Shii News – Academic Items

1. CfP: The 13th International Conference of Mahdaviat Doctrine, May 2017, Qom.

Abstract and cv due by 20.11.16.

See http://mahdaviat-conference.com/images/docs/files/000001/nf00001217-1.pdf

2. On July 19th, an exhibition of “Islamic Art at the Art Institute: A Century of Exhibitions and Acquisitions” will be open at the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries of Chicago. The exhibition consists of eight cases carrying rare books and archival materials related to the advent and presence of Islamic and Oriental art in Chicago area.

The exhibition continues by September 26th, 2016 and tours by the curator are set for August 4th and 25th. For more information please visit: http://www.artic.edu/exhibition/islamic-art-art-institute-century-exhibitions-and-acquisitions or contact: kmaleki@artic.edu

3. Professeur-e associé-e en Etudes Islamiques au Centre Suisse Islam et
Société de l’Université de Fribourg auprès de la Faculté des lettres à
partir du 1.1.2017. Expertise en Etudes Islamiques ou dans le domaine
Islam et Société avec une approche interdisciplinaire requise. Le/la
futur-e titulaire doit lier les traditions de savoirs islamiques
pluriels avec des questions philosophiques, éthiques et sociétales
dans un contexte contemporain. Des intérêts pour la recherche
appliquée (p.ex. pédagogie ou travail social) sont souhaitables ainsi
que des connaissances de didactique universitaire dans le domaine de
la formation continue. De très bonnes connaissances de la langue
française ou allemande avec des connaissances de base de l’autre
langue et la volonté d’enseigner dans les deux langues à plus long
terme sont nécessaires.

Les informations détaillées concernant ce poste et les documents
demandés se trouvent sous http://lettres.unifr.ch/fr/services/job/

Les dossiers de candidature devront être adressés avant 15 septembre
2016 uniquement sous forme électronique à szig@unifr.ch .

4. The Five College Arabic Language Initiative and the Program in Middle East Studies at Smith College invite applications for a full-time one-year lecturer position in Arabic Language, which will be based at Smith College beginning July 2016. Applicants must have native or near-native fluency in Modern Standard Arabic, English, and at least one Arabic dialect. Master’s degree or above in Arabic Language, Literature, Linguistics, Culture, Arabic Studies, or a relevant field is required.

The successful candidate will teach five courses each academic year, typically teaching on at least two campuses. Candidates should have demonstrated experience and excellence in teaching Arabic language with the proficiency-communicative approach at all levels at the college level.

Located in Northampton, MA, Smith College is the largest women’s college in the country and is dedicated to excellence in teaching and research across the liberal arts. A faculty of outstanding scholars interact with students in small classes, as advisors, and through student-faculty research projects. The Five College Consortium, comprised of Smith, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire Colleges and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, provides a rich intellectual and cultural life. Details about the Five College Arabic Language Initiative can be found at https://www.fivecolleges.edu/arablanguage . Details about the Middle East Studies Program at Smith can be found at http://www.smith.edu/mes/index.php.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

Submit application at http://apply.interfolio.com/36046 with a cover letter, curriculum vitae, statement of teaching philosophy, three recent teaching evaluations, and contact information for three references (formal letters will be required at the finalist stage). In addition, we will request samples of teaching materials (e.g. syllabus, teaching plans, exams, handouts, etc.) from selected finalists. Review of applications will begin July 11, 2016.

Diversifying the student body, faculty, administration, staff, and curriculum is at the heart of our mission and vision for the College. We are committed to providing access and reasonable accommodation in the application process for individuals with disabilities and encourage applicants to request any needed accommodation(s). We value and are committed to a host of diverse populations and cultures, including, but not limited to, those based on ability, age, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, and veteran status.

Smith College is an EO/AA/Vet/Disability Employer. Women, underrepresented racial groups, veterans and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply.

5. ‘The 5^th International Conference on Contemporary Philosophy of Religion’ will be held in Tehran, Iran, Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran at January 24-25, 2017. Please do join us for this event.

