Categories : Academic items
Shii News – Academic Items
1.ONLINE Webinar: “Manifestations of a Sufi Woman in Central Asia” by Dr Aziza Shanazarova (Columbia University), Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies Lecture Series, University of Manchester: “Empowering Muslim Women in History, Literature, and the Arts”, 8 March 2022, 15:30 GMT
The lecture series is organized by Prof Zahia Smail Salhi < zahia.smailsalhi@manchester.ac.uk > and Dr Ha-toon AL FASSI < hatoon.alfassi@manchester.ac.uk >, the University of Manchester, School of Arts, Languages and Culture.
Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/93450525800
2. HYBRID International Conference “Silk Roads by Land and Sea”, German University of Technology in Oman (GUtech), Muscat, 9-12 March 2022 – POSTPONED to later in 2022
The conference will be structured around five sections, namely Cultural Heritage, Natural Sciences, Human-ities and History of Religions, Social Anthropology, and finally, Historic Politics and Economics. Dealing with these five sections, the presentations will take place in two parallel strings: “Silk Roads by Land” and “Silk Roads by Sea”.
Information: http://silkroads.rio-heritage.org/
3. HYBRID Lecture: “The Rise and Fall of Postcolonial Charisma” by Prof. Mohammed Bamyeh (University of Pittsburg), Freie Universität Berlin, 7 April 2022, 16:15 pm – 8:00 pm CET
Anti-colonial movements in the global south were often personified by a savior leader or a visionary character. Bamyeh discusses the disappearance of this charismatic expectation in recent protest movements with spe-cial focus on the Arab uprisings of 2011 and 2019. He proposes similarities and contrasts between postcolo-nial charisma and phenomena such as contemporary populism and cults of personality.
Information: https://www.sfb-affective-societies.de/veranstaltungen/termine/2022-03-02_keynote_Bamyeh.html.
Registration: polvoro@zedat.fu-berlin.de
4. Workshop: “Travel, Mobility, and Cultural Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa”, South-east Regional Middle East and Islamic Studies Society, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, 9-10 April 2022
Papers will be presented from any discipline in the humanities or social sciences that address topics relating to travel and mobility in, to, and from the MENA region in any historical era.
Information: https://sites.google.com/su.edu/sermeiss/meetings_1/spring-meetings?authuser=0
5. 6th Doctoral Conference and Central European Symposium for the Academic Study of Religion (CESAR): “Transformations of Religions in Times of Crises: Spiritual Alienation and Rethink-ing of Ethics”, University of Pardubice, Czech Republic, 1-3 September 2022
Themes: How do different religions or spiritualities interact with each other in times of crisis?How spiritual alienation affects both social and religious systems around the world?How secular society views the role of religiosity in times of crises? What is a role of social media and how do they affect the double dynamic of spiritual alienation and unification?
Deadline for abstracts: 15 May 2022.
6. International Workshop: “Travelling Matters: Rereading, Reshaping, Reusing Objects Across the Mediterranean (1492-1923)”, Haifa Centre for Mediterranean History, 8 September 2022
The workshop intends to tackle objects as sources and subjects of the history of cross-cultural encounters in innovative ways. We intend to discuss objects flowing in all directions and we wish to concentrate on the “second-handedness” of displaced objects.
Deadline for abstracts: 10 April 2022.
7. Visiting Assistant Teaching Professor of Arabic, University of Notre Dame, IN
Applicants should have at least an M.A. in linguistics, literature, Middle Eastern Studies, or relevant field, as well as preparation in communicative language pedagogy. Applicants should also have native or near-native fluency in Modern Standard Arabic, at least one dialect, and English, and some experience teaching Arabic at the university level.
Deadline for applications: 20 March 2022. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/103344
8. Doctoral Scholarships of the Gibb Memorial Trust
Applications for scholarship of up to £2,000 are invited from students working on the pre-modern Middle East (7th century to 1918) registered for a PhD at a British university.
Deadline for applications: 15 April 2022.
Information: https://www.gibbtrust.org/scholarships/
9. Hamsa. Journal of Judaic and Islamic Studies, # 8 (2022) : Arabists and Hebraists (18th– 20th century)
It is intended to summon up Arabists and Hebraists whose activity was developed inside or outside the Academy. The chronological range extends from the 18th to the 20th century, allowing the inclusion of the begin-ning of modern Arabic and Hebraic studies, in Europe, Middle East and new American states, as also others less obvious regions of the world. ]
Deadline for abstracts: 30 April 2022. Information: https://journals.openedition.org/hamsa/2460
10. Articles for New Journal “Indonesian Journal of Religion, Spirituality and Humanity”, State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN) Salatiga, Indonesia
IJORESH is committed to the scholarly study of the dynamic interplays among religion, spirituality and humanity. It particularly focuses on the works which deal with anthropology of religion, sociology of religion, psychology of religion, philosophy of religion, history of religion, religious education, religious literature, the-ology, religious law, religious studies, Islamic studies, and religious tourism.
Submission deadline: 15 April 2022.
Information: https://e-journal.iainsalatiga.ac.id/index.php/ijoresh/index
11. Articles for Journal of Language and Inscription: Studies on Old, Middle and New Iranian Languages and Inscriptions. We welcome original and as yet unpublished contributions in German, English, and French from all research areas of studies on old, Middle and new Iranian languages and inscriptions. Reviews can also be submitted at any time.
Deadline for articles: 15 September 2022.
Information: Mdehaghi@ut.ac.ir
12. The British Library
Arabic Manuscripts from Southeast Asia in the British Library
Today’s guest post is by Prof. Andrew Peacock of the University of St. Andrews.
13. CALL FOR PAPERS International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA)
Special Issue: Climate Change and the Built Environment in the Islamic World
Thematic volume planned for May 2024 (IJIA 13.2)
Proposal submission deadline: April 30, 2022
This special issue of IJIA focuses on the impact of the current climate crisis on the built environments of the Islamic world. Environmentalist scholar and eco-theologist Seyyed Hossein Nasr once said that the natural environment occupies a type of ‘sacred’ space in the world, an elevated position that exists only because nature is ‘always in danger of desecration’ (Chidester and Linenthal 1995). In fact, many scientists are now seeing our current global predicament as evidence of the emergence of a ‘fifth nature’ or ‘post nature’, referring to a world ‘after’ nature or potentially beyond or in addition to it, which expands the central definition of the ‘natural’ to include man-made waste, environmental pollution, and importantly climate change as part and parcel of a lived and living ecosystem (Apotsos and Venter 2020). To this end, this special issue takes up the challenge of unpacking this complex topic by utilizing architecture as a space of discourse for thinking about how one might craft a theory of ‘critical environmentalism’ across the Islamic world. Currently accounting for 40 per cent of the world’s total energy usage per year, the built environment provides a fitting platform for a consideration of climate change and attendant environmental themes such as sustainability – broadly defined as ‘the endurance of systems and processes’ – towards examining how such realities are made manifest through the lens of diverse spatial templates within Muslim societies around the globe.
To this point, many architectural approaches being explored in the contemporary period as potential solutions to building in an increasingly unstable climatic future are rooted in historical practices, many of which emerged in proto-Islamic lands. Archaeological evidence from North Africa and the Middle East, for example, not only suggest that early civilizations used thermodynamically efficient materials like earth to build in desert environments, but also developed an understanding of how to generate livable microclimates through infrastructural design and engineering. Some of these early approaches have also served as the basis for some of the first modern attempts at crafting climate-appropriate design, spearheaded by architects such as Hassan Fathy (Egypt) and his utilisation of AT (Appropriate Technology), and even certain contemporary structural counterparts like Dubai’s new eco-mosque in Hatta, which opened in 2021 and uses both solar panels to reduce its energy usage and water treatment units to reuse water for irrigation and cleaning due to the lack of potable water sources in the region. Importantly as well, such building projects and approaches also gesture towards shifting conditions and modes of being in the world, realities informed by numerous different perspectives ranging from social, cultural, economic, and even religious modes of existence. In 2021, the Saudi Arabian government issued a fatwa on the topic of water reuse, requiring mosques in both Mecca and Medina to recycle wastewater or ‘grey water’ due to the limited potable water resources in the region and the extreme drain on regional water resources that events like the annual Hajj provoke. Some see this as evidence of the emergence of a ‘Green Deen’, or an approach to sustainability that positions environmental stewardship as a faith-based ordinance.
Contemporary considerations of the effects of climate change on built environments throughout the Islamic world also compel a reconsideration of the continuing fallacy imposed by western Enlightenment thought that the relationship between architecture and the environment is one of mutual exclusion. Although advancements in green technology, the growth of design fields oriented around biomimetic applications, and the development of sustainable building materials such as ‘cradle to cradle’ products are shifting the relationship between built form and the environment in a more cooperative direction, the fact remains that architectural practice continues to position the natural environment as a separate, distinct realm to be studied and above all controlled, a largely non-collaborative system that rarely overlaps with the built environment unless forced and often actively opposes it.
To this end, this special issue encourages contributions that explore the role of architecture and the built environment in shaping the contours of current climate change and environmentalist discourse in the context of diverse socio-political, cultural, and economic spheres throughout the Islamic world. Contributions might consider past and present events, circumstances, and spaces that offer different or nonconventional interpretations of environmentalism and even the idea of ‘nature’ itself as a space of multiple perspectives, definitions, and concerns, as well as how communities individually encounter and define environmental concerns and incorporate natural design elements into structural responses and solutions specific to the context. Papers might additionally address how architecture as an analytical mechanism challenges established approaches and tendencies that position the built environment in opposition to environmentalist concerns by recognizing its capacity to act as a type of text composed of multiple narratives and registers of knowledge that reflects the value system and frameworks operating within a society at a particular moment with regards to the environment.
Papers should adhere to the IJIA’s remit, which is defined broadly as ‘the historic Islamic world, encompassing the Middle East and parts of Africa and Asia, but also the more recent geographies of Islam in its global dimensions’. Further, contributors should fully exploit the self-reflexive potential of this remit towards addressing a spectrum of critical approaches to the built environment in the Islamic world that not only position architecture as a theatre of environmental performance, but also a platform from which to consider additional conditions revolving around issues of race, gender, ethnicity, culture, and politics as they relate to environmental challenges and concerns. To this end, this special issue not only aims to be strongly interdisciplinary, drawing from fields ranging from urban design, history, architecture, archaeology, sociology, and anthropology, but also accommodate a diversity of discourses that focus on regions, communities, and built environments not widely addressed in scholarship on Islamic space. Such case studies are particularly important toward generating a comparative interrogative approach to effectively consider the ongoing encounter/relationship between humanity and the natural world over time and space.
Examples of themes contributors might wish to explore include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Imagining sustainable futures/architecture as an environmentalist frontier
- Global warming, climate change, and its social/cultural impacts
- Natural aesthetics as design inspiration
- Green architecture in desert environments
- Environmentalism, heritage, and its discontents
- Eco-Islam and the ‘Green Deen’
- Armed conflict and its environmental impacts/implications
- Petropolitics and sustainable space
- Architecture and ecological conservation/preservation
- Non-traditional/emerging designs, materials, and spaces
- Colonial/postcolonial frameworks in environmental discourse
- AT (appropriate technology)
Articles offering historical and theoretical analysis (DiT papers) should be between 6000 and 8000 words, and those on design and practice (DiP papers) between 3000 and 4000 words. Practitioners are welcome to contribute insofar as they address the critical framework of the journal. Please send a title and a 400-word abstract to the guest editor, Michelle Apotsos, Williams College (IJIAsustainability@gmail.com), by April 30, 2022. Authors of accepted proposals will be contacted soon thereafter and will be requested to submit full papers by January 30, 2023. All papers will be subject to blind peer review. For author instructions, please consult: www.intellectbooks.com/ijia.
14. CFP – Conference: Book Ornament and Luxury Critique – Zurich, 15-17 September 2022
The research group “Textures of Sacred Scripture. Materials and Semantics of Sacred Book Ornament” (https://textures-of-scripture.ch) invites paper proposals for a three-day international conference on “Book Ornament and Luxury Critique”. The conference, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, is scheduled to take place at the Institute of Art History at the University of Zurich from 15 to 17 September 2022.
In his famous preface to Job, Jerome severely criticizes sumptuous luxury in the ornamentation of books: “Let those who will keep the old books with their gold and silver letters on purple skins (…) if only they will leave for me and mine, our poor pages and copies which are less remarkable for beauty than for accuracy” (Praefatio in librum Hiob, ed. Schaff/Wace 1890, 492). While this source is often cited as proof of the availability of luxurious copies of sacred scriptures in Late Antiquity, and the continuation of such splendor – despite clerical opposition – throughout the Middle Ages, the tradition of luxury critique it documents, and its further development, has received far less attention. When, how, and under what circumstances might book ornament be understood as offensive, and which strategies were employed to avoid such critique or to create books that are ostentatiously ascetic?
Since antiquity, philological correctness was opposed to ornament in the rhetorical discourse, which associated an overtly rich language with overblown luxury and female adornment. Already in Roman literature, this gendered discourse was projected onto the material artifacts of writing, a tradition that influenced the varied discussions about the materiality of sacred books and their status in Christian, Islamic and Jewish book cultures from Late Antiquity until the end of the Middle Ages and beyond. In all three religious traditions, the discourse concerning the ornamentation of scripture established connections “between ornamenting bodies, buildings and language, in which fancy forms are rejected in favor of plain, and embellishment opposed to simplicity in a dialect of truth and falsity” (F. B. Flood, in: Clothing Sacred Scriptures, ed. D. Ganz/B. Schellewald, Berlin/Boston 2019, 52).
