostility in Germany and Europe – Problem-Situation, Solution Approaches, and Counter-Strategies”, Institute of Islamic Theology, Osnabrueck University, Germany, 14 – 16 January 2016
This conference aims to provide information about anti-Muslim racism and its threat for Europe and Germany. It focuses on anti-Islamic hospitality ranging from anti-Muslim racism within the German society to counter-strategies, anti-Islamic tendencies in schools, the refugee situation, anti-Muslim racism according to gender, safety discourses, and finally Islam in the media.
Information and program: www.islamische-theologie.uni-osnabrueck.de/fileadmin/documents/public/Tagung_-_Antimuslimischer_Rassismus_Stand_-_Flyer.pdf
9. Conference: “Islam in International Affairs: Politics and Paradigms”, European International Studies Association’s (EISA), Yaşar University, Izmir, Turkey, 7-10 September 2016
The section seeks to explore theoretical approaches and empirical experiences of the Islamic civilization by referring to both classical and modern sources, the worldview of prominent thinkers, statecraft experiences, current transnational movements, and case studies on the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) phenomenon.
Deadline for proposals: 8 January 2016. Information: www.coiris.org/islam-in-international-affairs-politics-and-paradigms/.
10. Research Assistant in the DFG-research Project “Diversity, Power, and Justice: Transcultural Perspectives”, University of Kassel
The Research Assistant (EG 13 TV-H) will conduct independent research within the sub-project “Justice and the Critique of Occidentalism within Contemporary Political Theory in the Maghreb” with the objective of graduating with a PhD. The applicant has completed a Masters degree in the field of Political Sciences or Philosophy with a major focus on Arabo-Islamic Philosophy. A very good command of Arabic, French and English or German is required. Commencement of job: 1 January 2016.
Deadline for application: 14 December 2015. Information: www.uni-kassel.de/intranet/aktuelles/stellenangebote/stellenausschreibung-details/tx_ukstellenausschreibung/27009.html
11. AUB Summer Arabic Programs in Modern Standard Arabic & Colloquial Lebanese Arabic
June 22 – August 10, 2016
The Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut will offer two intensive Arabic programs in the summer of 2016: one in Modern Standard Arabic and one in Colloquial Lebanese Arabic.
The program in Modern Standard Arabic provides intensive instruction at eight levels: Introductory, High Introductory, Low Intermediate, Intermediate, High Intermediate, Advanced, High Advanced and Superior. The total of 186 classroom hours is equivalent to 9 credit hours earned at AUB which may be transferred to other universities. The typical daily workload includes five hours of MSA and one hour of Lebanese dialect, followed by lectures, field trips, clubs and movies which are integrated into the program. Students should also expect at least four hours of homework each day. The program uses the Georgetown Arabic language textbooks by Brustad, al-Batal, and al-Tonsi and other supplementary materials.
The program in Colloquial Lebanese Arabic provides intensive instruction at the intermediate level. This program is designed for students who already have some knowledge of Levantine dialect and wish to reach a higher level. Students applying to this level must have studied Modern Standard Arabic for at least two semesters. The course consists of 120 contact hours, equivalent to 6 credit hours earned at AUB, which may be transferred to other universities. The typical daily workload includes four hours of colloquial Lebanese Arabic followed by lectures, field trips, clubs and movies which are integrated into the program. Students should also expect at least four hours of homework each day. The program uses teaching materials developed by CAMES as well as Lebanese films, songs, and other audiovisual materials.