Every year we hold this conference to establish the unique ground for dialogue and mutual understanding among the very influential community of Philosophy of Religion from both West and East, with the hope to make a bridge from the abstraction to action.

With regard to the great success of four past conferences, the fifth conference is organized by Iranian Association for Philosophy of Religion (IAPR), with cooperation of Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran.

Please forward the following call to whom you think might be interested;

You can have access to further details via the conference’s website:

http://philorconf.org/2017/

Sincerely yours,

Conference Secretariat

6. Translation and Religion: Interrogating Concepts, Methods and Practices

University of Edinburgh, 1-3 September 2016

What is the relationship between ‘translation’ and ‘religion’? While all ‘religions’ travel and engage in translation of one kind or another, what gets translated? How do the different components of what is currently understood as ‘religion’—texts, practices, experiences, inner faith or belief systems—translate differently? How can we analyze such commonly held beliefs that some languages simply are sacred and should not be translated? And what are the implications of such questions for understanding religious conversion? What can translation concepts and methods tell us about the way religions and the study of religions are constructed?

While both disciplines have evolved and grown rapidly over the past half century, each has also engaged, in the past few decades, in a re-evaluation of its basic ideas and terms, including fundamental categories such as ‘religion’ and ‘translation.’ It can no longer be taken for granted that there is one definition for what comprises the ‘sacred’ or indeed a ‘correct’ or ‘good’ translation. Such re-assessment provides an excellent context within which to creatively engage the two to generate forward-looking theoretical perspectives.

This three-day AHRC-funded conference aims to bring together scholars from the two disciplines to investigate theories, concepts and methods with comparative and critical tools in order to evaluate areas of mutually creative overlap.

Keynote Speakers:

Professor Alan Williams, University of Manchester

From Oceanography to Fillet-O-Fish^®. The Spectrum of Translation of the Poetry of Rumi

Professor Arvind Pal Mandair, University of Michigan

Complicating Contact Zones: Translation as Practice of Creating Concepts and Self-Differentiation

For further details and a full conference programme please see http://www.ctla.llc.ed.ac.uk/conference-draft/. Enquiries should be addressed to Dr. H. Israel at H.Israel@ed.ac.uk .

7. Call For Papers: Rethinking Late Ottoman Civilization

March 24-25, 2017

University of Texas at Austin

Department of Middle Eastern Studies

Keynote Speaker: Suraiya Faroqhi

Program Committee: Samy Ayoub, Jeannette Okur, and Firdevs Canbaz Yumuşak

The Ottomans encountered the word civilization in the early 19^th century, and the Ottoman version of this word, medeniyet, was coined thereafter. Both ‘civilization’ and ‘empire’ refer to comprehensive manifestations of power, culture, and ideas. This symposium will explore the artifacts of Ottoman modernization and intellectual history, and encourage careful examination of the late Ottoman discourse on “civilization”. As is well known, many Ottoman intellectuals, in their conceptualization of civilization, aimed to reconcile the material achievements of European civilization with Ottoman-Islamic morality and aesthetics. Even so, historiographies in the post-Ottoman sovereign states have often equated modernization with de-Ottomanization, a notion which excludes the Ottoman period as a legitimate setting for the study of modernity. This symposium encourages new scholarship that will further legitimize the study of Ottomans’ engagement with modernity’s social, political, economic and aesthetic implications.

We invite advanced graduate students and established scholars to submit paper proposals for this two-day interdisciplinary symposium to be held at the University of Texas at Austin on 24-25 March, 2017. We will welcome papers from the disciplines of history, law, literature, architecture, art, and music. We especially encourage papers on the following subtopics:

Possible subtopics include (but are not limited to):

– Daily Life in the Empire

– Justice

– Aesthetics of Love (Aşk)

– Family

– Politics

– Minority Communities

– Trade and the Economy

Potential participants should submit an abstract (up to 250 words) and a brief curriculum vita by October 31, 2016. Please include the words “Late Ottoman Civilization Symposium” in the subject line. Also, please provide your institutional affiliation, as well as a mailing address and telephone number where you may be reached. Funding for lodging and meals may be available for participants.