The conference welcomes proposals that consider the entire range of such critique of book ornament in Christian, Islamic and Jewish book cultures, and that analyze their specific contexts and semantics, as well as “the spaces of negotiation, in which artists, commissioners and users could react to critical allegations without simply obeying them” (D. Ganz, as above, 34). The time range for proposed papers is from antiquity through the Middle Ages and beyond; early modern and Reformation studies as well as broader theoretical approaches are also welcome. Discussions across disciplinary boundaries are encouraged. Topics of particular interest are:
- material semantics of luxury and its opposites (especially the role of color, layout and format)
- critique of gilded script and the clothing of scriptures in gold, jewelry and textiles
- self-commenting books (e. g. Richard de Bury’s Philobiblon) and self-legitimation of ornament
- the ornament critique of the monastic orders
- the economics of luxury and its critique
- the rhetoric of luxury critique
- luxury critique and gender discourses
- luxury critique in an interreligious perspective
Speaking time for each paper should not exceed 30 minutes and will be followed by a discussion. The conference languages are English, German, French and Italian. Submissions should include the title and an abstract (max. 300 words) as well as the name, contact information and a short CV of the speaker. Proposals should be submitted to thomas.rainer@uzh.ch by 15 April 2022. Acceptance of papers will be confirmed at the beginning of May 2022. The conference is currently planned as an in-person meeting. Travel expenses and on-site accommodation of all speakers will be covered.
15. Available Publication – Book on Ottoman Inscriptions In Northern Black Sea
The board of SOTA Foundation is making the next book on Ottoman traces in Ukraine and its neighbours freely available on the Academia.edu page of its author. We hope to do a service to the honour and struggle of Ukrainian people.
https://www.academia.edu/73262023/
This book is designed as a catalog of Ottoman inscriptions found in the north of the Black Sea. Said region today consists of the territories of Ukraine, Moldova, Russia and Georgia. Although the Crimean peninsula is very important for Ottoman and Islamic history, it is not the subject of this book. The material found there is so great that another book can be made out of this one. Crimea has been the subject of some monographs and inventory studies in Turkey in recent years. Romania and Bulgaria, located in the West of the Black Sea, are not included here as they will be the subject of another book. Bender Castle, located on the territory of Moldova, is included in this book because it is a part of the Ottoman Bucak province. This book is dedicated to the Honorable People of Ukraine, who resisted the brutal invasion and occupation of Ukraine in 2022, and its digital copy was made free available on this occasion in February 2022. The book is in Turkish with an extensive Russian part about Bender.
16. The Mediterranean Review issued by the Institute for Mediterranean Studies at Busan University of Foreign Studies, Republic of Korea, is calling for papers.
The journal addresses Mediterranean regional affairs and discusses crucial
developments in culture and politics. It addresses global issues such as the
Mediterranean influence on international affairs and its multi-cultural
dimensions. We welcome the submission of manuscripts dealing with the fields
of History & Humanities as well as Social Sciences.
Subjects for paper: politics, economics, history, archaeology, literature,
languages, arts, society etc. regarding the Mediterranean
* Date of Submission : April, 18th. 2022. (Mon)
* Address to submit : imsmr@bufs.ac.kr / imsmr@ims.or.kr
* Date of publication:
No.1) 30th of June
No.2) 31st of December
Before submitting your paper, please refer to our code of research ethics as
well as to the text formatting and citation rules on our website:
http://www.imsmr.or.kr.
– Published Articles :
http://imsmr.cafe24.com/go/bbs/board.php?bo_table=Articles (click to move)
– Submission Guide : http://imsmr.or.kr/go/bbs/content.php?co_id=Guidelines
(click to move)
– Code of Ethics :
http://imsmr.cafe24.com/go/bbs/content.php?co_id=Code_of_Ethics (click to
move)
Please notice that we only accept manuscripts in the English language.
All submitted papers will be evaluated under a strict and fair peer review
process. Please notice that there is no guarantee for a submitted article to
be published.
The Editorial Board, Mediterranean Review
Institute for Mediterranean Studies,
Busan University of Foreign Studies65, Geumsaemro 485 beon-gil, Geumjeong-gu, Busan, Republic of Korea. (46234)
Tel) +82-51-509-6695 / +82-51-509-6670
E-mail) imsmr@ims.or.kr / imsmr@bufs.ac.kr
Website) www.imsmr.or.kr
17. Conversations with Emperor Jahangir
Richard Foltz
18. University of California – Los Angeles – Persian Language Lecturer
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=63106
Closing date: 29.5.22.
- March 08, 2022
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.AKU-ISMC
23 and 30 May 2022 Short Course – Mosques in Sub-Saharan Africa (Zoom)
2. Workshop on Typologies in the Islamic Ethical Discourse
Orient-Institut Beirut & American University of Beirut
March 10 to March 12, 2022
For attendance in person, please fill the form: https://forms.gle/z32LFhCzXrHSRtV99
[Please note that physical attendance is limited to 25. If the limit is already reached, your registration will be accepted for online attendance. You will be contacted, if you are registered for physical attendance.]
Live streaming:
https://live.starleaf.com/ODYyNzg6MDcwNTI2 (Day 1: 10. March 2022)
https://live.starleaf.com/ODYyNzg6NDQ4NjEw (Day 2: 11. March 2022)
https://live.starleaf.com/ODYyNzg6MzQ0MTI0 (Day 3: 12. March 2022)
For more information you may refer to our website: https://www.orient-institut.org/events/event-details/typologies-in-the-islamic-ethical-discourse/
3. The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) is pleased to announce that applications for the Doctoral Scholarship are now open. The deadline for applications is 31 March 2022.
The IIS awards Doctoral Scholarships each year to suitable candidates who are interested in pursuing research at PhD level on a topic related to any of the Institute’s core research areas. The most relevant to the Institute’s research needs are:
- Ismaili studies
- Wider Shiʿi studies
- Qurʾanic studies
- Islamic law
- Education
- Manuscript studies
The scholarship is also open to any areas in which Islam can be analysed in one of its various manifestations (historical, theological, philosophical, legal, educational, political, ritual, cultural, etc.).
The Institute’s Doctoral Scholarships programme was established in 1997. Since then, more than 52 scholarships have been awarded. The Doctoral Scholarships are a vehicle for intellectual advancement, career progression and human resources development.
To apply, please download and complete the application form and submit it together with the required documents to scholarships@iis.ac.uk by 31 March. All documents must be submitted in PDF format.
The application form must be accompanied by:
- Cover letter
- Updated CV
- Personal Statement of Commitment
- Copies of graduate-level academic transcripts, including a copy of your Master’s diploma
- Copy of letter of acceptance to doctoral programme
- Three letters of recommendation
- Writing sample
- Doctoral research proposal
The IIS Doctoral Scholarships are available to Ismaili students from around the globe. Further information on eligibility can be found here.
Find out more about the Doctoral Scholarship Programme and how to apply.
For any other information, please email us on scholarships@iis.ac.uk.
4. From Erasure to Remembrance: Affective Memories of Egyptian Feminists – Hoda El Sadda (Online Lecture – MONDAY, MARCH 7, 2022 AT 3 PM – 4:15 PM EST)
https://uwmadison.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIuc-CvqDstE9RPGCMh8I4tDI3DHN6GFDOI?_x_zm_rtai…
This lecture will shed light on the political and intellectual trajectory of a pioneer suffragette in the history of Egyptian feminism, Duriyya Shafik, with the aim of exploring the processes of remembrance and forgetfulness of dissonant feminist voices in cultural memory. Shafik was an outspoken advocate for women and human rights throughout the 40s and 50s. In 1957 she was put under house arrest and her name banned from public life on account of her strong opposition to undemocratic practices by the President of the Republic. In the aftermath of the 25th of January revolution in Egypt in 2011, Duriyya’s memory was revived and celebrated widely and in diverse contexts. The new political realities characterized by a cycle of hope and despair, resulted in a revisionist journey into Egypt’s recent history, notably the 1950s and 60s, a period which also witnessed another revolutionary turbulence. Durriyya’s remembrance in the past decade was fueled by an affective dissonance, a state of feeling, that is at the same time individual, social and political, that recognizes the incongruous elements in the dominant narrative.
Hoda El Sadda is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cairo University. She is also a feminist and an activist for women’s rights. In 1992, she co-founded and co-edited Hagar, (1992-1996) an interdisciplinary journal in women’s studies published in Arabic. Her research interests are in the areas of gender studies, comparative literature and oral history. She is author of Gender, Nation and the Arabic Novel: Egypt: 1892-2008 (Edinburgh UP and Syracuse UP, 2012); and co-editor of Oral History in Times of Change: Gender, Documentation and the Making of Archives (Cairo Papers, 35:1, 2018).
5. Online Lecture:
How studies in Latin America & the Caribbean can challenge the scales of observation & omission that compartmentalize global Islam
Tuesday 15 March 2022 || 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
(Central European Time)
Join the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies for a lecture by Dr. Ken Chitwood (Freie Universität Berlin) and a response by Prof. Dr. Claudia Derichs (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin).
Online: https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=6dfb27459f&e=f70992245e
————————————————————
Despite attempts to broaden our understanding of Muslim networks and the scale of global Islam, most treatments continue to sideline or completely ignore Latin America and the Caribbean. These silences and omissions are in large part due to a dominant area studies discourse that continues to rely on center-periphery models and compartmentalizes regions and spaces according to “epistemic borderlines which have been drawn and grown during decades of constructing a ‘world order’ that is ultimately defined by political power relations.” (Derichs 2015)
In this presentation, Chitwood outlines a new research project exploring multiple networks and assemblages that not only shape the contemporary Muslim community in the Americas, but also form part of the entangled reality of global Islam in the late-modern world.
Learn more here (https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=b82997f7ed&e=f70992245e)
** Twitter (https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=c7bf2bb27b&e=f70992245e)
** Facebook (https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=f82cc7965d&e=f70992245e)
** Website (https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=2d1db1c0f0&e=f70992245e)
Copyright © 2022 LACISA, All rights reserved.
6. University of Edinburgh: Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
‘Decolonising Ideas: a new podcast series’
The Institute is delighted to announce the launch of a new podcast series, Decolonising Ideas, as part of the Institute Project on Decoloniality (IPD ’24).
Informed by the work of a variety of IASH Fellows, Decolonising Ideas aims to introduce listeners to the theories and practice of Decoloniality, explore the breadth of decolonial inquiry occurring at the Institute, and examine how IASH scholarship relates to broader issues of coloniality across the Global South and Global North.
Our first episode, ‘Decoloniality and the Arab Majority World’, features Alwaleed Postdoctoral Fellows Dr Nadeen Dakkak and Dr Ali Kassem as they discuss their scholarship, lived experience, and how their work is informed by and relates to theories of decoloniality.
For further information and to access the podcast at:
7. Zoom talk about the satirical periodical Molla Nasreddin (1906–1931)
Saturday, March 5th (4pm PST/ 7pm EST): A speech and conversation by Dr. Janet Afary (speaker) and Dr. Hasan Javadi (discussant) on the well-known satirical periodical Molla Nasreddin (1906–1931). As usual, we will start with the speaker’s speech, followed by a conversation between the speaker and the discussant, and closing with a Q&A session with the audience. You may also submit a question or two upon registration.
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TALK OVERVIEW: In the early 20th century, a group of artists and intellectuals in Transcaucasia reinterpreted a Middle Eastern trickster figure to construct a reformist and anti-colonial Muslim discourse with a strong emphasis on social and political reforms. Using folklore, visual art, and satire, their periodical Mollā Nasreddin reached tens of thousands of people in the Muslim world, impacting the thinking of a generation.
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SPEAKER: Janet Afary holds the Mellichamp Chair in Global Religion and Modernity at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is a Professor of Religious Studies. She is a historian of modern Iran and has a PhD in History and Near East Studies from the University of Michigan, where her dissertation received the Distinguished Rackham Dissertation Award. Previously she taught at the Department of History and the Program in Women’s Studies at Purdue University, where she was appointed a University Faculty Scholar. Her books include: Sexual Politics in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2009, winner of the British Society for Middle East Studies Annual Book Prize); The Iranian Constitutional Revolution: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism (Columbia University Press, 1996, winner of Dehkhoda Institute Book Awardj; and (with Kevin B. Anderson) Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism (University of Chicago Press, 2005, winner of the Latifeh Yarshater Book Award for Iranian Women’s Studies); (with John R. Perry) Charand-o Parand: Revolutionary Satire in Iran (Yale University Press, 2016), Honorable Mention Lois Roth Persian Translation Prize.
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DISCUSSANT: Hasan Javadi was born in Tabriz, Iran to a distinguished family of administrators and scholars. He has taught English and Persian literature at the University of Cambridge, Tehran University and the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author and translator of numerous books, including Satire in Persian Literature, and Persian Literary Influence on English Literature. For Mage he translated Obeyd-E Zakani: Ethics of the Aristocrats and Other Satirical Works. His translations include: Forough Farrokhzad’s Another Birth and Other Poems, and with Willem Floor, Abbas Qoli Aqa Bakikhanov’s The Heavenly Rose-Garden: A History of Shirvan & Daghestan; Evliya Chelebi’s Travels in Iran and the Caucasus, 1647 and 1654; and Wake Up Call: Memoirs of a Moslem Woman’s Struggle to Educate Her People, 1907-1931. He edited Letters From Tabriz: The Russian Suppression of the Iranian Constitutional Movement.
Now retired, Dr. Javadi lives in the Washington DC area, where he is working on original scholarship and translations of Persian literature.
8. Panel (March 11): What is the Value of the Persianate to Afghanistan Studies?
To register for “What is the Value of the Persianate to Afghanistan Studies?” (Friday, March 11; 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM Pacific time), please click here.
Panel description below:
In recent years, the study of the Persianate world has gained more momentum. Scholars have discussed and debated its meaning, utility, and value as a category of analysis for different disciplines, and cultural and historical geographies. This panel will interrogate the value of the Persianate for the study of Afghanistan and Afghan history by using this evolving framework and its attendant methodologies and presuppositions as a point of entry into myriad historical, literary, and cultural sources and questions.
Our discussion will span the 16th through the 20th centuries and includes analysis of a varied body of primary sources in different languages: royal autobiographies, chronicle geography, poetry, medical records, diasporic periodicals, and others. The desired outcome of this discussion will be to articulate a more locally differentiated and less romanticizing use of the Persianate in our current scholarly milieu.