The deadline for regular admission in both programs is April 15, 2016. Students who apply by April 15 will receive a response by the first week of May. Applications for both programs may be downloaded from: http://www.aub.edu.lb/fas/cames/sap/Pages/sap_application.aspx or http://www.aub.edu.lb/fas/cames/sap/Pages/ColloquialLebaneseArabic.aspx
For further information, please email cames@aub.edu.lb or check these links:
http://www.aub.edu.lb/fas/cames/sap/Pages/arabic_program.aspx or http://www.aub.edu.lb/fas/cames/sap/Pages/ColloquialLebaneseArabic.aspx
12. School of Modern Languages and Institute of Iranian Studies
University of St Andrews
Call for Conference Papers
‘Culture and Cultural Production in Iran: Past and Present’
(17th, 18th and 19th June 2016)
Convener: Dr Saeed Talajooy <st83@st-andrews.ac.uk>
This conference aspires to encourage the application of the evolving approaches to the study of culture to the history of artistic production in Iran. The unifying element of the conference, therefore, is artistic cultural production and the spaces in which it has occurred as an aesthetic, economic, socio-political phenomenon in Iran, particularly during the last two hundred years. We welcome a variety of submissions: from those that offer overviews of a particular form in a given period, to very specific studies of individual artists, works, practices, or material culture. We are also interested in the role these cultural products have played in the expansion of the concept of art and ‘the redistribution of the sensible’— what can be seen and heard in society due to the machination of political, cultural and religious aesthetics that confine these sounds and images in a hierarchical system of values. Of particular interest are also those papers that explore the theoretical aspects of the meaning and functions of art in Iran by studying specific topics. The conference, thus aims to encourage analytical and theoretical discussions on the multiplicity of locations that art (literature, cinema, theatre, music, dance, visual arts, architecture, etc.) occupies in Iranian discourse on modernity and post-industrial contemporaneity.
The following is a tentative list of general themes that speakers may choose to address while researching specific topics, but other subjects or approaches will also be welcomed:
v What is ‘Farhang’? Is there a divide between a popular and an elite culture? Who possesses culture?
v What is art? Where does it occur? How has it been received and promoted in Iran since the 1800s?
v Visual arts and the transformation and idealization of the body;
v The museum as a space and as an art form; collecting and buying art products;
v Cultural production and royal/clerical modernity in the late Qajar, Pahlavi and post-revolution era;
v What is ‘the contemporary’ and when did it begin in its Iranian context? What is contemporary art (literature, music, drama, dance, visual arts, architecture, etc.)?
v Mimicry, theatricality and theatrical politics: theatre, cinema, and their socio-political doubles;
v Music, dance and the rise of public space; music, dance, and culture; women on the stage;
v Transformation of the concept of art as a prerequisite for modernity;
v The art of subversion through historicist, cross-cultural, and folkloric reformulation and adaptation;
v Art as a public space for socio-political inquiry; and history writing as an art form;
v The birth of the new concept of ‘the individual’ in Iranian art;
v The rebirth of Tehran as a modern/Islamic modern/contemporary metropolis: immigrants, minorities, marginality, coups, foreign occupation, Islamic transformations and artistic production;
v The expansion of the public space through architecture, theatre, cinema, opera, ballet, concerts, night club dance and performance, reformulated religious rituals, marketing and religious murals, etc.;
v Marxism, art and modernity; Islamism, art and modernity; Existentialism, art and modernity; Capitalism, consumerism and art; Nation, nation-building and nationalism in Iranian art;
v Comparative studies of Iranian and non-Iranian art (fiction, music, dance, poetry, drama, visual arts, architecture, etc.) with a focus on the meaning of the modern or the contemporary;
v Publication, distribution , canonization and festivals and their roles in the reformulation of the culture;
v Transformation of family, individual and society in cultural products,
v Women as the subject and producers of Iranian art;
v Modern history and art as a secular space to display cosmopolitanism;
v Rereading history, religion or myth in Iranian art;
v Revolution as performance; streets and homes, indoor and outdoor, social control and metamorphosis;
v Indigenous artistic traditions and negotiating the relationship between the past and the present.
Confirmed Speakers include:
Bahram Beyzaie (Cinema)
Ahmad Karimi Hakkak (Literature)
Mohamad Tavakoli Targhi (History)
Hamid Amjad (Theatre)
Jila Esamailian (Publication)
Naghmeh Samini (Television)
Hooman Asadi (Music)
Performance
Mojdeh Shamsaie
Please submit abstracts of between 250 and 300 words by 25th January 2016. Authors will have 20 minutes to present their papers. A selection of papers will be chosen for further expansion and publication in an edited volume on Culture and Cultural Production in Iran. The abstracts must be electronically submitted to Saeed Talajooy <st83@st-andrews.ac.uk>.
13. http://www.biblioiranica.info/
“Bibliographia Iranica is a collective effort, continuing the work that Arash Zeini started at his blog over at www.arashzeini.com. This new website and connected social media share and distribute information on recent publications and events in Iranian Studies, understanding the field in its broadest sense from antiquity through to late antiquity and the early Islamic era with occasional excursions into neighbouring disciplines, geographies and eras.”
Posted in: Academic items
- December 08, 2015
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