Applicants will be notified of acceptance by November 14, 2016 and completed papers from accepted applicants will be due for pre-circulation on March 1, 2017. Please send all submission materials to sayoub@austin.utexas.edu

For further information, please contact: Dr. Samy Ayoub at sayoub@austin.utexas.edu

8. CFP – Light and Darkness in Medieval Art, 1200–1450 (ICMS, Kalamazoo, May 2017)

International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, 11-14 May 2017

Sponsored by the International Centre of Medieval Art.

Convenors: Stefania Gerevini and Tom Nickson

Light has occupied an increasingly prominent role in medieval studies in recent years. Its perceptual and epistemic significance in the period 1200-1450 has been scrutinized in several specialised research projects, and the changing ways in which light and light-effects are rendered and produced in the arts of the Middle Ages, particularly in Byzantium and Islam, are routinely evoked in literature. However, scholarship on these topics remains fragmented, especially for the Gothic period, and comparative approaches are seldom attempted. New technologies of virtual reconstruction and changing fashions of museum display make it an opportune moment to consider these issues in a more systematic manner.

These two sessions will investigate how perceptions of light and darkness informed the ways in which art across Europe and the Mediterranean was produced, viewed and understood in the period 1200–1450. In the late 12th century a key set of optical writings was translated from Arabic into Latin, providing new theoretical paradigms for addressing questions of physical sight and illumination across Europe. At this time theologies of light also gained renewed popularity in the eastern Mediterranean – particularly as a result of the Hesychast controversy in Byzantium, and in connection with Sufi notions of divine illumination in Islam. What correlations can be traced between theories of optics, theologies of light, practices of illumination, and modes of viewing in the Middle Ages? Are there similarities in the ways different religious or cultural communities conceptualised light and used it in everyday life or ritual settings?

These sessions invite specialists of Christian, Islamic and Jewish art and culture to explore the status of light in broader discourses around visuality, visibility and materiality; the interconnections between conceptualizations of light and coeval attitudes towards objectivity and naturalism; and the ways in which light can articulate political, social or divine authority and hierarchies. The session will also welcome papers that address such broad methodological questions as: can the investigation of light in art prompt reconsideration of well established periodizations and interpretative paradigms of art history? How was the dramatic interplay between light and obscurity exploited in the secular and religious architecture of Europe and the medieval Mediterranean in order to organise space, direct viewers and convey meaning? How carefully were light effects taken into account in the display of images and portable objects, and how does consideration of luminosity, shadow and darkness hone our understanding of the agency of medieval objects? Finally, to what extent is light’s ephemeral and fleeting nature disguised by changing fashions of display and technologies of reproduction, and – crucially – how do these affect our ability to apprehend and explain medieval approaches to light?

Proposals for 20 min papers should include an abstract (max.250 words) and brief CV. Proposals should be submitted by 10 September 2015 to the session organizers: Stefania Gerevini (stefania.gerevini@unibocconi.it) and Tom Nickson (tom.nickson@courtauld.ac.uk). Thanks to a generous grant from the Kress Foundation, funds may be available to defray travel costs of speakers in ICMA-sponsored sessions up to a maximum of $600 ($1200 for transatlantic travel). If available, the Kress funds are allocated for travel and hotel only. Speakers in ICMA sponsored sessions will be refunded only after the conference, against travel receipts.

9. Islamic World Research Associate (Fixed Term) (Cambridge, UK)

Applications are sought for a Research Associate who will be one of four postdoctoral researchers on the ERC funded ‘Impact of the Ancient City’ project led by the Principal Investigator Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill.

The project will re-examine the impact of the ancient, Greco-Roman city on subsequent urban history in Europe and the Islamic world, investigating both the urban fabric and urban ideals. Bringing together researchers trained in historical, archaeological and literary analysis, the project spans the entire Mediterranean region from Greco-Roman antiquity to the present day.

The research team will investigate case histories in the western and the eastern Mediterranean, and pose a set of questions about how urban forms responded to changing social needs.

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