Panelists:
Marjan Wardaki (Yale)
Nicolas Roth (Harvard)
Nicole Ferreira (UC Berkeley)
Discussant:
Aria Fani (University of Washington)
—
Aria Fani | www.ariafani.com
Assistant Professor of Persian and Iranian Studies
University of Washington, Seattle
9. Farzaneh Family Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Iranian Studies, College of International Studies, University of Oklahoma
Deadline for Applications: April 10
The University’s Farzaneh Family Center for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies invites applications for a two-year Farzaneh Family Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Iranian Studies. Disciplinary field is open. Applicants with a specialization in US-Iranian relations and/or the politics of contemporary Iran are especially encouraged to apply.
The term of the fellowship will begin on August 1st, 2022, at a salary of $40,000 per year, plus benefits and additional support for conference travel. Applicants must have received their PhD during the past five years, and no later than July 1st, 2022.
The fellow will be expected to be in residence at the University of Oklahoma during the term of the fellowship, teach one course per year in OU’s Dept. of International and Area Studies, organize a lecture series, and participate in the intellectual life of the Farzaneh Family Center for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies.
In addition to a letter of application, applicants should include a full CV, two course descriptions for proposed courses to be taught at OU, a research statement describing the work they plan to complete during the term of the fellowship, full contact information (including email addresses) for two recommenders, and a statement on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Review of applications will begin on April 10th and remain open until filled.
All application materials must be submitted via email to Stephanie Sager at the Department of International and Area Studies, at the following email address: dias@ou.edu
For inquiries contact: Afshin Marashi (amarashi@ou.edu )
The mission of the Farzaneh Family Center for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies is to coordinate a variety of teaching, research, and outreach activities at the University of Oklahoma that explore the history, culture, society, and politics of Iran, the Persian Gulf, and those regions historically shaped by the Persian language.
For more information about the Farzaneh Center see:
https://www.ou.edu/cis/sponsored_programs/farzaneh-family-center
- March 05, 2022
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.ONLINE Lecture: “The Rituals of the Zoroastrians from Antiquity to the Present Day” by Prof. Dr. Alberto Cantera (Free University of Berlin), Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin, 10 March 2022, 6:30 pm CET
Zoroastrian rituals are still accompanied by the recitation of texts in Avestic, an ancient Iranian language, in India, Iran and the diaspora. These texts were probably written before the 5th century BCE for the perfor-mance of similar rituals. Zoroastrianism is thus characterised by one of the longest ritual continuities in the world.
Information and registration: https://www.smb.museum/en/events/detail/the-rituals-of-the-zoroastrians-from-antiquity-to-the-present-day-2022-03-10-183000-127130/
2. 9es Journées d’études de la Halqa : « Marges, Marginalités, Minorations et Minorités dans les mondes musulmans contemporains (XIXe – XXIe siècles) », Lyon, 9-10 juin 2022
L’appel à communications est ouvert aux jeunes chercheurs et chercheuses de toutes écoles, universités et institutions, spécialistes de l’islam et des mondes musulmans, quelle que soit leur discipline (sciences sociales, art et littérature, islamologie, etc.).
Les propositions de communication (en français ou en anglais) doivent être adressées avant le 28 mars 2022 à l’adresse halqadesdoctorants@gmail.com.
Information : https://halqa.hypotheses.org/5108
3. HYBRID Session on “Islamic Seas and Shores – Connecting the Medieval Maritime World” during the Annual ASOR Meeting, Boston, Virtual 19-23 October 2022, In Person 16-19 November 2022
Focusing on how the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean connected far-flung cultures, communities, and economies, this session will explore these connections region-by-region, to create a broader understanding of the development, expansion, and impact of Islamic maritime networks.
Deadline for abstracts: 15 March 2022.
4. Conference: “Politics of Pasts and Futures in (Post-)Imperial Contexts”, DFG Graduate School “Empires”, University Freiburg, Germany, 1-3 December 2022
Members from all disciplines of the Humanities and Social Sciences, or interdisciplinary combinations within these fields, are invited to participate. Themes: Imperial pasts and their use as means of political justification; transformation of self-images or identities formed under imperial rule in times of crisis or in post-imperial situations; the effect of imperial pasts on imagined futures and progress.
Deadline for abstracts: 24 March 2022.
Information: https://www.grk2571.uni-freiburg.de/events/annual-conference-2022
5. Aquisitions Editor Islamic Studies, De Gruyter Verlag, Berlin
Profil: Abgeschlossenes Studium in Islamwissenschaft oder verwandtem orientalistischen Fach, idealerweise mit einer Promotion; erste praktische Erfahrungen in einem Wissenschaftsverlag oder im Publikationswesen; sehr gute deutsche und englische Sprachkenntnisse in Wort und Schrift; Arabischkenntnisse und idealer-weise Kenntnisse in einer weiteren nahöstlichen Sprache.
Bewerbungsschluss: 15. März 2022.
Information: https://de-gruyter.jobbase.io/job/xaf2p7pbiy0wh8wkeuqlzva8gjv53r9
6. Three Post-Doctoral Positions for Research on “Visuality in the Qur`an and Early Islam”, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Outstanding scholars can apply to join the research project for one of the following research areas: Vision and Visuality in Early Islamic Law and/ or theology; Vision and Visuality in Early Islamic Hagiography and/ or Historiography; Vision and Visuality in Arabic Poetry and/ or Early Islamic Rhetoric
Deadline for applications: 15 March 2022.
Information: https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=63029
7. Lecturer in Arabic, Department of Middle Eastern and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Binghamton University (SUNY)
Applicants should hold at least an M.A. or Ph.D. in any Arabic Studies related field including language, lin-guistics, literature, translation, and foreign language education. We seek candidates who have experience teaching Arabic as a second language at institutions of higher education and who possess native or nearna-tive competence in Arabic and English.
Deadline for applications: 1 April 2022.
Information: https://binghamton.interviewexchange.com/candapply.jsp?JOBID=142918#pageTop
8. ONLINE Mentoring Session: “Planning for Publication?” MENA Social Policy Network, Early Career Research Initiative, Maastricht University, 16 March 2022, 12:00 pm – 13:30 pm CET
Working on social policy in the MENA and looking for opportunities to publish your work? We are hosting Daniel Mather from Elgar Publishing House and Dr Raimundo Soto from Middle East Development Journal to talk us through the publication process.
Information: https://www.menasp.com/en/news/sign-up-for-our-upcoming-ecr-workshop-on-how-to-publish/
9. Fellowships in France (2 or 3 Months) for Young Post-doc Researchers in Social Sciences and Humanities from the South and East Mediterranean
This program is open to researchers originating from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Marocco, Palestine, Tunisia and Syria and affiliated to one of the 140 Universities member of UNIMED.
Deadline for applications: 25 March 2022. Information: https://www.uni-med.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/English-Call-Unimed-2022.pdf
10. Ottoman Summer Program (OTSP)
Date: 27 June – 4 August 2022
Application Period: 15 February – 15 March 2022.
Organized by Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED), this 6-weeks intensive in person summer program aims to develop students’ reading and comprehension skills and expertise on a variety of Ottoman sources including archival documents, various manuscripts, and epigraphic material. The material will present a wide array of content and narrative types. The program is designed to accommodate the needs of participants entering with different levels of Ottoman literacy. Ottoman classes are complemented by Persian, Arabic and modern Turkish classes.
Deadline for applications:15 March 2022.
Information: https://anamed.ku.edu.tr/en/programs/ottoman-summer-program/
11. Call for Submissions: Al Noor, the Undergraduate Middle Eastern Studies Journal of Boston College
Deadline for submissions: 4 April 2022.
Information:
12. “Kingdom of Clowns: Theatre as a Source for Writing History” by Sheida Dayani (Princeton) | Wed. March 2 @ Noon
ZOOM LINK TO REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT: https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1VmzDFaCROakQnIRsDTOUQ
Sheida Dayani
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies
Princeton University
Her current book project, Making History with Theatre in Modern Iran: Juggling Revolutionaries is forthcoming 2023.
13. The Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies (CAMES) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) will offer two seven-week intensive summer Arabic programs on AUB campus between June 22 and August 10, 2022.
The Arabic Language and Culture program is designed for students interested in developing overall proficiency in Arabic in both its Standard and Lebanese varieties. Emphasis is placed on the development of the various skills within a communicative, proficiency-based framework that perceives Arabic in all its varieties as “one language” and thus integrates standard Arabic and Lebanese colloquial within the same course, and that gives special attention to the development of intercultural competence in Arabic. The program provides instruction at different levels of proficiency from elementary to high advanced.
The Lebanese Arabic program offers intensive instruction at the elementary, intermediate and advanced levels. The program is designed for learners who want to devote their attention to the development of proficiency in Lebanese Arabic and thus places heavy emphasis on the speaking and listening skills and on building/enhancing intercultural competence.
Both programs provide intensive instruction and immersion in the language and culture through a rigorous academic program that is complemented by an integrated series of films, lectures, clubs, and community service activities. Students receive 9 credit hours that they can transfer to their home institutions.
The application deadline is April 15, 2022.
For detailed information about the academic content of the programs, application, cost, and financial support, please visit our website: http://www.aub.edu.lb/fas/cames/sap/ or contact us on cames@aub.edu.lb.
14. Séminaire « Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien »
Séminaire mensuel du CeRMI
Jeudi 10 Mars 2022
Nous avons le plaisir de vous convier à la prochaine séance du séminaire “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien” organisé par le CeRMI, qui aura lieu le jeudi 10 mars 2022 de 17h à 19h, en présentiel et sur Zoom. Nous serons heureux d’y accueillir les deux conférences suivantes :
Philip Bockholt (Leipzig University):
“Translating Works of World History on the Western Fringe of the Persianate World: Two Case Studies from Ottoman Istanbul”
Abstract: From the 14th century onwards, thousands of works were translated from Persian and Arabic into Ottoman Turkish. Despite the rich source material, which includes works of various genres that can be found today in manuscript collections in Turkey, Europe, and North America, the individual agents in this transfer of knowledge have not yet been studied in depth. The aim of this paper is to examine the translation processes of two major works of Persian historiography, Mīrkhvānd’s Rawżat al-Ṣafā (Garden of Purity) and Khvāndamīr’s Ḥabīb al-Siyar (Beloved of Careers). Both chronicles cover the history of the Islamic world up to about 1500 and were translated in Ottoman Istanbul in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively. Based on the surviving manuscripts of the translations of both works, the question of who translated what exactly for whom and how the content of the works was adapted to the intended readership will be investigated. The two works lend themselves to this because the approach to multi-volume chronicles was different: while the translation of the Rawżat al-Ṣafā can be traced back to a single translator, the Turkish version of the Ḥabīb al-Siyar was produced by a team of translators directly commissioned by the grand vezir. The analysis of the translation processes sheds light on the relationships between scholars and patrons as well as on the transmission of texts against the respective religious and political background of the Eastern Mediterranean in the early modern period. In this context, broader questions about the concept of Persophonie / Persianate world at its western edge will also be addressed.
Selected bibliography:
İnan, Murat Umut: Imperial Ambitions, Mystical Aspirations: Persian Learning in the Ottoman World, in: Nile Green (ed.): The Persianate World: the Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca, Oakland/CA: UCP, 2019, pp. 75–92.
İnan, Murat Umut: Ottomans Reading Persian Classics: Readers and Reading in the Ottoman Empire, 1500–1700, in: Mary Hammond (ed.): The Edinburgh History of Reading: Early Readers, Edinburgh: EUP, 2020, pp. 160–181.
Mélisande Bizoirre (chercheuse associée au LA3M, UMR 7298)
« Utiliser l’art pour légitimer son pouvoir : Politiques artistiques des souverains iraniens après la chute d’Ispahan (1722-1750) »
Résumé : La période qui suit la prise de la ville d’Isfahan par les Afghans en 1722 et le démantèlement de l’empire safavide, a longtemps été négligée, notamment dans les études d’histoire de l’art. Elle s’avère pourtant féconde, surtout au regard du mécénat royal. Souffrant d’un fort déficit de légitimité, les différents souverains qui se succèdent sur le trône iranien utilisent la production artistique pour se mettre en scène et affirmer leur domination. Ils élaborent ainsi des stratégies destinées aussi bien aux puissances étrangères qu’à la propagande interne, qui leur permettent de se poser en défenseurs de la religion, en protecteurs du peuple et en continuateurs d’une histoire longue aussi bien turque que persane. Inscriptions monumentales, grands travaux et restaurations et imagerie royale témoignent de cette recherche de légitimité par la culture matérielle, tant à Isfahan que dans le Khorasan et plus largement sur l’ensemble du territoire iranien.
Orientations bibliographiques :
Michael Axworthy, The Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, From Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant, London : I. B. Tauris, 2009
Ernest S. Tucker. Nadir Shah’s quest for legitimacy in post-Safavid Iran. Gainesville : University Press of Florida, 2006.
Pour suivre la séance : en distanciel (Zoom) ou en présentiel (Salle 3.15, INaLCO, 65 rue des Grands Moulins, Paris). Inscription obligatoire : http://www.inalco.fr/evenement/seminaire-cermi-societes-politiques-cultures-monde-iranien-1
- March 01, 2022
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1. Rediscovering Objects from Islamic Lands in Enlightenment Europe
Routledge, 2021
Isabelle Dolezalek and Mattia Guidetti, eds.,
Online-book presentation in the frame of “ReSIA – Research Seminar in Islamic Art” (SOAS University of London, convened by Professor Anna Contadini) on 3 March 2022, 6 pm UK time. Registrations with Matty Bradley: mb@royalasiaticsociety.org by 2 March.
2. CfP: A Matter of Speech: Language of Social Interdependency in the Early Islamicate Empire
For the final conference of the ERC project Embedding Conquest: Naturalising Muslim Rule in the Early Islamic Empire (600-1000) we will focus on the rhetoric of social dependency. How is language used to describe, establish, cancel, exploit, and manipulate relationships in the early Islamicate empire? We want to examine how relationships between individuals, and between and within groups, are referred to, and how other forms of solidarity underwriting social cohesion are cultivated and perpetuated.
What words, expressions and visual tools are used to frame social relationships? And how are they employed to initiate, operationalise and maintain those relationships? How are connections between groups and individuals defined and how are those formulations implemented to shape and manage, but also end, such associations? How is language employed to establish ties by labelling relationships in organised ways and invoking commonalities and shared experiences that confirm the presence or absence of connections and how are these used to realise tactical goals?
For more information see our website: https://emco.hcommons.org/events/event/cfp-a-matter-of-speech-language-of-social-interdependency-in-the-early-islamicate-empire/
The Conference will take place 8-10 December 2022 at Leiden University
The deadline for the CfP is 1 April 2022.
3. AKU-ISMC
Introduction to the Study of Islam and Muslims
Online Short Course
March 21-31 over six sessions
For information and to book, see:
4. Tracing Arab and Muslim Women’s Resistance to Colonialism and Imperialism
By Shatha Almutawa
American University, USA
Wednesday 02 March 2022, 17:00 GMT on Zoom:
https://zoom.us/j/94799815277
Abstract: This lecture explores the role of Arab and Muslim women in resistance movements in lands colonized by the British, the French, the Dutch, and the Portuguese. Women experienced significant changes to their lifestyles, freedoms, and safety under colonialism in Egypt, Algeria, the Arabian Peninsula, India, and beyond. They participated in armed and non-violent resistance movements against the violence, humiliation, and erasure that colonizers inflicted on their communities. The widespread colonization of Muslim populations led Muslims and non-Muslim Arabs to unite despite cultural, linguistic, religious, and geographical differences. As a result, ideas of a “Muslim world” and Arab nationalism emerged in the works of historians, activists, politicians, and theologians.
This lecture traces the voices and actions of women in the midst of these international movements and transnational transitions.
Bio: Shatha Almutawa holds a PhD from the University of Chicago and is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the American University. Her research has focused on Islamic intellectual history, Islamic philosophy, Postcolonialism, literary studies of Islamic traditions, and women and gender in Islam. Her publications include “‘The Death of the Body Is the Birth of the Soul’: Contradictory Views on the Resurrection in Rasa’il Ikhwan Al-Safa” in Studia Islamica (2018); and a chapter on the status of women in the United Arab Emirates in the book Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa: Citizenship and Justice (2005). She is currently completing work on a critical edition and translation of Epistle 42 of Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa (OUP/ Institute of Isma’ili Studies).
5. Discussion Forum on Divine Scriptures (DFDS) 9th meeting.
Prioritization in religious research: text access, text interpretation, or text testing?
Dr. Mohammad Hassan Ahmadi, University of Tehran
Wednesday Mar. 2 ,2022 – 4:00 PM, Tehran zoom
Join us for registration and More information via:
https://chat.whatsapp.com/ChiWkBj2mW0Ln9Ld7QpAJQ
Best wishes,
—
Dr. Mohammad Hasan Ahmadi
Asso. Prof. University of Tehran
Islamic Historical Philology
Executive Director of Discussion Forum on divine Scriptures(DFDS)
Website:http://zabanshenasitarikhi.ir/
Phone : +98 (0)9127580228
Email: ahmadi_mh@ut.ac.ir
6. Open Access Publication – Sehen im Vergleich. Transformationen von Blicken in der persischen und westeuropäischen Buchmalerei
Vera Beyer
arthistoricum.net, 2022
https://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/arthistoricum/catalog/book/590?lang=en
7. Webinars Series – Islamic Manuscript Studies, first lecture of the series : “Types of Authorship and its Relations in Arab Heritage” – 13 March 2022 / 1:00–2:30pm (time in Doha and Istanbul)
What is Islamic manuscript studies? Which subjects are most studied in the field? What are the latest developments in studying the Islamic manuscript culture? What are the current resources and research literature?
These and many other questions about the Islamic manuscript culture are in the heart of a lecture series organized jointly by Qatar National Library and the Center for Manuscript Studies at Fatih Sultan Mehmed Waqf University in Istanbul. The talks will be held monthly by renowned international experts in Islamic codicology and manuscript studies, addressing scholars and the general audience alike. Lectures will be conducted online via Zoom in English or Arabic with simultaneous translation.
The March lecture is entitled “Types of Authorship and its Relations in Arab Heritage” and will be delivered by Professor Kamal Arafat Nabhan, Professor of Information Science, who authored the reference book The Genius of Arabic Authorship: Text Relations and Scientific Communication, a pioneering book that won international prizes and taught as part of academic courses in several Arab universities for postgraduate studies.
For more information you can contact : Steohane Ipert or Mahmoud M. Gomaa
To register to attend (QNL lectures are free) : https://ssl.eventilla.com/event/eKdN1
8. The Journeys of Kalila and Dimna: Itineraries of Fables in the Literature and Arts of the Islamic World(Leiden: Brill, 2022)
Eds., Eloïse Brac de la Perrière, Aïda El Khiari and Annie Vernay-Nouri.
https://brill.com/view/title/60393
9. Iranian Studies Āvānegār Film Screening and Panel Discussion
Friday, April 8, 2022 at 11:00am Pacific Time via Zoom
Āvānegār, a collaborative documentary narrated by Dr. Mohsen Mohammadi (Director of Indo-Persian Music at UCLA) explores the history of transcription of Iranian music, based on decades of research in various archives in Iran, Europe, and the United States. Rare historical documents and sources are presented in the film, and several historical notations of Iranian music are performed. Exclusively for the film, Dr. Reza Vali (Professor of Composition at Carnegie Mellon University) arranged a five-movement piece that is performed by an ensemble of notable American musicians. Moreover, several prominent Iranian musicians are featured, including (in Persian alphabetical order) Navid Afghah, Ali Bahramifard, Kazem Davoudian, Siroos Jamali, Siamak Jahangiri, Layla Ramezan, and Behzad Ravaqi. This film is dedicated to the memory of Mohammad-Taghi Massoudieh (1927–1999), whose publications are invaluable and incomparable sources for researchers, musicians, composers, and all who are interested in Iranian music.
- February 26, 2022
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law & Practice
Call for Papers (Deadline 30/06/2022)
The Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law & Practice (MJTILP) is pleased to announce the call for papers for its forthcoming Volume 18, 2022.
The MJTILP is a peer reviewed journal and indexed on SCOPUS. The journal is available at the www.electronicpublications.org and can also be accessed on HeinOnline. The journal welcomes submission of articles that meet its objectives for consideration with a view to publication.
The journal comprises of three sections:(1) Articles; (2) Recent Developments; and (3) Book Reviews.
The normal word length for articles is between 5000-15000 words including footnotes. The journal also welcomes shorter contributions (between 2000 to 3000 words) for its ‘Recent Developments’ section. The MJTILP is not restricted to any specific field of law and aims to cover a wide range of subjects relevant to Islamic law and practice. Topics of particular interest include: transnational forms of Islamic law; constitutional developments, law reform and application of international lawin the Muslim world; application of Sharia in Muslim or non-Muslim States; accommodation of Muslims in non-Muslim State; comparative practices of Muslim majority States; and intersections between Islamic law and international law or other religious and secular legal systems. For detailed aims of the MJTILP, please visit the journal’s website: https://www.electronicpublications.org/catalogue/46
The journal also welcomes reviews of monographs and edited collections published recently on any of the above topics. For book review enquiries, please get in touch with our Book Review Editor Dr Khaled Bashir (khaled.bashir@abdn.ac.uk ).
All submissions must be original, unpublished works, and not under consideration elsewhere. All publications are subject to transfer of copyright to the publisher. We are happy to discuss permissions to authors on justifiable grounds.
Submissions: Editorial correspondence, including submissions to the journal should be made electronically to Editor-in-Chief of the Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law & Practice Dr Ahmad Ghouri via email: a.a.ghouri@outlook.com .For further information, including submission criteria and style guidelines please refer tothe journal website: http://www.electronicpublications.org/catalogue.php?id=46 .Advance Publications: Accepted manuscripts may be first published online as ‘Advance Publications’. All Advance Publications will be included in the subsequent Issue/Volume of the Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law & Practice.
2. Applications are now open for a National Endowment for the Humanities training institute on digital publishing that will be held in hybrid format at the Brown University Library in July 11-29, 2022.
This is meant for scholars interested to learn more about digital publishing, including matters such as conceptualization, design, available platforms (Manifold, Scalar, WordPress), budgeting, and funding sources. Presenters will include authors who have published digital books or are writing them now, university press editors and directors, designers, and technological specialists.
The application is open to scholars of all ranks, including university faculty and adjuncts, postdoctoral researchers, and independent scholars. Applicants must have a Ph.D.
Applicants based in any country are welcome, though the NEH Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities (IATDH) program focuses on scholars currently studying or employed at institutions in the U.S. Thus, U.S. citizens and/or U.S.-based scholars will be given priority. International applicants and/or persons without a current U.S. visa should note that, if selected and if an in-person meeting is possible, a visa cannot be guaranteed.
Closing date: 15 March, 2022
For details and the application, please visit:
https://library.brown.edu/neh-institute-born-digital-scholarly-publishing/
3. ONLINE Webinar: “Schooling Egypt’s New Elite: Class and Belonging in Cairo’s International Schools” with Noha Roushdy (CEDEJ/Boston), CEDEJ/IFAO, Cairo, 21 February 2022, 4:00 pm EET
Discussant: Daniele Cantini (University of Halle).
Information and registration: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScevAFGG6HDzydBlhDwZqY5UzMfBxtKBJuI4r5uS9PtmDsuFg/viewform
4. ONLINE Webinar on “Nursing, Empire, & Mobility: American Mission Nurses in Iran & Iranian Nurses in the U.S., 1907-1979” by Lydia Wytenbroek, Bishop`s University, Canada, 23 February 2022, 2:30 pm ET
Information and registration:
5. ONLINE Seminar on “The Cunning of Gender Violence: Geopolitics and Feminism”, by Hammami, Abu-Lughod and Shalhoub-Kevorkina, Center for Middle East Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI, 25 February 2022, 12:00 pm – 01:30 pm ET
This seminar is based on the findings of a three-year collaborative research project between feminist scholars of the Middle East and South Asia that explored these questions across a range of intersecting local, national, and global contexts, in the process uncovering the ways in which religion and racialized ethnicity, particularly “the Muslim question,” run deeply through the international governance structures of GBVAW, even when insistently disavowed.
Information and registration: https://watson.brown.edu/cmes/events/2022/gender-violence-geopolitics-and-feminism
6. ONLINE Webinar: “Establishing Jordan’s First Online LGBTQ Magazine” by its Founder Khalid Abdel-Hadi, , Brown University, Providence, RI, 3 March 2022, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm ET
Information and registration: https://brown.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iJlr7Wq_TSi0gYnQEwI3Wg
7. ONLINE Webinar: “The Kurdish Women’s Freedom Movement: Gender, Body Politics and Militant Femininities” by Isabel Käser, Center for Middle East Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI, 11 March 2022, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm ET
Information and registration: https://brown.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LALHmlxMR6ixDBiTO8Rtzw
8. Panel on “Is an Alternative World Possible? Beyond Neoliberalism: Mapping Alternative Visions and Practices from the MENA Region”, during the 15th Conference of SeSaMO, Naples, 22-24 June 2022
The panel aims at exploring alternative practices to neoliberalism from the MENA region, with the objective to provide a space for academic reflection. It is open to alternative discourses to neoliberalism by scholars, protest movements and civil society organizations as well as concrete bottom-up local initiatives, experiments and projects that provide examples of more sustainable economies.
Deadline for abstracts: 13 March 2022
Information: http://www.sesamoitalia.it/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/30.-Paciello.pdf
9. Workshop: “Reckoning with God: Divine-Human Relations after the Arab Spring”, Orient-Institut Beirut, 30 June – 2 July 2022
The organizers seek contributions which foreground the figure of God and divine-human relations in the contemporary Arab world, across religious traditions and from numerous disciplines—particularly anthropology, sociology, history, and religious studies.
Deadline for abstracts: 9 March 2022. Information: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dq21g3b007sy6w6/Reckoning%20with%20God%20CFP.pdf?dl=0
10. Conference on “Contemporary Forms of Racism and Discrimination (Focus MENA Region)”, Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR), University of Ghent, PhD Pre-Conference 18-19 September 2022, Main Conference 19-21 September 2022
We strongly welcome empirical and theoretical contributions reflecting on the processes of racism, discrimi-nation and exclusion in the Global South. We also particularly welcome contributions aiming to bridge race and migration studies in Europe.
Deadline for abstracts: 15 March 2022. Information: https://www.ugent.be/cessmir/en/conference-2022#Call-forcontributions
11. Conference: “30 Years after Richard M. Frank: Al-Ghazali and Avicenna in Post-Classical Islam”, Yale Department of Religious Studies, 7-8 April 2023
Contributions are invited on the impact of al-Ghazālī and Avicenna on post-classical Arabic and Islamicate intellectual history, especially within the domains of falsafa and kalām and their intersection with Sufism, the natural and occult sciences, and the philosophy of law (uṣūl al-fiqh).
Deadline for submissions: 15 April 2022. Information: https://mesana.org/resources-and-opportunities/2022/02/17/call-for-papers-30-years-after-richard-m.-frank-al-ghazali-and-avicenna-in-post-classical-islam
12. International Conference: “Religious Renewal in Times of Crisis” (Focus Middle East and Islamic History), University of Nebraska Omaha and Tantur Ecumenical Institute, Jerusalem, Postponed until 24-28 April 2023
The scope of this academic event is the study of religious renewal movements and their emergence in times of crisis across the world and history – with a special focus on how they have impacted the three Abrahamic religions and the city of Jerusalem.
Deadline for abstract: Fall 2022. Information: https://www.unomaha.edu/college-of-arts-and-sciences/religion/research/religious-renewal-in-times-of-crisis-conference.php
13. Visiting Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Culture Studies, Trinity College, Hartford, CT
Candidates must have native or near-native fluency in Arabic and English and will have a record of excellence in language instruction. They must hold a Ph.D. in Arabic language and literature, translation, media studies, applied linguistics, second language acquisition, language education, or another related field.
Deadline for applications: 14 March 2022. Information: https://trincoll.peopleadmin.com/postings/2533
14. Lecturer of Arabic at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
Qualifications: MA degree and a minimum of one year of teaching experience; a native or near-native lan-guage fluency, demonstrate excellence and experience in language instruction at the college level and be familiar with effective application of current technologies to foreign language learning.
Deadline for applications: 1 March 2022. Information: https://careers.purdue.edu/job/West-Lafayette-Arabic-Lecturer-IN-47906/844426800/
15. CALL FOR PAPERS
Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī, one of the leading figures of the renewal period, is a scholar renowned for his works in the fields of kalam, mathematics, astronomy, and logic.
On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Samarqandī’s passing we are inviting researchers to submit articles on Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī, one of the leading figures of the renewal period and a scholar renowned for his works in the fields of kalam, mathematics, astronomy, and logic.
Deadline for contributions: 31 May 2022. Information:
https://nazariyat.org/en/special-issues/semseddin-es-semerkandi-ozel-sayisi
16. Proposals for New Book Series “South-South Migration” (Springer Nature)
The book series encompasses distinct fields such as international migration, internal migration, remittances, migrant entrepreneurship, diaspora philanthropy, social cost of migration, political and environmental refu-gees, gender and migration, labor migration, migration policy, the political economy of migration, migrants’ rights, and other migration-related issues in the global South.
Information: https://www.springer.com/series/16846
17. 1 year Visiting Assistant Position: Asian Islam (Hamilton College)
Hamilton College: Hamilton College Faculty
Location
Clinton, NY
Open Date
Jan 21, 2022
Deadline
Mar 05, 2022 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time
Description
The Asian Studies program of Hamilton College invites applications for a one-year visiting position in any discipline on Islam in Asia, including Iran/Persia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, to begin on July 1, 2022. Mastery of a relevant Asian language is expected. Teaching expertise should include an introductory course on Islam, a survey on the history of Islam in Asia, and an upper-level course based on the successful candidate’s area of specialization. Ph.D. by the time of appointment is preferred, but ABDs nearing completion of the dissertation will be considered. Teaching load is five courses for the year, including an introductory course on Islam, a survey of Islam in Asia, and courses in the candidate’s discipline and area of specialization.
Candidates should submit a letter of application, a curriculum vitae, and two course syllabi to Interfolio at http://apply.interfolio.com/101756. The applicant’s cover letter should address the ways in which they would further the College’s goal of building a diverse educational environment. Candidates should address correspondence to Professor Thomas Wilson, Director of Asian Studies, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY 13323.
Application deadline is March 5, 2022.
Hamilton (www.hamilton.edu) is a residential liberal arts college located in upstate New York. Applicants with dual-career considerations can find other Hamilton and nearby academic job listings at https://www.hercjobs.org/regions/higher-ed-careers-upstate-new-york/, as well as additional information at https://www.hamilton.edu/dof/faculty-development/resources-for-prospective-or-new-faculty/opportunities-for-spouses-or-partners (Opportunities for Spouses or Partners). Hamilton College is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity in all areas of the campus community. Hamilton provides domestic partner benefits. Candidates from underrepresented groups in higher education are especially encouraged to apply.
18. ZOOM – ‘All World Is My Home: The Depiction of Migration in Modern Iranian Media’ – B Tabarraee (Chicago, 5pm, 24.2.22)
The Persian Circle at the University of Chicago
https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/persiancircle/
You can join on zoom at the following URL: https://tinyurl.com/persiancircle.
19. Wagner College – Visiting Assistant Professor – History of Africa, the Middle East or South Asia and the History of Islam
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=63043
Closing date : June 1, 2022
20. Hebrew University of Jerusalem – Three Postdoctoral Researchers – Islam & Vision
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=63029
Deadline for application is March 15, 2022.
21. Harvard Art Museums – Norma Jean Calderwood Associate Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=63065
Closing date: 19.3.22
- February 22, 2022
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.2022 Spring Meeting: Travel, Mobility, and Cultural Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
April 9-10, 2022
For more information and to register, click “REGISTER HERE” through the following link, then pay a 15$ fee via Paypal at the bottom of the page:
https://sites.google.com/su.edu/sermeiss/meetings_1/spring-meetings?authuser=0
The Southeast Regional Middle East and Islamic Studies Society (SERMEISS) Spring 2022 workshop is being held April 9-10, 2022 at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL. The workshop will focus on “Travel, Mobility, and Cultural Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa” and is being organized by a committee chaired by Dr. Waleed Hazbun (University of Alabama). Papers presented at the 2022 workshop will be considered for publication in a special issue of the Journal of Tourism History.
We are planning an in-person workshop and will follow CDC safety guidance and the University of Alabama policy which requires masks inside all academic buildings. We recommend that all attendees be fully vaccinated and boosted.
2.Call for Applications: Harvard University AKPIA 2022-23 Fellowships and Associateships
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=63028
Deadline: 1 April, 2022
3. Doctoral Scholarship in Islamic Art, University of Oxford
The Khalili Research Centre is offering a scholarship for a student of exceptional promise to undertake a DPhil in Islamic Art and/or Architecture at the University of Oxford. The scholarship will cover fees and maintenance for 3 years starting in October 2022. The successful candidate will have a fully-formed project with the requisite language and research skills already in place. Preference may be given to students working on one of the following fields: Umayyad art and architecture; Abbasid art and architecture; early Qur’ans; Ottoman art and architecture; the history of Islamic calligraphy before 1900.
How to apply
All candidates who apply for the DPhil at the University of Oxford with a supervisor at the Khalili Research Centre by 12 noon on 1 March 2022 will be considered for this scholarship:
https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/dphil-oriental-studies
There are no restrictions of nationality. Candidates are advised to contact a prospective supervisor before applying.
The Khalili Research Centre
The Khalili Research Centre (KRC) is the University of Oxford’s centre for research into the art and material culture of the Islamic societies of the Middle East and of their non-Muslim members and neighbours. It brings together staff, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students specialising in Islamic art and architecture in a dedicated building at the heart of Oxford. The Centre benefits from the exceptional concentration of expertise in related fields at the University of Oxford, as well as the world-class library resources and object collections of the Bodleian Library, Ashmolean Museum, and further institutions in Oxford. For more information, please visit: https://krc.web.ox.ac.uk/homekrc
Contact:
Prof. Alain George (alain.george@orinst.ox.ac.uk)
4. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor – The Humanities Collaboratory at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor invites applicants to a one-year postdoctoral fellowship dedicated to the study of the Mongol empire and its northern frontiers.
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=62969
Deadline: 25.2.22
5. HIAA Writing Groups – Sign up by February 21
HIAA Writing Groups
The HIAA board is pleased to announce a new matching service that will connect members seeking peer-review. Participants in HIAA Writing Groups will share, read, discuss, and gain productive feedback on their works in progress.
Who is in each Writing Group?
Each writing group will have 3–4 members. Participants will be matched based on their career stage. For example, doctoral students who have just begun their dissertation will be matched with other doctoral students who are in the same stage of their research. And, junior scholars working on their first book will be matched with other junior scholars who are working on their first books. To ensure diverse feedback and to avoid overlap, participants may have different research languages, different geographies of focus, and different time periods of expertise.
What do Writing Groups entail?
Participants will commit to meeting at least once every other week for a single two-hour meeting on Zoom (the precise schedule to be arranged between members). The first 90 minutes of each meeting will be a discussion of one participant’s in-progress writing (to be circulated and read before the meeting). The last 30 minutes of the meeting will be reserved to discuss each participant’s weekly writing plan and goals.
How do I participate in HIAA’s Writing Groups?
If you are interested in participating in a HIAA Writing Group, please fill out this form by February 21, 2022. Group assignments will be announced on February 28th.
6. The HIAA-Sponsored panel at CAA will be held virtually on Thursday, February 17, 2022 at 3:30 pm (EST). For full details of how to register and access the recording (available till April 14, 2022), please visit the CAA website. Details of the panel below:
The Racialized Figure in Islamic Art & Culture
Organized by Holley Ledbetter (chair) and Christiane Gruber (discussant), University of Michigan
* Holley Ledbetter (University of Michigan), “Making Race Visible: Racialized Automata at the Fatimid Court”
* Negar Habibi (University of Geneva), “Moon-Faced Idols and Slim-Waisted Women: Racialized Gender in Safavid Painting”
* Mira Xenia Schwerda (University of Edinburgh), “Ma’sumah Nizam Mafi and Her Unnamed Ladies-in-Waiting: Photography and the Politics of race in Qajar Iran”
* Sascha Crasnow (University of Michigan), “Can the Master’s Tools be Remade?: Nour Ballout’s Queer Muslim Archive”
The HIAA Majlis will be held virtually on Wednesday, March 2, 2022, 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm (EST). Please register at: https://ucr.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMqf-mtrzgrHtPVW2NX0b0U0w4JfoAvfg0C
The Majlis will feature the following papers:
* Srinanda Ganguly (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), “Gender and Patronage at the Tombs of Khusrau Bagh, Allahabad”
* Sylvia Houghteling (Bryn Mawr College), “Figures Rendered in Dyes: Representations of the Deccan on Painted Cotton Textiles from Seventeenth-Century South Asia”
* Atri Hatef Naiemi (University of Victoria), “In Search of Blessing: The Veneration of the Tomb of Ghazan Khan from the Ilkhanid Period to the Present”
* Sylvia Wu (University of Chicago), “Domes and Minarets: The Self-Destructive Portrayal of China’s Recent Mosques
* Meredyth Winter (Colgate University), “Mixed Messages” Mapping Class and Ethnicity within the Medieval Mosques of Qazwin”
7. Intellect is pleased to announce that Performing Islam 9.1-2 is out now!
For more information about the journal and issue click here>>
https://www.intellectbooks.com/performing-islam
Aims and Scope
Emerging from an international network project funded by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economics and Social Research Council, and research collaboration between academics and practitioners, Performing Islam is the first peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal about Islam and performance and their related aesthetics. It focuses on the socio-cultural as well as historical and political contexts of artistic practices in the Muslim world. The journal covers dance, ritual, theatre, performing arts, visual arts and cultures, and popular entertainment in Islam-influenced societies and their diasporas. It promotes insightful research about performative expressions of Islam by performers and publics, and encompasses theoretical debates, empirical studies, postgraduate research, interviews with performers, research notes and queries, and reviews of books, conferences, festivals, events and performances.
This journal, which is rigorously peer-reviewed, pursues the methods and methodologies by which we attempt to approach original research in Islam in performance studies, and the study of the performativity inherent in Islam-related cultural production. Contributions that share research interests and experiences in interrelated areas of performative, homeland and diasporic negotiations, and the complexities of contemporary Islam are particularly welcomed.
Issue 9.1-2
Extended Article
The sonic performance of Islamic congregational prayer: Ṣalāh in mainstream Egyptian practice
MICHAEL FRISHKOPF
Article
Domestic Tension: Representation of Muslim artist’s body in online performance
SEYED JAFAR HEJAZ
8. Upcoming Event: Getting Published in an Academic Journal
BRISMES and CBRL are pleased to announce their second joint mentoring webinar for members. Targeting postgraduate students and early career researchers, these on-line events offer practical advice and support from specialists, equipping the next generation of Middle East scholars with the insights needed to get ahead in their research and careers.
This event brings together editors from the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (BJMES); Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (CSSAAME); Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies (JMEWS); and Contemporary Levant (CL). Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions specific to these journals and their respective processes.
Date: Wednesday, 2 March 2022
Time: 4:00PM (UK time)
Location: Zoom
https://www.brismes.ac.uk/events/graduate-section/getting-published
9. Kuwait Project Coordinator
LSE Middle East Centre
The LSE Middle East Centre seeks to hire an enthusiastic and proactive professional to coordinate the work of the Kuwait Programme, a major research programme involving multiple activities. The post holder will provide comprehensive administration for all Kuwait Programme activities, including projects, finances, HR, and communications. The Programme Coordinator will manage the completion of research commitments and expand networks among the Kuwait research community.
Deadline | 27 February 2022
10. Research Associate (Fixed Term)
University of Cambridge
The Centre for Geopolitics (CfG), a research centre within the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, invites applications for three two-year, fixed-term post-doctoral Research Associates. The successful candidates will be responsible for conducting research on any area of geopolitics, past and present. Preference may be given to candidates researching peace-making in Middle East, the Indo-Pacific and the formation of the United Kingdom.
Deadline | 28 February 2022
11. Associate Professor
University of Warwick
The Institute for Global Sustainable Development (IGSD) is looking for an enthusiastic, committed and collegial individual who will develop their own research portfolio in the area of global sustainable development and complement the institute’s existing research streams. IGSD is seeking candidates with a research interest that is geographically focused in the Global South, and in particular in Africa, South America or the Middle East.
Deadline | 28 February 2022
12. Fellowship Opportunity x2
Sectarianism, Proxies and De-Sectarianization (SEPAD)
SEPAD is looking for two fellows to join their team for 6 months. Candidates must hold a PhD or be close to completion, be able to work collaboratively and have a robust research agenda in Middle East Studies. Please note that this is a non-resident and unpaid fellowship to be undertaken remotely, designed to help with professional development and networking.
Deadline | 28 February 2022
13. Call for Papers – XV Conference of SeSaMO
Conference | University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’ | 22-24 of June 2022
Papers are invited for the annual conference of the Italian Society for Midde Eastern Studies (SeSaMO), “Explaining Crisis, Beyond Chaos. The Middle East and North Africa in Global Change”. Please click on the link below for a list and brief description of the selected open panels.
Deadline | 13 March 2022
More information
14. Mohammed Al Fahim Scholarship
LSE Middle East Centre
LSE Middle East Centre has recently announced a new scholarship opportunity for applicants from the Middle East or North Africa who are interested in pursuing postgraduate education at the London School of Economics. Three scholarships will be awarded, one per academic year, from 2022/23 entry onwards. The scholarship will support the costs for any taught master’s programme.
Deadline | 28 April 2022
More information
15. AIS Conference to Journal Paper Award
Association for Iranian Studies (AIS)
The AIS Conference to Journal Paper aims to recognize AIS members who are either PhD students or early career scholars and support them in the development of peer-reviewed work. The award winner will receive $300 and will be mentored through the review process at the Iranian Studies journal by a senior member of the AIS academic community. The applicant must be a current AIS member, have registered for Salamanca 2022, and have a paper accepted to the conference, although they do not need to be present at the time of the award announcement.
Deadline | 1 May 2022
More information
16. Call for Proposals – The Global Qur’an
Book Series | Open Book Publishers
The Global Qur’an is a new book series that looks at Muslim engagement with the Qur’an in a global perspective. The editors particularly encourage comparative studies, investigations of transregional dynamics, and interactions between local and global contexts. Contributions from scholars outside Western Europe and North America are especially welcome.
- February 19, 2022
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1. ONLINE Webinar: “Sextarianism: Sovereignty, Secularism, and the State in Lebanon” with Maya Mikdashi and Attiya Ahmad, Institute for Middle East Studies, Washington, DC, 28 April 2022, 11:00 am – 12:30 pm EST
Maya Mikdashi offers a new way to understand state power, theorizing how sex, sexuality, and sect shape and are shaped by law, secularism, and sovereignty. Drawing on court archives, public records, and ethnog-raphy of the Court of Cassation, the highest civil court in Lebanon, Mikdashi shows how political difference is entangled with religious, secular, and sexual difference.
Information and registration: https://imes.elliott.gwu.edu/events/sextarianism-sovereignty-secularism-and-the-state-in-lebanon-with-maya-mikdashi-and-attiya-ahmad/
2. Summer School on “Philology and Manuscripts from the Muslim World”, Leiden University, 23 August – 2 September 2022
This course includes lectures by experts, hands-on classes and much practice with manuscripts from Lei-den`s famous collection of oriental manuscripts. The course is meant for graduate students (MA and PhD) and researchers.
Deadline for abstracts: 17 June 2022. Information: https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/9711267/lucis-summer-school-philology-and-manuscripts-muslim-world-aug
3. Kashf Al-Zunūn ‘An Asāmī Al-Kutub Wa Al-Funūn
(The removal of Doubt from the Names of Books and the Sciences)
By Muṣṭafa ibn ʿAbd Allāh
(known as Kātip Çelebī and Ḥājjī Khalīfa)
Critical edition by:
Ekmeleddin ihsanoğlu and Bashar Awad Ma’rouf
Receive a 10% discount on our website using the following coupon code*:
DX9MB6WS
*Valid until 31st March 2022
4. AKU-ISMC 12-13 May Short Course – Manuscripts in Arabic Script: Introduction to Codicology (Online)
This online course aims to introduce key concepts in the field of Arabic manuscripts and codicology. It is designed to attract participants who want to learn basic knowledge about Arabic manuscripts. The first day will provide an overview of the field of codicology and its role in the manuscript field in general and in identifying key features of manuscripts in particular. The second session will be dedicated to writing supports, the structure of quires, ruling and page layout, bookbinding, ornamentation, tools and materials used in bookmaking, and the palaeography of book hands. Some practical examples will be given based on the lecturers’ long experiences. The second day will focus on the importance of manuscripts in research. While the first session will cover the paratextual features in the Arabic manuscripts, the second session will demonstrate the different approaches in editing manuscripts.
This introductory course is intended for students, researchers, and librarians who wish to increase their knowledge in the manuscript field.
Learning Outcomes
– Basic understanding of the field of Arabic manuscript studies.
– Identify the role of manuscripts in knowledge production in different areas of studies in Muslim cultures.
Course Convenors
Dr Walid Ghali is the Head of the Aga Khan Library, London, Associate Professor of Islamic and Arabic studies at the Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations and a Chartered Librarian of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). Dr Ghali received his PhD in Islamic Manuscript Studies from the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University (2012). Dr Ghali’s current research projects focus on Islamic manuscript traditions, particularly in Arabic script and book history. He has published on Arabic literature, Sufi traditions and Islamic manuscripts cultures.
Dr Anne Regourd is researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris, France. She has published extensively in the fields of history and philology dealing with codicology, paper studies, and papyrology. She is the editor of book, The Trade in Papers Marked with Non-Latin Characters, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 2018, and heads the free access online journal, Nouvelles Chroniques du Manuscrit au Yémen.
Dr Eléonore Cellard is a specialist in Qurʾānic manuscripts. She started her research activities in 2008 under the supervision of Professor François Déroche. In 2015, she submitted her dissertation entitled The Written Transmission of the Qur’an: Study of a Corpus of Manuscripts from the 2nd Century AH/ 8th Century CE (INALCO/EPHE). She has collaborated on several international projects about Qurʾānic manuscripts, and recently carried out a research project on one of the Qurʾān copies attributed to the caliph ʿUthman ibn Affan’. She has also authored several monographs and articles on Qurʾānic manuscripts.
Date and Time
12-13 May 2022, 11:00-15:00 (London Time).
Tickets and Booking
Tickets: £80 professionals | £50 students, AKU alumni and staff. Book as soon as possible
5. The 13th Annual International Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Conference (IRTP) will be held on 29th June – 2nd July 2022 in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Abstract submission extended till 28th February 2022.
All detailed information about the Conference can be found at this website: https://irtp.co.uk/the-13th-annual-international-religious-tourism-and-pilgrimage-irtp-conference-2021/
6. The British Library:
The art of small things (5): Recitation markers in Qur’an manuscripts from Southeast Asia
7. Qur’an Gateway, a tool for critical study of the text, construction, and language of the Qur’an which used to require subscription is now available as open source under the name Qur’an Tools.
- February 15, 2022
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.The first International Ottoman Studies Congress (OSARK) took place in Sakarya, Turkey, from October 14-17, 2015. The next OSARK was held in Tirana, Albania, from October 17-20, 2018.
We would like to inform you that the third OSARK will be held in Istanbul, Turkey, from September 7-9, 2022, at Istanbul Medeniyet University. OSARK 2022 welcomes and encourages individual paper and thematic panel proposals within any field of Ottoman History.
For further details see:
2. The MLA Global Arab and Arab American Forum invites proposals for the following panels at the MLA Convention in San Francisco (5-8 January 2023):
Writing and Cultural Production as Oppositional Work
Oppositional work of writing and cultural production in the Arab region and global Arab diaspora, including protest and dissident literature/art/activism that resists surveillance and discursive/cultural practices of domestication and containment. 250-word abstract & bio by March 15, 2022 to rc49@soas.ac.uk (Rasha Chatta, Freie Universität)
Migrants as Working Subjects
Literary and artistic representations of migrant labor in the Arab region and global Arab diaspora, as inflected by class, race, ethnicity, language, nomenclature, and sociocultural/economic practices including sponsorship. 250-word abstract & bio by March 15, 2022 to azstanton@psu.edu (Anna Ziajka Stanton, The Pennsylvania State University)
3. Rescheduled: UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series – Latest Developments in Afghanistan Panel
Sunday, April 10, 2022 at 11:30am Pacific Time via Zoom
Panel in Persian
Ahmad Nader Nadery
Former Chair of Independent Civil Service Commission in Kabul, and Member of the Peace Negotiation Team for Afghanistan
The Taliban’s Return to Power and Its Implications for Afghanistan and Iran
Homeira Qaderi
Afghan Writer and Women’s Rights Activist, and Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University
How Women in Afghanistan have Strived for Their Rights
Farah Karimi
Head of the Dutch Parliamentary Delegation to the OSCE PA and Former UN Consultant for Capacity Building of the Afghan Parliament
4. 2022 AMECYS Friday Digital Author Series Schedule
Spring 2022 AMECYS Friday Digital Author Series
Throughout the spring on the 2nd Friday of each month, digitally join AMECYS’ authors, who will discuss their most recent monographs, articles or book chapters. Sessions will consist of a 30-minute interview with AMECYS board member (unless noted otherwise) followed by Q&A from audience.
Friday March 11, 11 am CST
Dr. Hedi Viterbo, Associate Professor of Law,
Queen Mary University of London
Author of Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood
In Israel/Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
Interviewed by Sunaina Maira (Professor, University of California, Davis)
Friday April 8th, 11 am CDT
Mr. Shivan Fazil, Researcher, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Dr. Bahar Baser, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies,
Durham University
Editors of Youth Identity, Politics and Change in Contemporary Kurdistan (Transnational Press London, 2021)
Friday May 13, 11 am CDT
Dr. Rania Kassab Sweis, Associate Professor of Anthropology
at the University of Richmond
Author of Paradoxes of Care: Children and Global Medical Aid in Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2021)
Links for series will be sent to all AMECYS listserv members, so make sure signed up for the listserv! Digital medium for series is Zoom (https://zoom.us/download).
For information, email dylan.baun@uah.edu or hmorrison@uwlax.edu
5. Jaleh Esfahani Poetry Prize 2022
Date: 18 February 2022 Time: 6:00 PM
Finishes: 18 February 2022 Time: 8:30 PM
Venue: Brunei Gallery Room: Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre (BGLT)
Type of Event: Performance
This is the first in-person Annual Jaleh Esfahani Poetry Prize event that will be held since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. This year’s prize also coincides with the 100th birth anniversary of the late Jaleh Esfahani.
The event marks the 12th year of the poetry prize, in which young (under 30) Persian poets from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and the diaspora, compete. At this year’s event the winners, from among the three shortlists of 5 poets, for each country, which were selected from nearly 200 original participants, will be announced.
During the event well-known Persian language poets and the judges will speak, and the winners will read samples of their poems, intertwined with music from Persian-speaking countries and a Sama (Whirling) Dance.
Programme
6.00pm: Reception in the foyer of the BGLT
6.30pm: Event starts
* Please note that the language for this event’s proceedings will be in Persian.
Admission is free and open to the public, however, donations of £5 are greatly appreciated.
Organiser: Jaleh Esfahani Cultural Foundation in association with the SOAS Middle East Institute
Contact email: fsp@parand.co.uk
6. The Leiden University Centre for Islamic Thought and History (LUCITH) is hosting a two-day international conference on Wisdom Literature in Early Islam.
12-13 September, 2022
The conference will have a mixed format, with both in-person and online presentations. The conference will address the question of wisdom literature, as a tool of persuasion, to deliberate its content, to analyse its philosophical and ethical messaging, and identify major themes and tropes in Arabic literature, philosophy, intellectual history, linguistics, and ethics, among other things, in Early Islam (broadly conceived of as the first few centuries).
Themes the conference could address:
- Transmission of wisdom literature, aphorisms, and texts
- Recurring tropes and themes
- Devotional piety and wisdom literature
- The Qur’an and wisdom literature
- The Arabic reception of ancient wisdom literature
- Tools of persuasion and rhetoric
- Philosophical and ethical dimensions
For consideration, please send a 300-word abstract in English to lucith@hum.leidenuniv.nl by the 15th of March 2022. The conference will be held in English.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, only participants located within Europe will be invited to join us in person and will be offered a one-night stay with their travel and accommodation costs covered by the conference organiser. Participants located outside of Europe will be invited to join us online.
Contact Info:
Tamar Tros, Conference Coordinator
Contact Email:
7. The latest issue of Mamlūk Studies Review(XXIV [2021]) is now available for download from our website:
http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/browse-download.html
8. Al-Maqrīzī’s al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar. Volume IV, Section 2: The Idols of the Arabs.Critical edition and introduction by Michael Lecker, annotated translation by Yaara Perlman. Leiden and Boston: Brill, February 2022 (Bibliotheca Maqriziana, vol. 8), xii-381 pp. ISBN: 978-90-04-49986-7 (e-book); 978-90-04-49983-6 (hardback).
For more information on published and forthcoming volumes, see https://brill.com/view/serial/BIMA.
9. Translating Contemporary Iran
Panel with Mariam Rahmani and Nasrin Rahimieh (UCI)
Thursday, February 17
Remote via Zoom
1:00 pm (Pacific Time)
About the Panel
Since its first publication in 2008, Mahsa Mohebali’s edgy cult hit, Nigarān nabash, has been off and the shelves in Tehran. Following Shadi, a cynic and opium addict who cross-dresses to evade hijab law, throughout an apocalyptic day of earthquakes that are destroying the city, the novel offers a view of contemporary Iran too seldom seen in the US – but now available to in translation under the title, In Case of Emergency (Feminist Press, 2021). Please join us for a conversation between scholar Dr. Nasrin Rahimieh and translator Dr. Mariam Rahmani on issues of translation and mistranslation – both literal and cultural– from a Persian Iranian to Anglophone American context.
About the Panelists
Mariam Rahmani is a writer and translator. Her fiction and essays have appeared in Granta, Gulf Coast, BOMB Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Rumpus as well as in exhibition catalogs and her translation in n+1, Columbia Journal, and the collected volume, After Cinema: Fictions From A Collective Memory (Archive Book, 2019). Her 2021 translation of Mahsa Mohebali’s In Case of Emergency, the 2008 Iranian cult hit, was well reviewed in the New York Times and has garnered other positive press in the New York Times “Globetrotting,” Publishers Weekly, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, World Literature Today, and the Center for the Art of Translation. Rahmani holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA and an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. Among her honors and awards are the 2021 Henfield Prize, the Columbia MFA’s highest honor in fiction, a 2018 PEN/Heim translation grant, and a US Fulbright fellowship. Rahmani currently teaches at UCLA as a Lecturer in English and Comparative Literature.
Nasrin Rahimieh is Howard Baskerville Professor of Humanities and Professor Comparative Literature at the University of California. She is currently the Director of the Humanities Core program at UCI, former Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature (2016-19) and Maseeh Chair and Director of the Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture (2006-14). Her teaching and research are focused on modern Persian literature, the literature of Iranian exile and diaspora, contemporary Iranian women’s writing. Among her publications are Oriental Responses to the West: Comparative Essays in Select Writers from the Muslim World (1990), Missing Persians: Discovering Voices in Iranian Cultural History (2001), Forugh Farrokhzad, Poet of Modern Iran: Iconic Woman And Feminine Pioneer Of New Persian Poetry (2010) co-edited with Dominic Parviz Brookshaw and Iranian Culture: Representation and Identity (2015). She translated the late Taghi Modarressi’s last novel, The Virgin of Solitude (2008) from Persian into English.
For more information and to register:
https://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/event/15371
10. 2 PhD Positions in Digital Islamic History, University of Hamburg
I am advertising for two PhD positions in my project “The Evolution of Islamic Societies (c.600-1600 CE): Algorithmic Analysis into Social History” (EIS1600). Each position is 2+2 years. The deadline for applications is March 31, 2022. Successful applicants will work on one of the case studies of the project and will write and defend a PhD thesis on the topic of their choice, within a selected case study. Descriptions of both positions and detailed information on the application process can be found at the following links: https://tinyurl.com/PhD01; https://tinyurl.com/PhD02. Feel free to email me, if you have any questions (maxim.romanov@uni-hamburg.de). The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the framework of the Emmy Noether Program (https://tinyurl.com/EIS1600). It is hosted at the Institute of Asian and African Studies (Islamic Studies Division) of the University of Hamburg.
Best regards,
Maxim Romanov
Emmy Noether Junior Research Group Leader, “The Evolution of Islamic Societies (c.600-1600 CE): Algorithmic Analysis into Social History” (2021-2027), Universität Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, 20146 Hamburg, maxim.romanov@uni-hamburg.de
11. Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World,
ʿAbdīshōʿ of Nisibis and the Apologetic Tradition
S Rassi
12. Regards sur les arts du monde iranien / Insights into the Art of the Persianate Societies
coorganisé par l’Institut Français de Recherche en Iran (IFRI) et le CeRMI,
aura lieu
le mardi 22 février 2022, de 15h à 17h (heure de Paris) / 17h30-19h30 (heure de Téhéran).
Cette deuxième séance s’articulera autour du thème « Regards sur la céramique, 1 / Insights into ceramic arts, 1 », avec les interventions suivantes :
- New data about the «Poteries de Bamiyan» (Afghanistan)
Guergana Guionova (CNRS, Aix Marseille Univ, LA3M, Aix-en-Provence),
Thomas Lorain (MAFAB/University of Bamberg)
- Architectural decoration, tiles and brickworks of Alamut Castle through historical data
Hamideh Choubak (ICCAR, RICHT, MCTH)
- A Research on the Islamic Ceramics of the Sultâniyya plain, Iran
Mahsa Feizi (PhD Tehran University/Lyon 2)
Discussion. Chairperson: Yves Porter (Aix Marseille Univ/IUF/LA3M)
Pour suivre cette séance en ligne (sur Skyroom), une inscription est nécessaire. Un lien d’inscription sera mis à disposition très prochainement.
>> Pour plus d’informations sur le Webinaire
13. 2022 Ann Lambton Memorial Lecture
Unequal Treaties and the Question of Sovereignty in Qajar and early Pahlavi Iran
With Professor Ali Gheissari
Hosted by Durham University, the event is jointly organised by BIPS and IMeEIS (Durham University).
9 March, 2022, 5-6 pm (UK time)
Via Zoom
To join on the day, see:
- February 12, 2022
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.Please join us on February 20 from 2 – 4 p.m. EST as we gather to commemorate beloved author and satirist Iraj Pezeshkzad, who passed away this January. This event is cosponsored by Damavand Cultural Foundation and will feature a roundtable discussion in Persian of Pezeshkzad’s life, works, and impact. Our speakers will be:
Ardeshir Lotfalian – Writer, Diplomat, and Advisor to Damavand Cultural Foundation
Seyyid Ali Mirfattah – Writer and Satirist
Ali Dehbashi – Writer and Chief Editor of Bukhara Magazine
Fatemeh Keshavarz – Director of Roshan Institute for Persian Studies
Marjan Moosavi – Lecturer at Roshan Institute for Persian Studies
Please use this Zoom link to join us then:
2. We are reaching out to share the Jasūr Magazine (previously known as Juhood) Spring 2022 Call for Submissions. This semester’s theme is Power: Political Economies of the Middle East. Jasūr is Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s undergraduate-run journal for academic and short-form writing on the Middle East and North Africa.
You can find a complete call for submissions below, and we would really appreciate your help in spreading it to students in your department. We will also be hosting several virtual events this semester, and invite anyone who is interested in attending and/or learning more about the publication to visit jasurmagazine.org. If you or any of your students have questions about the journal or submission guidelines, please contact Editor-in-Chief Jasper Schutt (jasperms@live.unc.edu), and/or editorial board member Eleyan Sawafta (ersawafta@uncg.edu).
All our best,
The Jasūr Editorial Board
The editorial board of Jasūr Magazine calls for submissions from undergraduate students for Jasūr 4.2, Power: Political Economies of the Middle East. Jasūr is a journal for critical scholarship and writing on the Middle East and North Africa, broadly defined, and is run by undergraduates at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Submissions for the Spring 2022 issue will be accepted until Monday, February 28th, at which point the editorial board will contact selected authors.
The theme of this Spring’s issue of Jasūr is political economy. We take an intentionally expansive definition of the term, and understand it to mean the critical study of economic systems, class relations, and domestic and international institutions. Simply put, we’re looking for work that takes a materialist approach to analyzing any contemporary issue in the MENA region. Some examples of relevant topics include histories of capitalism in the region, how interventions by international financial institutions affect societies in the MENA region, or how political and economic constraints impact the region’s artistic sectors.
Submission Guidelines
- We are accepting submissions of complete academic and short form essays, as well as proposals for short form work. By academic work, we mean essays that are between roughly 8 and 30 pages and contain significant amounts of primary and/or secondary research. We are happy to accept longer submissions, especially of theses or other papers that contain original research, and can work with you to abridge the work for publication.
- Submissions of short form essays might offer political commentary, criticism of state and/or firm policies, and in general, examine current events from a political-economic perspective. In addition to completed pieces, we are also accepting proposals for short pieces, which should be submitted with a writing sample of similar length to the proposed piece.
- All submissions should be sent to jasurmagazine@gmail.comor submitted through our website’s submissions tab by February 28th, 2022.
- If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the editorial board (jasurmagazine@gmail.com) and/or Editor-in-Chief Jasper Schutt (jasperms@live.unc.edu).
In addition to the journal, the Jasūr team also accepts and publishes short-form and creative work on any topic all year-round. Throughout the year, we also host events on a variety of topics related to the MENA+ region, which are open to public attendance via Zoom. To learn more, visit jasurmagazine.org.
3. SOAS, University of London – Post-Doctoral Researcher in Islamic
Manuscripts of Sumatra
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=62981
Closing date: 20.2.22
4. Introductory Old/Classical Armenian course at Notre Dame this summer through their Classical, Medieval, and Near Eastern Language Institute. It is open to undergraduate or graduate students.
The course will meet M/T/R 4:00–6:00pm ET (FULLY ONLINE) May 31st–July 7th (6 weeks).
Tuition rate info is here (the course is 3 credits): https://summersession.nd.edu/tuition-financial-aid/
I don’t think ND offers funding for the course, so students would need to apply for funding locally or seek other external scholarships, such as the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Short Term Grant for Armenian Studies or a NAASR grant
Jesse S. Arlen, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Armenian Orthodox Studies
Orthodox Christian Studies Center | Fordham University
Director, Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center,
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern)
630 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10016
(212) 686-0710 ext. 126
jarlen@fordham.edu | jarlen@armeniandiocese.org
5. ONLINE Lecture: “Copying and Reading Sacred Scriptures: Qurʾan and Torah in Comparative Perspective” by Prof. Daniella Talmon-Heller (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), UCLA, 9 February 2022, 12:00 pm PST
The Jewish tradition preserved the ancient form of the scroll, written in scripta defectiva, for its elaborate rituals of liturgical reading in the synagogue. The Muslim tradition, with its preference for the oral performance of the text, makes no such distinction, yet likewise regulates the work of the scribe and the handling of the book.
Information and registration: https://mailchi.mp/mediterraneanseminar/attend-copying-and-reading-sacred-scriptures-quran-and-torah-in-comparative-perspective-9-february-online?e=82aeb6c61d
6. Workshop: “Continuity and Change Throughout the Ottoman Longue Durée,” Third Annual Mid-Atlantic Ottomanists Workshop (MAOW), University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, VA, 1-3 April 2022
This workshop will provide an opportunity for scholars of Ottoman studies to gather, discuss their research, and receive substantive feedback. This initiative aims to bring together scholars of all stages who are working to advance the study of the Ottoman Empire and its interactions with the wider world from the late 13th century through the early 20th century.
Information: https://maow.umwblogs.org/
7. Workshop: “History and Anthropology through Literature: Approaches & Methodologies to the Study of Medieval and Modern Texts and Manuscripts”, Trinity College Dublin, 15 July 2022
The Cairo Genizah is a treasure trove of medieval and early-modern Arabic manuscripts stored away in Egypt’s Ben Ezra Synagogue over nearly a thousand years. This one-day workshop seeks to bring together scholars of manuscript sciences, history, anthropology, literary criticism, philosophy, and sociology to chal-lenge the investigation of history, sociology, and anthropology though pre-modern literature and its manu-scripts.
Information: https://t.co/Sy28Pbzp9x
8. International Workshop: “Religion and Secularism as Problem Space in Post-colonial Occidentalist Discourses within the MENA Region”, Leipzig University, 3-4 November 2022
The workshop aims to discuss the question of religion and secularity/secularism in (post-colonial) Occidentalist discourses and their critiques in the MENA region. The workshop intents to explore the trajectories of post-colonial Occidentalist discourses in the MENA region. It aims to reflect on their various genealogies, forms, and contents.
Deadline for abstracts: 30 March 2022. Information: https://multiple-secularities.de/events/event/international-workshop-religion-and-secularism-as-problem-space-in-postcolonial-occidentalist-discourses-within-the-mena-region/
9. CfP: Turkologentag, September 21–23, 2023, Vienna
GTOT e.V. (Society for Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish Studies) invites researchers from all over the world working in the fields of history, linguistics, philology, literary studies, social sciences, anthropology, and political sciences in Turkey and the Turkic world to participate in the Fourth European Convention on Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish Studies (Turkologentag 2023). The conference will take place on September 21 – 23, 2023 at the University of Vienna. It is organized in co-operation with the Chair of Turkish Studies at the University of Vienna.
The conference aims to bring together individual scholars, institutions and organizations from Europe and elsewhere who are engaged in Turkish and Turkic Studies. The four-day event will provide an opportunity for an intellectual exchange and conversation between participants and allow them to build networks for future cooperation. There will be a special forum for PhD candidates and graduate students.
The organizers encourage individual paper and thematic panel proposals within the following sections:
- Linguistics
2. Studies on Central Asia/Volga Region/Siberia
3. Caucasus
4. Turko-Persian Islamicate world
5. Ottoman Studies
5.1 Transottomanica (DFG Priority Programme)
5.2 Digital Humanities and Ottoman/Turkish Studies
5.3 Manuscript Cultures
5.4 Ottoman-Habsburg World
5.5 Balkan region and Southeast Europe
5.6 Hungary, Poland, Ukraine
5.7 Arab Provinces, Palestine
6. Environmental History and History of Science of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey
7. Literary Studies
8. Cultural Studies, Heritage / Art History
9. Studies of Contemporary Turkey
10. Kurdish Studies
11. Studies on Ethnic, Religious Minorities
12. Women and Gender Studies
13. Research on Religion
14. Musicology
15. Social Sciences and Migration Studies
16. Social Anthropology
17. German-Turkish Language Research /Education
If you like to join us on September 21 – 23, 2023, please submit an abstract (in German, English, French or Turkish, max. 250 words) on the Registration Portal: www.conftool.pro/turkologentag2023/. The deadline for individual paper proposals is 31 December 2022 and for panel proposals (3-4 panelists) is 30 November 2022. For submission guidelines, important dates, and further information stay tuned at turkologentag2023.univie.ac.at
Once your paper is selected, you will be asked to pay your conference participation fee. You can pay your fee in advance after the registration. In the case that your proposal is not accepted, the participation fee will be refunded. We encourage you to become a member of GTOT to benefit from reduced conference participation fees (especially students) and to be part of a growing international network of researchers engaging in Turkic, Ottoman, and Turkish studies! For further and detailed information please contact our homepage: turkologentag2023.univie.ac.at.
GTOT is an academic organization operating in the field of Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish studies. GTOT aims at creating a network for scholars and especially for young researchers in the field of Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish studies encompassing a wide range of research interests including the diverse range of religions and ethnic groups existing and living in areas populated by Turkic groups in the past or present
10. In Presence or HYBRID: International Conference “Iconic Figures: Intersecting Religious and Political Narratives of the Past”, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin, 7-9 December 2022
The conference will bring together scholars of various disciplinary orientations and working on different re-gions to examine the intersections and the entanglements between religious and political construction and deconstruction of historical icons and role models. It will pay particular attention to the ways in which discur-sive traditions in multi-religious contexts influence these processes.
Deadline for abstracts: 31 March 2022. Information: https://www.zmo.de/fileadmin/Karri-ere/Ausschreibungen_2022/Call_for_Papers_Iconic_Figures.pdf
11. Assistant Professor in Arabic Studies, University of Durham
Applicants should have a research interest and expertise in (comparative) literary, cultural and/or visual studies, as well as translation studies. Candidates are required to have a PhD in Arabic Studies or a related subject.
Deadline for applications: 28 February 2022. Information:
https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CMR473/assistant-professor-in-arabic-studies-mlac22-1
12. Lectureship in International Relations of the Middle East (2.5 Years), University of Leiden, Netherlands
Criteria: PhD in International Relations, political science, development studies, geography, sociology, or an-thropology with a focus on modern Middle East; Experience in teaching undergraduate and graduate stu-dents, and supervising theses; Proficiency in English; Ideally proficiency in Arabic.
Deadline for applications: 27 February 2022. Information: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/vacancies/2022/q1/22-044-10663-25-year-lectureship-in-international-relations-of-the-middle-east
13. Associate Professor in Arab Modern and Contemporary History, University of Sharjah, UAE
Qualification: PhD in Arab Modern & Contemporary History from one of the recognized universities in the field of specialization; experience in university teaching in the field of specialization (8 years at least); ability to develop and lead high-quality research; published in high quality refereed journals in the specialty; fluency in Arabic and English (speaking and writing).
Deadline for applications: 25 February 2022. Information: https://newhr.sharjah.ac.ae/en/Pages/JobDetails.aspx?Jid=1817&IsDean=No
14. Visiting Assistant Professor (2 Years) in the History of the Ancient Mediterranean (North Africa, Mesopotamia, West Asia), University of Denver
Qualifications: PhD emphasis on Ancient History, including the Mediterranean world, Mesopotamia, North Africa, and West Asia.
Deadline for applications: 25 February 2022. Information: https://cu.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobde-tail.ftl?job=24243&lang=en&src=LinkedIn
15. Fellowships/Associateships for Advanced Historical Research in Islamic Art, Architecture, Material Culture, and Archaeology, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture 2022-2023, Harvard University
Deadline for applications: 1 April 2022. Information: https://agakhan.fas.harvard.edu/fellowships-associateships
16. Lecturer in Arabic Language, University of Michigan-Arbor
Applicants should have Superior level proficiency in Standard Arabic, English, and at least one variety of spoken Arabic. Experience with teaching Arabic at the post-secondary level is required. Applicants must have a demonstrated ability to use a proficiency-based, communicative methodology in language instruction. Minimum of a Master’s degree in foreign language teaching or equivalent field required.
Deadline for applications: 1 March 2022. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/102108
17. Postdoctoral Scholar/Teaching Fellow, Department of Middle East Studies, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Researchers with training in environmental studies, anthropology, political economy, urban studies, and ge-ography are particularly welcome to apply. This fellowship is renewable for a second year contingent upon administrative approval.
Deadline for applications: 1 March 2022. Information: https://usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-angeles/postdoctoral-scholar-teaching-fellow-in-the-department-of-middle-east-studies/1209/22787922576
18. Special Issue of Religions on “Muslim Identity Formation in Contemporary Societies”
Possible themes: Qur’anic and Prophetic understandings of identity, difference, and pluralism; migration, citizenship, and belonging; identity formation and state politics; the umma, trans-locality, and Muslim cosmopolitanism; Muslim identity politics; the impact of Islamophobia on the formation of Muslim identities; the projection and representation of Muslims in the media; etc.
Deadline for manuscripts: 15 September 2022. Information: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/muslim_identity#info
19. Chapters for First Edited Book of the New Publication Series “Reading Ottoman Minds in Its Long History”, Sivas Republic University
With the help of this study, we are targeting to get a better picture on the questions like how did the Ottoman mind work, what were important moral or political principles for the Ottoman as making their decisions, and (if possible) to put forward the changes on the way they thought of the world around them in the course of its long history? Deadline for abstracts in English, German and Turkish: 15 March 2022.
Information: https://ottomanminds.cumhuriyet.edu.tr/
- February 08, 2022
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.Open Islamicate Text Initiative Teleconference on Feb 7
We welcome all to join the Open Islamicate Text Initiative Arabic-script OCR Catalyst Project (OpenITI AOCP) team for a public teleconference with the OpenITI AOCP technical advisory group. The focus of this meeting will be the optical character recognition tools and datasets for Persian, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu that the OpenITI AOCP has developed.
The conference, led by Co-PI David Smith, will provide an update on the OpenITI AOCP technical work and include brief presentations from advisory group members about their own work in OCR. We will then develop recommendations for dataset and technical development in the next phase of the project.
We will virtually gather on Monday, February 7 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. EST. Please register at the link below if you would like to participate. We will prepare a report of the conference proceedings as well as record video of the presentations and discussion for those unable to attend. Be sure to watch out for a second public teleconference to be held this spring, with a focus on the formation of Persian and Arabic OCR user groups and the presentation of our digital text production pipeline, eScriptorium (developed in collaboration with the eScripta project).
For more on OpenITI AOCP, a project generously funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, please see here. For any questions on the teleconference, please email John Mullan (jmullan@umd.edu) or message us on Twitter (@Open_ITI).
You are invited to a Zoom meeting.
When: Feb 7, 2022 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://umd.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUpcOGoqT4tE9aF_DRXZEXOt5uYNd6U5Fv9
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
2. Mysticism and Ethics in Islam
Bilal Orfali, Atif Khalil, and Mohammed Rustom
3. IIS: The Ismaili Special Collections Unit (ISCU) has launched an online catalogue of special collections housed at the IIS, featuring information on over 2,000 items, including manuscripts, artefacts (such as coins, coin weights, medals and other memorabilia), rare and special printed materials (including periodicals), photographs and archival materials.
Dr Wafi Momin, Head of ISCU, said “We are delighted to announce the launch of an online catalogue of the special collections housed at the IIS. This online catalogue represents a key milestone in making accessible the rich heritage of Ismaili communities from around the world to a varied audience including researchers, students and interested members of the public.”
For any queries about the catalogue, please contact Naureen Ali, Cataloguer and Adlib Officer, ISCU.
https://special-collections.iis.ac.uk/search/simple
4. Intellect is pleased to announce that International Journal of Islamic Architecture 11.1 is out now!
For more information about the journal and issue click here:
https://www.intellectbooks.com/international-journal-of-islamic-architecture
5. The Qur’an
Translated with a New Introduction
Translated by AJ Droge
Equinox, 2022
For more information and to order at 25% off quoting the code QT visit the book page:
https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/quran-translated/
6. The Barakat Trust has recently received a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fundto create a new grant scheme. In each of 2022, 2023 and 2024, this scheme will offer 3 grants of £8,000 plus in-kind support for projects in the United Kingdom (UK) that use collections of Islamic art in the UK to foster greater understanding about the cultures of the Islamic world, and involve a significant element of public engagement, ideally as part of the process of making collections more accessible. The grant will be open to UK institutions with collections of Islamic art and material culture. We are particularly interested in understudied collections. The deadline for submission of applications for this year is March 31st 2022. This project will be delivered in partnership with the Islamic Art and Material Culture Subject Specialist Network and other partners.
Interested parties should contact The Barakat Trust to arrange an initial conversation about this scheme. Please email: projects@barakat.org
7. The Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Minor at Rutgers University Newark is delighted to invite you to the first talk in the MEIS Inaugural Lecture Series on Monday February 7th, 11:30-12:50 EST, with Prof. Patricia Blessing (Art History, Princeton University), who will offer a lecture titled “Architecture and Material Politics in the Fifteenth-Century Ottoman Empire.”
Register here: HTTPS://TINYURL.COM/34AKWEN3
8. Tuesday, February 15, 2022 | 12:00 pm | Zoom
Syriac Villages in the Tur Abdin: A Microhistory of the Medieval Middle East
Marica Cassis, University of Calgary
Marica Cassis considers understudied archaeological material found in the Tur Abdin region of southeast Turkey. She will contextualize the churches as part of the network of villages and cities in the region, both in terms of the material remains and literary sources.
While scholarly work on the churches of the Tur Abdin dates back to the work of Gertrude Bell, and subsequently continued off and on through the twentieth century, the focus of most research has consistently been the churches in the region. However, churches are the heart of communities, whether villages or monasteries, and need to be considered as part of the whole. What has not been considered in detail is the importance of contextualizing churches in the villages and cities in the region, both in terms of the material remains and the literary sources.
Advance registration required. Register: https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/
Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.
An East of Byzantium lecture. East of Byzantium is a partnership between the Arthur H. Dadian and Ara Oztemel Chair of Armenian Art at Tufts University and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture that explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine empire in the late antique and medieval periods.
9. Consider submitting your work to postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies
After more than a decade of publication, the journal postmedieval has a new team of editors and a new editorial board and we are looking for contributions from the H-Mideast Medieval community!
postmedieval has long published theoretically driven scholarship on premodernity and its ongoing reverberations, and the aim of the new editorial leadership is to continue this while expanding the disciplines and subject-areas from which articles are drawn. To that end, we are actively seeking open-topic submissions from a wide variety of fields and disciplines. We’re writing in the hopes that you’ll spread the word and will also keep the journal in mind as a potential venue for your own work. We are currently seeking open-topic submissions between 6,000 and 12,000 words, accepted on a rolling basis.
To say a bit more—over the last year, the journal’s editorial team has worked to harness postmedieval’s foundations in conceptual adventure, ethical and political urgency, and stylistic experiment, while also stretching its scope to additional language traditions, geographic locales, and the work of scholars from identity groups that have not heretofore been featured consistently in our journal, or in other mainstream outlets for medieval studies. The new editorial board includes scholars working fields like Byzantine studies, art history, the Hispanophone early modern, medievalism, religious history, Jewish studies, the environmental humanities, film studies, Chinese, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Japanese, French, medieval Ethiopia, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, Premodern Critical Race Studies, manuscript studies, and the digital humanities. We are eager to cultivate a pool of submissions that reflects such varied scholarly traditions.
In addition to the broadened content parameters of the journal, we have also imagined new scholarly genres. These include meditations on critical terms in the field, an essay-form we are calling “terms of art;” brief translations or other presentations of primary sources that extend their accessibility to wider readerships; “dialogues,” in which scholars share a conversation in print; and “reports from the field” that summarize and contextualize important field-specific discussions held at a recent symposium or exhibition. We envision these genres as supplements to the traditional essayistic articles and book-review essays that we will continue to publish and for which the journal has long been distinguished.
We encourage you to read more about these new genres, and about our vision for the future of academic publishing in medieval studies, in the free-to-view introduction to our editorial team’s inaugural issue, entitled “What Might a Journal Be?.” For remarks from some of the board members, you might have a look at this piece as well.
We hope that you will share with colleagues, students, and scholarly networks our invitation to submit new work. We can promise that all submissions will be treated with scholarly generosity and care. The editorial team embraces an ethics of peer review and publication that values the intense labor required to bring an essay to print, and we center in our review process the anti-racist and inclusive editorial practices outlined by the RaceB4Race Executive Board. Feel free to reach out to me with specific queries or ideas, and the editorial team is always happy to answer questions at our journal email address, postmedievalED@gmail.com.
10. Online Lecture- Social Fabrics: Inscribed Textiles from Egyptian Tombs
Please join us on March 11, 1:00 p.m. (EST) for a virtual lecture as curator Mary McWilliams discusses her research for The Harvard Art Museums’ exhibition Social Fabrics: Inscribed Textiles from Egyptian Tombs (January 22, 2022–May 8, 2022, University Research Gallery) looks at “tiraz” – highly prized textiles enhanced with woven, embroidered or painted Arabic inscriptions – to trace the structure of medieval Egyptian society during a transformative period. It reveals a story as interwoven and complex as these delicate objects themselves.
For more information and registration, visit: https://museum.gwu.edu/member-program-social-fabrics-inscribed-textiles-egyptian-tombs
(Ed note – Membership required.)
11. MEM Panel Sponsorship at MESA 2022
As part of the efforts of Middle East Medievalists (MEM) to raise the profile of medieval studies at MESA, the MEM Board of Directors announces our 2022 call for panel sponsorship. MEM is a MESA affiliate and thus may sponsor up to three panels at each annual meeting. MEM sponsorship does not guarantee inclusion on the program, nor does it come with financial support. However, sponsorship highlights a panel to the MESA program committee, and, if it is accepted, the panel will appear as MEM-sponsored on the final program. We will also publicize MEM-sponsored panels to our membership and in MEM’s annual “Medieval MESA” circular. We encourage all medievalists organizing panels for MESA 2022 to send us abstracts for both individual papers and the panel as a whole, as well as the names of participants, by February 7, 2022, so the MEM board may consider them for sponsorship before the MESA submission deadline. Please email your materials and/or any questions to Rob Haug (haugrt@ucmail.uc.edu).
12. Call for Papers for:
Travellers in Ottoman Lands: The Balkans, Anatolia and Beyond
Wednesday 24 August – Friday 26 August 2022
The Faculty of Islamic Studies of the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
An international three-day seminar organised by ASTENE (the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East), in association with the Faculty of Islamic Studies of the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Topics to be considered include: • travellers to Bosnia, the Balkans and the wider Ottoman world from other parts of Europe and elsewhere• travellers from the region to other parts of Europe and the Middle East• pilgrims and pilgrimage within the region• travel from the Balkans to the holy places of the Middle East, both Muslim and Christian• artistic and literary representations of the Balkans and other parts of the Ottoman world• the horticultural legacy of the region.
Proposals should be submitted (in English) to: ottomanlandsastene@gmail.com by 30 April 2022 at the latest.
For more details, including confirmed Keynote Speakers, proposal submissions and registration details, please go to:
https://www.astene.org.uk/current-events/travellers-in-ottoman-lands
13. UCLA:
Bilingual Lecture Series – Love at Eighty Film Screening and Panel Discussion
Sunday, March 13, 2022 at 11:30am Pacific Time via Zoom
Film in Persian with English Subtitles/Panel in Persian
Simin Behbahani: Love at Eighty is a retrospective of Simin Behbahani’s life and unique poetry. Largely in her own words, using family and period photos, interviews with noted poets and critics, this portrait traces her poetic development from her family roots, modern poetry movement, and reinventing Ghazal to explore the social, political, cultural, and moral issues of Iranian society.
14. Webinar on “Analyzing the Middle East Social Dynamics Using NLP and Big Data Methods”
Prof. Eric Atwell is inviting us all to join this online panel webinar on “Analyzing the Middle East Social Dynamics Using NLP and Big Data Methods” – as part of the CHSS Middle East Conference 2022.
Sunday Feb 6, 2022, 18:00-19:30 Qatar Time (15:00- 16:30 UK GMT)
Registration form to get the Webex links: https://lnkd.in/dXJQnbJC
Full Conference Program: https://www.hbku.edu.qa/en/mec/agenda
Chair: George Mikros, Professor in Digital Humanities, Middle Eastern Studies Department (HBKU)
Moderator: Wajdi Zaghouani, Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities, Middle Eastern Studies Department (HBKU)
- Kareem Darwish, Principal Scientist, Principal Scientist, aiXplain Inc:
“News Consumption in Time of Conflict: 2021 Palestinian-Israel War as an Example”
2. Muhammad Imran, Senior Scientist, Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI):
“Two Billion Multilingual COVID-19 Tweets with Sentiment, Entity, Geo, and Gender Labels”
3. Walid Magdy, Reader, School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh:
“Understanding the Arab Region from Social Media: What can we learn?”
4. Eric Atwell, Professor of Artificial Intelligence for Language, School of Computing, University of Leeds:
“Understanding the Quran: A Challenge for Artificial Intelligence”
If you have any questions, please feel free to email : wzaghouani@hbku.edu.qa
- February 05, 2022
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment