Categories : Academic items
Shii News – Academic Items
1. ‘Climate Change and the Built Environment in the Islamic World’, International Journal of Islamic Architecture13.2 (Special Issue)
This special issue of IJIA focuses on the impact of the current climate crisis on built environments in the Islamic world. Covering a diverse number of chronological and geographical contexts, the articles herein consider the effects of climate change on structured landscapes through the lenses of material, design, and architectural practice.
For more information about the journal and issue click here>>
https://www.intellectbooks.com/international-journal-of-islamic-architecture
and
https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/ijia
2. ‘Muqāranah: The Art of Comparison in Premodern Arabo-Islamic Poetics’
PMLA , Volume 139 , Issue 1 , January 2024 , pp. 172 – 183
Hany Rashwan
3. ‘Consubstantial dualism: a Zoroastrian perspective on the soul’
Ted Good
Religious Studies, Volume 60 / Issue S1, May 2024, pp S60 – S73
doi: 10.1017/S0034412523000641 Published Online on 2 August 2023
4. 2024 Sir William Luce lecture at Durham University (and online), 12 June 12:00 BST
“Aid from Gulf donors in conflict zones” Dr Altea Pericoli
You are warmly invited by Durham University’s Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies to attend the 2024 Sir William Luce public lecture at 12.00pm on Wednesday 12 June at the Al-Qasimi Building on Elvet Hill Rd, Durham DH1 3TU. The lecture will also be streamed on Zoom (links below).
Dr Altea Pericoli will deliver a lecture on “Aid from Gulf donors in conflict zones”. If you do intend to attend in person RSVP by 3 June.
Aid from Gulf donors in conflict zones
Summary: Dr Altea Pericoli’s research has the overall objective to provide a broader understanding of humanitarian aid in conflict zones as implemented by Gulf actors and to improve the dialogue between Western and Gulf donors. The research examines foreign aid interventions of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and their implementation in Yemen, Sudan, and Syria (including the Syrian refugee issue) in the period 2015-2022. The study combines international relations theories and the anthropological approach to humanitarian aid analysis, embedding a top-down and bottom-up observation of aid interventions.
Dr Pericoli is currently a Postdoctoral research fellow in geopolitics and regional cooperation at the Center for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Sweden. She was previously an academic visitor at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies and a visiting research fellow at the European University Institute, Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies. She obtained her Ph.D. in Institutions and Policies (2019-2023) at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, and she conducted many visiting periods at Vienna University, Durham University, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, and Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway. In July 2023, she obtained the BRISMES Award “Early Career Development Scholarship” to elaborate her first monograph with a university press. Her research interests include Islamic philanthropy and aid interventions implemented by Islamic actors and the Gulf States in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.
To attend online via Zoom (you will be asked to register as an attendee): https://durhamuniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nYjAYQinR168Ctlftr9Icg
5. Lecturer in Political Geographies of the Middle East
Newcastle University
We welcome applicants whose work advances one or more of the following areas through a focus on the Middle East and its shifting political geographies: conflict and displacement; resource colonialism; mobility politics; war and terrorism; human rights; security; borders and boundaries.
Deadline | 12 May 2024
More information
6. Roundtable Call for Submissions | Iranian Studies
The journal of Iranian Studies invites submissions for roundtables. Topics may include any subject in the social sciences related to Iran, the Persianate world, minoritized communities, and transnational diasporas. If interested, please submit your proposal to Dr Paola Rivetti, the journal’s associate editor for the social sciences (paola.rivetti@dcu.ie).
Deadline | 17 June 2024
7. Call for Applications | BIAA-University of Oxford Martin Harrison Memorial Fellowship
With funds donated in memory of the late Professor Martin Harrison, the University of Oxford has instituted a scheme of short-term Fellowships to enable Turkish scholars to come to the United Kingdom and Oxford for a period of research. The Fellowships are open to Turkish citizens resident in Türkiye who are working in any area of the material and visual culture of Anatolia, from the Prehistoric to the Ottoman period.
Deadline | 31 May 2024
8. Middle East Studies Senior Editor needed for Cogent Social Sciences
Fully Open Access (OA) journal Cogent Social Sciences is currently recruiting for a Senior Editor within its Area Studies section, to take the lead on a new strand focusing on Middle East Studies (North Africa, the Levant, the Gulf, and the Arabian Peninsula). This role reports to the Editor-in-Chief, and you will be joining the Senior Editors for African Studies, Asian Studies, and Central Asian, Russian and East European Studies.
Deadline | 31 May 2024
9. Call for Applications | BIAA Postdoctoral Fellowship
The British Institute at Ankara welcomes applications for a Postdoctoral Fellowship relating to research that fits within one of its Strategic Research Initiatives. The Fellowship will be tenable for 12 months from September 2024. The Fellow will be based at the Institute in Ankara and will be required to spend at least two-thirds of the period of their Fellowship at the Institute. The remaining one-third can be spent outside Ankara for research purposes, in consultation with the Institute’s Director.
Deadline | 30 April 2024
10. Bahram Beyzaie: A Mosaic of Metaphors (Bahman Maghsoudlou Film Festival)
Film Screening | SOAS Centre for Iranian Studies | 3 May 2024
“A Mosaic of Metaphors” delves into the life and artistic journey of renowned master of Iranian theatre and cinema, Bahram Beyzaie.
11. Alternative Imaginaries: Feminist Transformative Politics in the Global South
Conference | UCL Institute for Global Prosperity | 18 May 2024
This conference is organized to examine the ways in which feminist imagination is changing the face of the Global South by challenging gendered political structures, legal systems, and development trajectories in the Global South.
More information
12. Upcoming Events at St Antony’s College Middle East Centre, Oxford
Upcoming events include:
- Reflections on Tunisian Women’s Continued Fight for Respect, Dignity and Rights | 7 May 2024
- The transformation of the Ottoman-Iranian boundaries at the “Idea of Iran” symposium | 13 May 2024
- Economic Diversification and Climate Change in the Middle East | 28 May 2024
13. The Religious/Secular Divide in Turkish Television Drama: Three Media Platforms
Hybrid Event | British Institute at Ankara | 8 May 2024
After briefly explaining the embedding of the re-emergence of religiosity in Türkiye’s socio-political history, the lecture will supply a short overview of the development towards the presentation of religiosity in television drama. Then, it will zoom in on three case studies, analysing how conservative/religious lifestyles and modern/secular lifestyles are presented.
More information
14. ASPIRANTUM’s 2024 Persian Language Summer School in Yerevan, Armenia.
Deadline to apply: May 15, 2024.
To apply, please visit: https://aspirantum.com/courses/persian-language-summer-school
Students may select a 4-10 weeks (80 – 200 hours) program starting from June 23, June 30, or July 7, 2024 (please mention the preferred start date in your application form).
10 weeks – 200 contact hours (1 hour = 60 minutes)
9 weeks – 180 contact hours
8 weeks – 160 contact hours
7 weeks – 140 contact hours
6 weeks – 120 contact hours
Registration for the 4-week and 5-week course is now closed.
5 weeks – 100 contact hours
4 weeks – 80 contact hours
The Persian Summer School 2024 will have two groups (upper elementary and intermediate).
The intermediate syllabus covers various topics, including Economic Persian, Military Persian, Legal Persian, Cultural Persian, Technological Persian, Medical Persian, and more. You can find the daily topics in the syllabus: https://aspirantum.com/curriculum/persian-intermediate-syllabus
During our summer school, we have planned exciting trips to some of Armenia’s most renowned cultural heritage sites. These include the Quba Mere Diwane Yezidi Temple, the Garni Pagan Temple, the Geghard Monastery, the Mausoleum of Kara Koyunlu Emirs, the Amberd Fortress, and the picturesque Lake Sevan. We will also visit Martuni, Ayrivank on Lake Sevan, Ejmiatsin, Tsaghkadzor, Bjni, Khor Virap, Noravank, and more.
These tours offer students a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in local culture. They will have the chance to milk and shear a sheep, savor cheese under a shepherd’s tent, and sample the finest Armenian cuisine in traditional restaurants. Additionally, they can enjoy a refreshing swim in Sevan Lake, which is 1900 meters above sea level, and Kari Lake, which is at an elevation of 3185 meters.
To get a glimpse of what these tours entail, you can watch a recap of our previous excursions here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3PmyCWDsvg and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R4JlteBOxw
The deadline to apply to the 4-10 weeks 2024 Persian language summer school is May 15, 2024.
The participation fee is:
$6390 – 10 weeks
$5890 – 9 weeks
$5490 – 8 weeks
$4990 – 7 weeks
$4490 – 6 weeks
Registration for the 4-week and 5-week course is now closed.
$3990 – 5 weeks
$3490 – 4 weeks
To apply for summer school, please visit: https://aspirantum.com/courses/persian-language-summer-school
15. Professor Richard Bulliet speaking about Caravans on 10 May 2024 (in person )
‘Thinking about Caravans’
Friday, 10 May 2024, 5:30PM GMT
Leonard Wolfson Auditorium, Wolfson College, Oxford
16. Links for Recordings of the Exeter Monday Majlises of the spring term from the 15 of January to the 18th of March:
Monday Majlis Online Series, Recordings of the Majlises of the Spring Term
Centre for the Study of Islam, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter
(We don’t record the Q&A in order to keep the discussion free)
15th of January. Zoltán Szombathy, Islamic Discourses in a Local Context: A Traditional Ritual in Eastern Sulawesi, Indonesia
22nd of January. Neguin Yavari, Sufis Movements and Contestable Periodization Schemes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDT1bb-R8_s&list=PL8YRkUahFj_81oJzCSDLTx4kVQQgeHLc-&index=9&pp=iAQB
29th of January. Stefan Kamola, Everything under Heaven, and the Heavens Too: Universal History and Astrology in Mongol Iran
5th of February. Dženita Karić, Bosnian Hajj Literature: Multiple Paths to the Holy (conversation about the book and beyond)
12th of February. Dalal S al-Baroud with Sayed Ismail al-Behbehani, Rewilding Arabic Literature
19th of February. Andrew F. March, On Muslim Democracy: A Book Talk
26th of February. Austin O’Malley, The Hoopoe on the Pulpit: Narrative Structure and Imagined Performance in ʿAṭṭār’s Manṭeq al-ṭayr
4th of March. Yusuf Ünal, ‘Our State in the End Times:’ The Safavid Rule and a Shi’i Theory of Sovereignty
11th of March. Yaron Klein The Poetry of the One Thousand and One Nights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYBJaG4kqQI&list=PL8YRkUahFj_81oJzCSDLTx4kVQQgeHLc-&index=2&pp=iAQB
18th of March. Phillip Bruckmayr, Islamic Reform as a Family Affair: The Tariq Shah Wali Ullah in Modern Malaysia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1peidWXyAoE&list=PL8YRkUahFj_81oJzCSDLTx4kVQQgeHLc-&index=1&pp=iAQB
In the spirit of the label ‘Majlis’ and to make the talks even more interesting, our speakers present the topic discussed as embedded in their own journey. You can watch the previous Majlises here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8YRkUahFj_81oJzCSDLTx4kVQQgeHLc-, but we don’t record the Q&A in order to keep the discussion free. If you’d like to be included in the CSI (Centre for the Study of Islam (Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter) mailing list, please contact the CSI Manager: Sarah Wood (s.a.wood2@exeter.ac.uk).
17. Understanding Carpets and Rug Weaving is a four-day workshop organized and hosted by The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum. It will be held from October 21 through October 24 at the museum’s Avenir Foundation Conservation and Collections Resource Center, the workshop will be led by Walter B. Denny (The Textile Museum Research Associate, The University of Massachusetts Amherst) and Sumru Belger Krody (Senior Curator, The Textile Museum Collection) with support from the museum’s curatorial staff. The workshop will address professional concerns of museum curators and academic scholars from all levels of experience including those currently undertaking graduate study.
The program will include a mixture of formats: illustrated lectures giving an overview of the history and development of rug and carpet weaving; group discussions; and practical exercises in the analysis of weave structures, including an up-close study of a selection of rugs and other textiles from The Textile Museum Collection. Participants will come away with an understanding of basic weave structures in the context of various carpet cultures (Anatolia, Iran, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia), weaving traditions (nomadic and settled), eras (from Early Modern times to the 19th century) and economic spheres (court and commercial production), as well as methods for analyzing and documenting rugs and carpets. We will also discuss the storage, conservation, and display of carpets in a museum context.
The museum will provide lunch and coffee, as well as all materials necessary for the workshop. Participants will be responsible for their own travel, accommodation, and dinner expenses. Registration for the workshop closes on September 1, 2024 and is limited to 10 participants. To register, please complete this form. The Museum will provide a syllabus, some basic documentary materials to be read in advance, and detailed accommodation recommendations upon registration.
SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS
The museum is happy to provide a scholarship covering accommodation and dinner allowance to one graduate student for the workshop. Graduate students who are in good standing and currently enrolled in a U.S. higher-education institution are eligible to apply. We welcome applicants from graduate programs in art history, archaeology, history, classics, religious studies, and other fields who might benefit from close engagement with our collection and training in material-culture approaches.
To apply, please submit a CV and cover letter with a summary of your research interests, plans for future research, and an explanation of how the workshop would benefit your intellectual and professional development. All materials should be submitted as a single PDF document to museumcuratorial@gwu.edu. Applications are due by July 1, 2024.
Applicants are also encouraged to explore other sources of funding support within their own institutions, and from various professional organizations that support research in the area of carpets, textiles, and the history of Islamic art.
Contact: MuseumCuratorial@gwu.edu
Contact Information
Sumru Belger Krody or Ella Jones
Contact Email
URL
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSft9Pf4919gd1XlhTAXq3LL-fgb327YtbXxbrP…
18. HYBRID Lecture “The Mystical Appeal of a Revolution: Classified Documents, Islamic Third Worldism, and Iran in 1983” by Simon Wolfgang Fuchs (Hebrew University Jerusalem), University of Erfurt, 29 April 2024, 16:15 CET
For a moment in 1979 and 1980, post-revolutionary Iran emerged as the torch bearer of Third Worldism. This talk draws on several hundreds of pages of top-secret Persian documents, gathered during fieldwork in Iran in 2019, to shine light on how elements within the Iranian regime tried to test the waters in 1983. Despite logistical mishaps and poor intelligence, the Iranian message of anti-imperialism and Muslim solidarity still found eager takers in the early 1980s.
Participation via Webex:
https://uni-erfurt.webex.com/uni-erfurt/j.php?MTID=mcb96a5b35fd94adaac08049ee2aac48f ;
Meeting-Code: 2730 634 2262, Meeting-Password: X8Ty5TFQ6ZJ
- April 27, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.HYBRIDE Seminaire “De poète de la tribu à poète de la rue – les transformations de statut et de conditions de vie des poètes arabophones à l’époque prémoderne” avec Hakan Özkan (IREMAM, Aix-Marseille Université), MMSH/IREMAM, Aix-en-Provence, 25 April 2024, 14h00 heure de Paris
Nous accorderons une attention particulière à la notion de mobilité sociale des poètes, c’est-à-dire à la capacité de ces auteurs à s’élever au-delà de leur statut socio-économique initial, à travers leurs carriers en tant que poètes mais également dans d’autres domaines professionnels. Nous explorerons en outre la thématique de la précarité, qu’elle soit d’ordre économique ou physique.
Information et inscription : https://www.iremam.cnrs.fr/en/node/101905
2. HYBRID Lecture “The Politics of Anti-Judaism: Religious Co-production and Sectarian Polemics in the Fatimid Caliphate” by Mohamed Ballan (Stony Brook University), Kevorkian Center, New York University, 25 April 2024, 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm EST
The shared histories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were integral to the shaping of all three traditions during the medieval period. This lecture seeks to shed new light on how such religious co-production illustrates the ways in which the figures of Judaism (and, to a lesser degree, Christianity) played a key role in how medieval Muslims articulated their own theological and religious claims.
Information and registration: https://as.nyu.edu/research-centers/neareaststudies/events/the-politics-of-anti-judaism–religious-co-production-and-sectar.html
3. Six Positions for Doctoral Research Associates (3 Years, TV-L13, 2/3 FTE) for Project “Byzantium and the Euro-Mediterranean Cultures of War. Exchange, Differentiation and Reception”, University of Mainz, Germany
Participating in this Research Training Group are the disciplines of Ancient History, Ancient Church History/Theology, Byzantine Studies, Medieval History, Eastern European History, History of Islam, Classical Archaeology, Christian Archaeology and Byzantine Art History, Early and Prehistorical Archaeology (with a focus on Medieval Archaeology) and Musicology.
Deadline for applications: 22 May 2024. Information: https://grk-byzanz-wars.uni-mainz.de/
4. NEW DATE
Valparaiso University – Visiting Assistant Professor in History
https://apply.interfolio.com/144147
Incl Middle Eastern History
Closing date: May 1, 2024
5. PhD Studentship (4 Years) on “Islamist Movements in Exile”, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University
We are seeking candidates for this position. The project will assess the evolution of activism of moderate Islamist social movements in exile in Europe since the so-called “Arab Spring”. Outstanding PhD candidates will be offered fee waiver and a tax-free scholarship of €22,000 per annum for four years.
Deadline for applications: 7 May 2024.
Information: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DHE136/phd-studentship-on-islamist-movements-in-exile
6. Conference – ‘From Sicily to Sumatra’, Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford – May 17-18
From Sicily to Sumatra
Conference in Honour of Professor Jeremy Johns
Friday 17 – Saturday 18 May 2024 at Wolfson College, University of Oxford (Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD).
We are delighted to announce that ‘From Sicily to Sumatra: Conference in Honour of Professor Jeremy Johns’ hosted by Khalili Research Centre (KRC) will take place on Friday 17 – Saturday 18 May 2024 at Wolfson College, University of Oxford (Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD). This in-person two-day conference will start at 10:00am.
Over the last four decades, Professor Jeremy Johns has been a leading researcher on the history of the Islamic Mediterranean, particularly Sicily, and a pillar of the advanced study of Islamic art and archaeology at Oxford. This conference, organised to mark his retirement, brings together speakers from among his former students and closest colleagues to celebrate his career. The topics, ranging from Europe to Southeast Asia and from early Islam to the modern era, reflect the breadth of his interests and his impact on the field. We hope the event will be a fitting testament to a scholar – to quote Malaterra’s words about Roger I of Sicily – “most eloquent in speech and cool in counsel”.
For further details and to purchase tickets, please see the attached poster or visit the registration page. Tickets include lunch and refreshments on both days. There is an early bird offer which ends on Sunday, 25th April.
7. UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series
“Heroes to Hostages: US—Iran Diplomacy through Race Relations and Human Rights”
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet
Sunday, May 19, 2024 at 11:30am
Zoom Registration:
https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aieHlTjSSJa2-tL__Bf22g
This presentation appraises US-Iranian diplomacy through race relations and human rights. Intellectuals of the post-Mosaddeq era gave voice to an anti-colonial rhetoric that burst wide open during the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Many writers, some with socialist leanings, watched with interest political happenings in formerly colonized states. These conflicts were often rooted in experiences of racial discrimination and social inequality. At the same time, the Iranian state also engaged with some of these themes and expanded its diplomatic relations with a range of countries in the Global South. Although state-to-state ties between Iran and America were strengthened during the two decades preceding the 1979 revolution, social dissent also grew strident. The debate on human rights gave voice to these concerns as Iran’s politicians and writers reflected on the legacy of human rights and reassessed the country’s ties to the United States and the West. Race relations provided an unanticipated and often missed opportunity for collaboration.
8. Imago Mundi journal at the International Conference on the History of Cartography, July 2024
The editors of Imago Mundi are looking forward to attending ICHC 2024 in Lyon, France. Imago Mundi turns 90 years old in 2025 and ICHC 2024 offers us a chance to reflect on and connect with our community. They are eager to speak with researchers about prospective submissions, as well as to discuss the journal’s scope and reach.
The editors will lead a workshop on Wednesday, 3 July. Attendees will tackle questions that include how, in the next decade, Imago Mundi might:
- foster debate on methodological and conceptual questions, advance pedagogy, increase public impact?
- ensure a full range of maps and mapmaking practices are presented?
- contribute to connecting researchers, collectors, librarians and archivists?
In short, we invite the map history community’s thoughts on what a flagship journal should strive for as it looks towards a second century.
Additionally, the editors will be available for discussions and one-on-ones during the lunch session each day during the conference. Please feel free to approach Jordana Dym or Katie Parker at the ICHC to chat about possible article topics, how to write an article, special issues, or other matters. Alternatively, reach out ahead of time to plan a time.
Questions? Please contact editor.imagomundi@gmail.com. We will see you in Lyon and remember, early bird registration ends April 20! Learn more at https://ichc2024.univ-lyon3.fr/registration
Contact Information
Katie Parker and Jordana Dym, editors
Contact Email
9. Sami De Giosa, Text and Stone: A history of Christian Symbols in Mamluk Architecture in Cairo (1250-1517AD). Monday Majlis online, the 29th of April, 17: 00-18:30 (UK time)
Monday Majlis of the Centre for the Study of Islam, Exeter, opening the summer term:
Sami De Giosa, Text and Stone: A history of Christian Symbols in Mamluk Architecture in Cairo (1250-1517AD)
Monday Majlis Online on the on the 29th of April, 17:00-18:30 (UK time)
Centre for the Study of Islam, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter.
Register please on this link:
https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYoceqoqDktE9DWrSxb4MX7x-9Ctqy68Sz6
- April 23, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.Iran Heritage Foundation:
Book Talk: ‘Rethinking The Contemporary Art of Iran’
Wednesday 24 April 2024
17:00 – 18:30
Room: Alumni Lecture Theatre (SALT),
Paul Webley Wing (PWW), Senate House, SOAS
Speakers
Professor Hamid Dabashi (contributor)
Dr Venetia Porter (discussant)
Ghazaleh Avarzamani (artist) and
Dr Hamid Keshmirshekan (editor/author)
Chaired by Dr Seyed Ali Alavi (co-director, SOAS Centre for Iranian Studies)
Register:
https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/book-talk-rethinking-contemporary-art-iran
2. ‘Arabic Poetry as a Weapon of Jihad’
Dr Elisabeth Kendall, the Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge
6.00pm, Thursday, 25th April, 2024
Auditorium, Pembroke College, Cambridge
The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in the foyer of the Auditorium
To register to attend the lecture:
https://forms.gle/7oNwLres4LiR8GQq7
3. Hybrid Book launch: Women, Households and the Hereafter in the Qur’an (1 May 2024)
You are warmly invited to join authors Dr Karen Bauer and Professor Feras Hamza as they introduce their latest publication, “Women, Households and the Hereafter in the Qur’an: A Patronage of Piety“, in conversation with Dr Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Dr Omar `Ali-de-Unzaga.The event will include a discussion followed by questions and answers with the audience. Light refreshments will be available in the atrium after the event.
The book offers a fresh perspective on the highly contested topic of women’s status in the Qur’an. Using a historical-critical approach, the authors argue that women were integral to the early community of believers, and that households were a major locus of Qur’anic morality, piety, and law. This compelling and original work proposes new paradigms for understanding the Qur’an’s social milieu and its salvific vision for that world.
Time: 5.00pm – 6.30pm BST
Date: 1 May 2024
Venue: The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS), Aga Khan Centre, London and Online (Zoom)
Register to attend in-person or online via the IIS website.
Other upcoming events at The Institute of Ismaili Studies
26 April – Morality and Religion: Perspectives from Literature, Sociology and Philosophy (Ahmad Sadri, Lake Forest College)
2 May – Understanding Generative AI and Prompting (Mohammad Keyhani, University of Calgary)
9 May – Between Zulaykha and Joseph: Shi’i Allegoresis of Surat Yusuf (David Hollenberg, University of Oregon)
11 June – Spirituality: The Inner and Outer Landscape (Seyyed Hossein Nasr, George Washington University)
4. ‘Hadith as Oral Literature through Early Islamic Literary Criticism’
Hany Rashwan
Studia Islamica 119, 2024
https://brill.com/view/journals/si/119/1/article-p34_2.xml?ebody=abstract%2Fexcerpt
Kayvan Tahmasebian, Rebecca Ruth Gould
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Volume 56 / Issue 1, February 2024, pp 38 – 54
6. The Persian Gulf Award (short story) and The Damavand Award (poem)
The University of Texas at Austin is holding two literary contests for all college students outside Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan who can write in Persian (this includes non-heritage Persian learners too).
The Persian Gulf Award for the best short story written in Persian and The Damavand Award for the best poem written in Persian.
There will be $2,000 monetary awards in total for the top three submissions in each category, and an English translation of the winning submissions will be published in our literary journal Y’alla: A Texan Journal of Middle Eastern Literature.
To see the submissions guidelines and deadlines, please visit https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/mes/languages/persian/persian-literature-contests.html
Submission Deadline: October 15, 2024
7. CFP: “Urban history of mobility in the MENA region: migrations, ecologies, spaces, temporalities (XIX-XXI)” – XVI SeSaMO Conference – Deadline 7 May 2024
XVI Convegno SeSaMO – XVI SeSaMO Conference
Crossings and contaminations. Practices, languages and politics in transit in the Middle East and North Africa
Department of Political and Social Sciences, Department of Literature, Languages and Cultural Heritage, University of Cagliari, Italy, 3-5 October 2024
7 May 2024: deadline for the submission of papers
Gabriele Montalbano and Lucia Carminati have organized the open panel:
Urban history of mobility in the MENA region: migrations, ecologies, spaces, temporalities (XIX-XXI):
Despite the obvious importance of migration in the urban contexts of North Africa and the Middle East in the modern age, urban history and the history of mobility and migration have not always spoken to each other. An interest in the impact of colonial regimes in urban planning and social geography has often prevailed (Wright 1991; Piaton 2016; McLaren 2018; Dumasy 2022), in part neglecting the question of urban contexts as revealers and producers of both social and spatial mobility (Foucault 1984). Moreover, studies in the North African and Middle Eastern contexts have rarely been conceived within an unifying framework, in spite of pleas to do so (Clancy-Smith 2011; Arsan, Karam, and Khater 2013). A new historiographical interest, in which this panel fits, aims to propose a history of mobility by investigating the connection between migratory phenomena, urban spaces, ecologies, and regimes of historicity (Tabak 2008; Lafi 2023). From the 19th century onwards, urban areas in the MENA region have witnessed major changes related to mobility and also to the presence of economic, social, and colonial marginalities (Biancani 2018; Fuhrmann 2020; Paonessa 2021; Montalbano 2023; Carminati 2023). The chosen chronology encompasses the era of political reforms (like Tanzimat in Ottoman areas), the implementation of colonial hierarchies in most of the MENA region up to the decolonization processes and the postcolonial political regimes. Through a perspective on mobility within the urban scale it is possible to analyze the different regimes, passages and changes that do not coincide necessarily with the classical chronology of the political and diplomatic history.
The interest is to investigate cities as nodes of national as well as transnational and global networks. It is in city neighbourhoods that communities, minorities and economic and social divisions take concrete shape. At the same time, it is within urban spaces where national, class, gender and racial categories can be subverted, criticised, reconfigured. The methodological approach of this panel is to avoid considering the relation of these categories as a simple interaction of undiscussed blocks but, on the contrary, it focuses on the mutual hybridization of the concepts of time, space, and (social, racial, gender) identities. Urban spaces are not here understood as a mere setting of historical and social events but as an active part of a complexity in which all the different elements are related and built together (Rau, Roger 2020). The analysis of marginality and daily-life is intended as a privileged perspective to underline the spatialized social practices of urban MENA contexts. Even though our main academic interest concerns history, this panel aims to be an open space of discussions and exchanges among scholars from different social sciences such as (but not exclusively): historians, anthropologists, geographers, sociologists. We welcome papers (in Italian, English or French) that cover, study or deal with the following themes:
- Forms of urban marginality
- Relationship between urban neighbourhoods and the urban, national, global context
- (re)production of spatial and social boundaries and divisions
- impact of infrastructure and exploitation in urban social geography
- sites of hybridisation, conflict and subversion
- production of alternative urban geographies to institutional ones
- ecologies of urban spaces
- relationship between urban spaces and public health ideas or practices
- proposals or practices of urban modernisation
- regimes of historicity and temporality across urban contexts
Consider joining & spreading the word!
Reach out to Gabriele Montalbano gabriele.montalbano2@unibo.it and Lucia Carminati lucia.carminati@iakh.uio.no if interested.
8. Afghanistan, vol 7/1 is now out and available online.
9. ‘Plague and the Mongol conquest of Baghdad (1258)? A reevaluation of the sources’
Jonathan Brack, Michal Biran, Reuven Amitai
Medical History
doi: 10.1017/mdh.2023.38, 19 pages. Published Online on 8 April 2024
10. Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Medicine
60-80 %
The History of Medicine Group within the Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine and the Center for Medical Humanities at the University of Zurich, led by Professor Flurin Condrau, seeks to appoint a postdoctoral fellow (60-80 % FTE, competitive salary based on experience). The appointment is for three years with potential for extension by another three years. Applicants must have defended their doctoral degree within the last ten years. Closing date for applications is 31 May 2024.
11. ONLINE Yemeni Studies Lecture Series: “Blessed Aristocracies: Charismatic Authority, Rural Elites, and Historiography in Medieval Yemen” by Dr. Zacharie Mochtari de Pierrepont and Prof. Dr. Vincent J. Cornell, Leiden University, 22 April 2024, 16:00 – 17:30 CET
In Yemen, the multiplication of pious visitations to tombs (ziyārāt) between the end of the 6th/12th century and the 9th/15th century, as elsewhere in the Muslim worlds, went along with the emergence of many blessed characters and lineages associated with sainthood (walāya). The contemporary Yemeni corpus gave them a major space in the historiographical production of the Rasūlid (r. 626-858/1229-1454) and Ṭāhirid (r. 858-923/1454-1517) sultanates.
Information and registration:
- April 20, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.HYBRID Book Discussion: “Studying Islam in the Arab World: The Rupture Between Religion and the Social Sciences” by Sari Hanafi, American University of Beirut, 18 April 2024, 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm
The author provides critical insight on case studies in Lebanon Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait Qatar, and Malaysia: What is the purpose of religious education? Does it aim to create people who specialize solely in religious affairs? What is the nature of the relationship between the social sciences and the Shariah sciences?
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87280843976
2. Colloque on the Occasion of the 15th Anniversary of the Yearbook of Muslims in Europe: “Diasporification of Islam: Transborder Relations of Muslims in Europe. Established Muslim Communities and New Arrivals”, Department of Turkish Studies, University of Strasbourg, 18-19 April 2024
Information and program: https://dres.unistra.fr/websites/misha/dres/2._Pluralisme_et_religions/evenemen ts/DET_Brochure_Colloque.pdf
3. ONLINE Book Talk: “Arabic-Type Books Printed in Wallachia, Istanbul, and Beyond. First Volume of Collected Works of the TYPARABIC Project”, Edited by Radu Dipratu and Samuel Noble, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, 25 April 2024, 19:00 h, Bucharest Time
This first volume focuses on the history of printing during the 18th century in the Ottoman Empire and the Romanian Principalities among diverse linguistic and confessional communities. Although “most roads lead to Istanbul,” the many pathways of early modern Ottoman printing also connected authors, readers and printers from Central and South-Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the Levant.
Information: http://typarabic.ro/wordpress.
Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82919338366?pwd=uTW430ve3w8oayU3Iug1lbk1j5mruJ.1
4. International Conference “From Solidus to Stavraton: Coinage and Money in the Byzantine World”, Princeton University, 26-28 April 2024
This conference will be the first ever devoted solely to Byzantine numismatics, and it will reunite renowned scholars and specialists from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the U.S.
Information, program and registration: https://library.princeton.edu/event/solidus-stavraton
5. Workshop “Intersections of Youth, Gender, and Religion under Digital Media in the MENA Region”, Leipzig University, 26-27 September 2024
Themes: Expressions and performances of religious identities. – Governance strategies and policies targe-ting the youth, gender, and sexuality. – New age religions and spiritualities. – Social media influencer econo-mies. – Youth cultures. – Feminist and LGBTQ politics and collective movements. – Anti-gender politics and ideologies. – Negotiation of the religious-secular divide. Etc.
Deadline for abstracts: 3 May 2024. Information: https://www.gkr.uni-leipzig.de/newsdetail-3/artikel/call-for-papers-intersections-of-youth-gender-and-religion-under-digital-media-in-the-mena-region-2024-04-05
6. Postdoctoral Fellowship (1 Year) in Islamic Studies, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
We seek candidates who study Muslim societies and cultures in their global context, with interdisciplinary and critical perspectives and methods, including digital humanities.
Deadline for applications: 10 May 2024. Information: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/27480
7. “Early Scholars Publication Grants”, Offered by the UNESCO Chair in Translating Cultures; King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)
The grants are intended to facilitate and support the publication and dissemination of outstanding graduate-level research in a peer-reviewed academic publication. They aim to support innovative research in translating Arab cultures by facilitating collaborations between scholars in translation studies, cultural studies, intangible heritage, and the humanities at the local, regional, and international levels.
Deadline for applications: 15 May 2024. Information: https://kfcris.com/en/unesco/grant
8. Courses of the Arabic Language Institute in Fez (ALIF), Morocco, 21 May – 6 July 2024
ALIF is a globally-oriented center that aims to educate and engage students from around the world in Arabic, North African culture, cross-cultural communication, research, and community service.
Deadline for applications: 23 April 2024. Information: https://alif-fes.com/
9. New Journal: “Rivista di Studi storici del Mediterraneo” – International Review of Mediterranean Historical Studies
This journal promotes a global perspective on the historical dynamics of the Mediterranean, transcending geographical boundaries. Contributions are invited about topics that transcend any conventional periodization in order to investigate the complex network of relations and influences relating to different Mediterranean contexts and foster historical knowledge of the Mediterranean.
Information: https://rivistastoricadelmediterraneo.it/en/the-mediterranean-world/#more-117
10. Articles for the “Indonesian Journal of Religion, Spirituality and Humanity”, State Islamic University (UIN) 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, and philosophy of religion.
Deadline for submissions: 30 May 2023.
Information: https://ejournal.uinsalatiga.ac.id/index.php/ijoresh/index
11. Journey of Love: Nizami’s “Layla and Majnun”, An evening of Sufi Music, Poetry and Sama, Toronto & Vancouver
Immerse yourself in the “Journey of Love” program featuring the MTO Zendeh Delan Ensemble. Hosted by Canadian Friends of Sufi Arts, Culture and Knowledge (CFSACK), this transformative experience, reimagining Nizami’s timeless classic “Layla & Majnun” through Sufi music, invites attendees on a spiritual odyssey, blending spirituality and art. Experience Sufism through music, dhikr, and the traditional practice of sama, in this live performance.
The program also has an almost sold-out Vancouver run on April 19, 20, and 21 at the Cultch Historic Theatre.
This live program is repeated on April 25, 26 and 27 in Toronto at the Meridian Arts Center Greenwin Theatre in North York.
MTO Zendeh Delan is known for revitalizing contemporary Sufi music by integrating traditional melodies with global influences. Their diverse repertoire combines Sufi tunes with Western elements, further enriched by the poetry of revered Sufi Masters, and incorporates the sacred sama practice.
CFSACK is a not-for-profit charity dedicated to increasing knowledge and appreciation of Sufi history, art, and culture.
Further information can be found at cfsack.org
Contact Information
For further information and access to discounted tickets, contact Shahed Ejadi, Director of Canadian Friends of Sufi Arts, Culture and Knowledge.
Contact Email
URL
https://tolive.com/Event-Details-Page/reference/Journey-of-Love-2024
12. Exhibition – Conoscenza e Libertà. Arte Islamica al Museo Civico Medievale di Bologna – April 20–September 15
Curated by Anna Contadini (SOAS University of London)
http://informa.comune.bologna.it/iperbole/media/files/arte_islamica.pdf
The wonderful objects in this exhibition are designed to display the Museum’s outstanding collection of Islamic objects, which includes some undisputed masterpieces. They are the fruit of targeted collecting which includes that of Bolognese collectors and scholars Ferdinando Cospi in the XVII, Luigi Ferdinando Marsili in the XVIII and Pelagio Palagi in the XIX century. Knowledge of them allows us to comprehend the contribution made by the cultures that produced them to European art and thought, and frees us from prejudices and stereotypes. The themes of the exhibition, in fact, reveal the transmission of scientific knowledge, of techniques of manufacturing and decoration and of the appropriation of ornamental repertoires that will become part of a global artistic vocabulary. The objects on display come from a wide swathe of the Islamic world, extending from Iraq to Spain, and cover a broad chronological span, from the beginning of the 13th to the 18th century. They are representative of the artistic production of the Abbasid, Zangid, Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Ottoman dynasties, and include Spanish examples of Islamic inspiration from the 15th and 16th centuries. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue of the same title.
Conferences
8 maggio, h. 17
Anna Contadini (SOAS, Università di Londra)
Trasmissione e ricezione: arte islamica a Bologna
15 maggio, h. 17
Lucia Raggetti (Università di Bologna)
Scienza come arte. Tecnica, natura e cultura nel Medioevo arabo-islamico
29 maggio, h. 17
Frédéric Bauden (Università di Liegi)
Quando gli oggetti parlano: citazioni poetiche nell’arte islamica
5 giugno, h. 17
Mattia Guidetti (Università di Bologna)
Il collezionismo di arte islamica a Bologna
13. Extended deadline
Call for Submissions | Second Symposium on Middle Eastern, North African and Central Asian Dances, Music and Performing Arts
Symposium, Pomona College (Claremont, CA), 3-6 October 2024
Submissions are invited for the second scholarly symposium on MENA and Central Asian dances. This year’s topics include music and performing arts from the same regions. The goal is to gather as many scholars as possible in one academic environment to present their most recent research. All submissions must be accompanied by an abstract (150-250 words).
New Deadline | 19 April 2024
14. Valparaiso University – Visiting Assistant Professor in History
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=67138
Incl Middle Eastern History
Closing date: 11.7.24
- April 16, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1. “Male, Female, and In-Between Singers in Medieval Iberia and the Broader Islamic World”
Dwight F. Reynolds, Distinguished Professor of Arabic language & literature, University of California, Santa Barbara
16 May, Edinburgh College of Art, Hunter Building, Hunter Lecture Theatre, 4pm, followed by refreshments
This lecture begins by exploring the entirely different understanding of gender that was common in the medieval Islamic world, and then explores the role of gender in the performance of music in the medieval Mediterranean and Iberia. Particular attention is given to the special class of female slaves trained in music and other art forms (Arabic qiyān) who were bought and sold, given as gifts, and occasionally managed to be set free, and the musicians who were mukhannathūn, sometimes translated as “effeminates,” who crossed back and forth between male and female social domains.
2. EUP are pleased to announce the publication of our new edited volume, Hagia Sophia in the Long Nineteenth Century, published in the Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire series by Edinburgh University Press. The book includes 9 essays that examine Hagia Sophia from multiple perspectives during the long nineteenth century, when this monument’s status as an icon of world heritage was beginning to take shape.
Contributing Authors: Ünver Rüstem, Tülay Artan, Emily Neumeier, Benjamin Anderson, Sotirios Dimitriadis, Robert S. Nelson, Asli Menevse, Ayşe Hilâl Uğurlu, and Robert Ousterhout
A table of contents can be found on the press website: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-hagia-sophia-in-the-long-nineteenth-century.html (Use the code NEW30 for 30% off the listed purchase price.)
3. Le CeRMI a le plaisir de vous convier à laprochaine séancedu séminaire “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien”, qui se tiendra le jeudi 25 avril 2024, 17h-19h, en salle 3.15 à l’INaLCO (65 rue des Grands Moulins, Paris XIII, 3e étage).
Nous sommes heureux d’accueillir M. Ahmad Sadri, James P. Gorter Professor of Islamic World Studies et Professeur et Professeur de sociologie et d’anthropologie au Lake Forest College (Illinois), auteur d’une nouvelle traduction intégrale du Shahnameh à paraître chez Norton Classics en 2025, pour une conférence intitulée : « The Progressive Arch of Shahnameh’s Tragedies ».
Résumé
In the four tragedies of Shahnameh (Rostam vs. Sohrab, Froud vs. Tous, Siavosh vs. Kay Kavous, and Esfandiar vs. Rostam), human agency gradually takes center stage. The story of Rostam and Sohrab is overdetermined by fate and its instruments: naïveté, inattention, freak accidents, and unintended consequences. In the following two tragedies of Forud and Siavosh, common passions and human frailties of selfishness, greed, and pride stream into the narrative. Yet, it is only in the poem’s last and grandest tragedy that fate, accidents, and supernatural events play no role. Prince Esfandiar’s obsession with becoming king is the prime mover of the tragedy. Thus, ascribed qualities (being of the seed of kings and divine charisma) wane in favor of those achieved by daring courage and practical reason. The epic period lasts a millennium and it ends as a consequence of the battle of Rostam and Esfandiar. In the historical period, we witness the hyper-real tragedy of Bahram-e Chubine vs. King Khosrow Parviz.
Orientations bibliographiques
- Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, Jalal Khaleghi-Motlagh(ed.), Tehran, Center of the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia, 2011.
- Ferdowsi, Al-Shahnama, Fath b. ‘Ali al-Bundari al-Isfahani (trans.), ‘Abd al-Wahhab ‘Azzam (ed.), Cairo, Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyah, 1932, 2 vols.
- Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, Ahmad Sadri (trans.), London, Norton Classics, (forthcoming in 2025).
- Hamid Dabashi, The Shahnameh: The Persian Epic and World Literature, New York, Columbia University Press, 2019.
- Dick Davis, Epic and Sedition: The Case of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, Fayetteville, University of Arkansas Press, 1992.
Pour rappel, vous retrouverez le programme 2023-2024 du séminaire mensuel de recherche “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien” sur le site du CeRMI :
Contact: justine.landau@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr
4. Ghand-e Parsi: Gateway to Academic Persian Language and Literature
https://sites.google.com/view/ghandeparsi
5. CFP: Brill’s Journal of Religious Minorities under Muslim Rule
The Journal of Religious Minorities under Muslim Rule provides a primary venue for scholarly studies that examine religious minorities (such as Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and other minoritarian Muslim groups) under majoritarian Muslim rule. The journal covers a large temporal period, spanning from 7th century Arabia to 1922 (the end of Ottoman rule), in addition to a large geographic area from North Africa and al-Andalus in the West to Iran, some Central Asian lands, well into Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia in the East. The focus includes minority-minority, minority-majority, and minority-state relations. In addition to its broad temporal and geographic reach, this is an interdisciplinary journal that will appeal to those working in specific disciplines, including history, religious studies, literature, legal studies, and archaeology.
JRMMR welcomes original papers and review essays that focus on any temporal and geographic areas. We are particularly interested in, but not limited to, papers that,
- reinterpret the minority-majority interaction/s
- critique the Muslim vs. non-Muslim discourse/s
- problematize dichotomized perceptions on minorities
- re-examine the minority Other in and under Muslim rule
- read primary sources anew using state-of-the-art technologies
- analyze minority relations as dynamic, fluid, and ever-changing
- move beyond cliché concepts and categories that frame minorities
- bring to light both well-known and lesser-known minority traditions
- contextualize minority communities in wider socio-historical contexts
SUBMIT YOUR PAPER
We would like to invite all authors to submit their manuscripts via the journal’s online platform: https://www.editorialmanager.com/rmmr/default.aspx. We receive manuscripts on a rolling basis, and we publish two issues per year.
If you have any questions before submitting or are interested in discussing a special issue, please contact the editors, Abbas Aghdassi (aghdassi@um.ac.ir) and Aaron W. Hughes (aaron.hughes@rochester.edu). For more information, please visit: https://brill.com/rmmr/.
6. British Institute of Persian Studies – Junior Assistant Role
Position Junior Assistant
Salary £25,000 per annum, pro rata
Contract Fixed term
Working pattern Part-time, 3 days per week (0.6 FTE)
Workplace Hybrid
Employer The British Institute of Persian Studies, London (www.bips.ac.uk)
Closing date 22 May 2024, 5PM
The British Institute of Persian Studies is currently seeking a part-time, 3 days per week, Junior Assistant to support its work in promoting scholarship and research excellence on all aspects of Iran and the wider Persianate world. The role suits a well organised and methodical person, with an interest in the development of processes. The ideal candidate will be able to work both under supervision and semi-independently when required, will be proactive and enthusiastic and ideally interested in the promotion of the Persianate world, its history and culture.
BIPS is a UK charity and company limited by guarantee. It is also a self-governing membership organisation, in which members are elected to serve on its Governing Council as trustees of the charity and directors of the company. Most Council members are academics in the field of Persianate studies.
_______________________________________________________________
Duties of the Junior Assistant
The Junior Assistant will work under the supervision of the BIPS General Manager who will act as their line manager. They will provide support in the following areas: Communication, Outreach, and Administration. It is expected that from time to time the Junior Assistant will be asked to undertake tasks other than those specified above, under the supervision of their line manager.
Communicaition
Under the supervision of the General Manager and in line with BIPS policies, the Junior
Assistant will be responsible for the management of the BIPS social media pages and profiles, for the creation of social media contents and graphics, BIPS newsletters, BIPS Student Newsletter and BIRI newsletters.
The Junior Assistant will occasionally interact with the members of BIPS in order to provide assistance with basic queries about membership renewals and subscription to the IRAN journal.
Outreach
In this area, the Junior Assistant will work under the supervision of the General Manager and of the BIPS Outreach Director. The General Manager will be the Assistant’s first point of contact.
The Junior Assistant will be responsible for keeping the BIPS website updated. Content for the website will normally be provided, however, on occasion the Junior Assistant will be required to produce content for the webpages.
The Junior Assistant will also provide technical support for the organisation and delivery of the BIPS online events and the subsequent editing and circulation of video and audio
recordings and other outputs to the public. Some degree of interaction with speakers invited by BIPS will be required.
The Junior Assistant will be responsible for the promotion of online and in person events
mainly through social media and the BIPS website.
Administration and projects
The Junior Assistant will be requested to collect statistical data on event attendance, social media and website reach and impact. They will keep the data updated and will assist with the data collection for reporting to the British Academy.
The Junior Assistant may be required to provide support with the Archive Digitisation projects undertaken by BIPS. This can include data cleaning and preparation for uploading to the BIPS Digitisation Platform.
Required Skills
Essential:
Proficiency with MS Office 365, specifically Excel and PowerPoint;
Previous experience of running and streaming webinars;
Familiarity with Adobe software, in particular Premier Pro, InDesign and Photoshop;
Ability to work independently with email marketing platforms (such as Mailchimp) and social media management platforms;
Desirable:
Previous experience of working at the backend of WordPress websites;
Interest in archives
Familiarity with Xero or similar accounting software
An understanding of the charity and the UK higher education sectors;
Knowledge of the Persianate world.
_______________________________________________________________
How to apply
Please send your CV and covering letter to bips@thebritishacademy.ac.uk .
7. Hybrid: UCLA’s Pourdavoud Lecture Series with Wu Xin
‘Regal Metamorphosis: A Transcultural Journey of the Achaemenid Royal Women to the East’
Wednesday, May 8, 2024 at 4:00pm Pacific
Royce Hall 306
Hybrid Zoom Option Available
8. Tangible and Intangible Heritage in the Age of Globalisation, edited by Lilia Makhloufi
This book offers a rich collection of perspectives on the complex interplay between tangible and intangible heritage.
Offering a close and critical examination of heritage preservation in countries including Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile, Egypt, Iran, Japan, Morocco, Oman, Syria and Tunisia, these essays illustrate the need to redefine heritage as an interdisciplinary and intercultural concept. They interrogate heritage paradigms while also providing concrete recommendations to promote the preservation of physical heritage spaces, and the cultural practices and social relationships that depend on them.
Rich in detail and broad in relevance, this book emphasises specific cultural realities while also reflecting on the impact of global historical, social, economic and political trends to heritage conservation, scrutinising the conditions of the past to adapt them to the needs of the present and future. It will be of great relevance to all those interested in the preservation and management of heritage sites, including architects, urban planners, landscape architects, historians, sociologists and archaeologists, as well as heritage marketing, museum and cultural tourism professionals.
Access this Title
Read and Download for Free: We are pleased to inform you that Tangible and Intangible Heritage in the Age of Globalisation is freely available to read and download in both PDF and HTML formats. Access the full text here and explore the wealth of knowledge this publication has to offer.
Secure Your Copy: For those who prefer a tangible edition or who are interested in acquiring the book in ePub format, you can do so at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0388
Benefits for Library Members: Members of our library program enjoy discounts on physical copies and can access all digital editions for free. This is your opportunity to enrich your institutional library with cutting-edge insights!
9. CFP – ‘Iran and China: Common heritage and contemporary relations’, University of Groningen
Date: 27-28 September 2024
Location: University of Groningen
Deadline: 15 May 2024
Convenors: William Figueroa (University of Groningen) & Peyman Eshaghi (Free University of Berlin)
Since ancient times, connections between Iran and China have flourished through trade and literature. This has resulted in significant mutual influence on the artistic, cultural, and political development and histories of various peoples residing in the Iranian plateau, China, and Central Asia. Today a large amount of extant tangible and intangible cultural heritage exists in both Iran and China attesting to this shared history. Both forms of heritage are often referenced, put on display, and mobilized in support of a range of political and personal projects. Given its historical significance and contemporary relevance, the goal of this conference is to bring together scholars considering these common ties of cultural heritage, as well as how they are situated in contemporary academic, political, or cultural debates.
We invite papers on any aspect of the common heritage of Iran and China, including but not limited to the following issues:
- Books, manuscripts, art works and first hand materials about Iran and China produced in either countries.
- Literary products of any kind that consider the relationship between the two.
- The presence or influence of Iranian or Chinese culture in the literature, folklore, and artistic traditions of the other.
- Travelogues, diaries, and cultures of travel.
- Accounts of historical political relations between Iran and China, including delegates and envoys.
- The historical position of Iran on the Silk Road and its connection to China.
- Material life, imported objects, and the objectification of imagination between the two countries.
- Religious life, missionary groups, and promotion of Islam, Nestorianism and Manichaeism in Iran and China.
- Emigration and immigration of Iranian and Chinese communities across Central Asia.
- Contemporary mobilization of these themes in international relations, public discourse, and academic debates.
The workshop will be held in hybrid format, in person at University of Groningen for those who are able to attend, and online for colleagues who are unable to attend in person. The conference will be sponsored by the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (Instituut voor Cultuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek Groningen: ICOG) and the Centre for Religion and Heritage (CRH).
Keynote Speakers:
Arang Keshavarzian, NYU
Khodadad Rezakhani, Leiden Institute for Area Studies
We invite interested scholars to send an abstract (300 words max.) and a one-page CV to: w.a.figueroa@rug.nl
SUBMISSION DEADLINE for abstracts: 15 May 2024
Notification of the accepted abstracts: 30 May 2024
Deadline for submission of the first draft of presentations: 30 Aug 2024
Conference Date: Sept 27-28, 2024
Contact Email
URL
https://www.rug.nl/research/icog/news/2024/0408-cfp-iran-and-china
10. CFP – “Historicizing the Muslim Sensorium: Toward a Sensory History of Islam in the Early Modern World”, Utrecht University
Utrecht University, October 17-18, 2024
Convened by the SENSIS research project at Utrecht University, this conference seeks to bring together a multi-disciplinary group of scholars to advance the history of the senses in the Islamic world. Inspired by the “sensory turn” (Howes 2003) that has enriched numerous areas of the humanities and social sciences in recent years, we will explore how Muslims across different historical, geographical, social, and intellectual contexts experienced sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.
Why write the senses into the history of Islam? While sensory history is a rapidly growing field, to date the majority of works on the history of the senses has been framed around distinct geographies that emphasize Western European and North American contexts (Classen 2014, Smith 2021). Only recently have scholars of Islamic history and culture begun to devote sustained attention to the senses (Elias 2012, Bonnéric 2016, Fahmy 2020, Lange 2022). Similarly, path-breaking work has emerged in the related field of the history of emotions, especially in the context of early modern and modern South Asia, Safavid Iran, and the Ottoman empire (Rizvi 2017, Pernau 2019, Schofield 2021, Tekgül 2022). However, much remains to be done before Islamic sensory history becomes a well-established field of inquiry.
How, then, can we conceive of the Muslim sensorium over the course of history? Is there really such a thing as a Muslim sensorium? What are the ways in which we could write the history of the senses in the Islamic world? What does Islamic sensory history teach us about, say, the Ottomans, the Safavids, or the Mughals that conventional or “sense-less” history does not? How is sensory history connected to or distinct from the history of emotions? And what are the methods, interpretive stakes, and archival challenges in doing Islamic sensory history? These are some of the key questions this conference aims to address.
As historians of the senses, we are interested in understanding how the senses are historically and culturally constructed. This also obliges us to interrogate the historical formation of our own investigative categories, such as Islam, modernity, empire, or the nation-state (Smith 2007). Geographically and temporally, this conference loosely focuses on the three early modern empires of the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals (c. 1500-1900). We are particularly interested in contributions that approach the senses from a transregional and transnational focus. Moreover, we invite scholars to think about ways in which Islamic sensory history relates to questions of class, gender, sexuality, emotions, religious identity, migration, kingship, the state, imperialism, and colonialism.
Papers are welcome on topics such as the following:
• Sensory approaches to Ottoman, Safavid/Qajar, or Mughal history
• Islamic mysticism and the senses
• Islamic law and the senses
• Devotional practices and the senses
• The senses in multilingual, multi-ethnic, and religiously diverse contexts
• Cross-cultural encounters and the senses
• Intersensoriality and synesthesia
• The senses in times of war and conflict
• Courtly culture and the senses
• Identity and the senses
• Colonial modernity, Orientalism, and the senses
• Emotions and the senses
• Material culture and sensory history
• Art, music, poetry, and aesthetics in sensory history
• The senses in economic, intellectual, cultural, and social history
• Sources, archives, and research language
It is our pleasure to announce Professor David Howes (Concordia University) and Professor Nil Tekgül (Bilkent University) as keynote speakers for the conference.
Paper proposals:
Please send your proposals to g.sievers@uu.nl , including paper title, abstract (max 250 words), name, and institution, by June 1, 2024. We welcome scholars regardless of geographical location and particularly encourage graduate students and early-career scholars to submit paper proposals. We have limited funds available to supplement travel costs of presenters. Please indicate in your email if you would like to be considered for a travel grant and/or whether you can secure travel funding from your home institution. No registration fee is required for participation. Confirmed presenters will be asked to submit final draft of their papers to respondents no later than October 10, 2024.
Note that this will be the first of three conferences planned by the SENSIS research group. The other two are scheduled to take place in 2025 and will focus on sensory history approaches to transregional conflict and material culture. For more information, please visit our website: https://sensis.wp.hum.uu.nl.
Contact Information
Gianni Sievers, Utrecht University
Contact Email
URL
https://sensis.wp.hum.uu.nl/2024/04/cfp-sensis-conference-2024/
11. ‘Resurgence of the “Islamic City” in the 20th and 21st Centuries’, NYU (in person and online) – April 30
Organized and Moderated by: Zohreh Soltani
Panelists: Burak Erdim, Berin Golonu, Emily Neumeier, Jennifer Pruitt, Ipek Türeli
Tuesday, April 30, 5:00pm EST (Reception to follow)
In Person & on Zoom: Kevorkian Library, 255 Sullivan Street, NYU
Hosted by: Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative at NYU
Co-Sponsored by: Iranian Studies Initiative at NYU and the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies
The “Islamic city” as a monolithic concept and formation has been framed as a dead-end historical subject of study invented in the European imagination since the 19th century. Yet, critiques of Orientalism have not quelled an expectation that the resurgence of Islamic beliefs and politics would usher in a new phase of Islamic urbanism, particularly in Muslim theocracies such as Iran, but also Turkey and the Gulf. While urban historians critique and deconstruct the historical notion of the Islamic city as an orientalist creation, emerging Islamic states see the Islamic city in much more concrete terms, and, in fact, long for its recreation within the modern reality of Muslim majority cities. However, while those spatial strategies and architectural references are legible and dissectible to architectural historians, they might not always be as identifiable to the users of such spaces. In this roundtable, architectural and urban historians of the contemporary Middle East will discuss the complexities, challenges, successes or failures of such attempts at a revived and instrumentalized notion of Islamic urbanism over the past fifty years coinciding with the rise of political Islam in the region.
Register here to attend in-person | Register here to attend online
For more information: https://www.otsnyu.com/event/roundtable-resurgence-of-the-islamic-city-in-the-20th-and-21st-centuries/
12. Zoom: The Visual Order of the Promenade: The Chaharbagh of Safavid Isfahan and its Sensory Experiences
Speaker: Farshid Emami
23 Apr 2024 17:00 – 18:30
Free, booking essential
Zoom
This event takes place online, details of the Zoom webinar will be sent out to ticket holders.
Based on his recently published book, Isfahan: Architecture and Urban Experience in Early Modern Iran (Penn State University Press, 2024), Farshid Emami will offer a fresh account of the architecture, sensory landscape, and visual structure of the Chaharbagh, a four-kilometre-long, tree-lined promenade that served as the primary venue of urban leisure and processional ceremonies in Isfahan, the cosmopolitan capital city of the Safavid Empire in early modern Iran. Drawing on historical visual sources, Persian-language poetic descriptions, European travel narratives, and on-site fieldwork, the talk will recreate the experience of the Chaharbagh from the viewpoint of a moving beholder, reconstructing the now-vanished pavilions, landscape elements, coffeehouses, and Sufi convents that engendered a carefully choreographed sequence of aesthetic, social, and sensual pleasures along the promenade. Striking a delicate balance between a grand setting for ceremonial processions and an enticing public arena for leisurely strolls, the Chaharbagh created a novel urban setting for individual and collective social experiences.
Farshid Emami (Ph.D., Harvard University, 2017) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History at Rice University. He specialises in the history of architecture, urbanism, and the arts in the Islamic lands, with a focus on the early modern period and Safavid Iran. His scholarly interests include global histories of early modernity, social experiences of architecture and urban spaces, interactions of architecture and literature, and patterns of cross-cultural exchange in the Persianate lands and beyond. In addition to his publications on Safavid art and architecture, he has written on topics such as lithography in nineteenth-century Iran and modernist architecture and urbanism in the Middle East.
This event is organised by Professor Sussan Babaie, Professor in the Arts of Iran and Islam.
For more information and to register:
13. UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies
The Karlowitz Moment: The Ottoman Empire in the Long Eighteenth Century and the Making of the Modern World
Historiography of the Middle East Series
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
3:00 PM
https://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/event/16538
Exploring Manuscript Migrations through the Provenance of the Tiflis Collection
Friday, April 19, 2024
12:00 PM
Kaplan Hall, Rm 193
- April 13, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.‘Shiraz on the Adriatic
Persian Literary Culture, Φαρσί Speakers and Multilingual Locals
between Cairo, the Balkans and Venice (ca. 1600–1900)’
Stefano Pellò
Iran and the Caucasus, 28 (2024).
https://brill.com/view/journals/ic/28/1/article-p42_4.xml
David Durand-Guédy, Emad al-Din Sheykh al-Hokamaee
JEHSO, 2024 (67).
3. ONLINE Colloquium “Reform Unbound: Afghanistan’s Sirāj-ul Aḳhbār (1911-19) and its Global Publics” by Sumaira Nawaz, University of Cambridge, 10 April 2024, 16:00 – 17:30 BST
This paper explores the “global” outlook of Afghanistan’s foremost Persian-language newspaper, Sirāj-ul Aḳhbār, as it negotiated new political futures for the region. Launched by Mahmud Tarzi, an emigre activist with firm networks within Ottoman and Indian reformist milieu, Sirāj was an attempt to project Afghanistan as a “Muslim utopia” (Green 2011) to readers spread across Persianate geographies.
Information: www.interfaith.cam.ac.uk/south-asia-24 . Registration: https://forms.office.com/e/Z4kN3ahf1i
4. ONLINE Colloquium “Persianate Hinduism in Colonial India: Revisiting Rammohun Roy’s Tuhfat al-muwahhidin” by Supriya Gandhi, University of Cambridge, 12 April 2024, 16:00 – 17:30 BST
Rammohun Roy (d. 1833) is a pivotal figure in the global history of Unitarianism, liberalism, and modern religious reform. Although his early years remain shrouded in obscurity, he eventually soared to fame during his lifetime and gained the status of a legend after his death. By the twentieth century, the epithet “Father of modern India” was routinely appended to his name.
Information: www.interfaith.cam.ac.uk/south-asia-24 . Registration: https://forms.office.com/e/Z4kN3ahf1i
5. HYBRID Seminar “The King`s Song: Poet Kings in the Islamic East” by Professor Ali Karjoo-Ravary, Columbia University, 18 April 2024, 5:00 EST
This talk looks at the political importance of poetic production by kings in the Islamic east in the late medieval period by considering what kings aimed to accomplish through the production of their own divans. Focusing on the Turkic poetry of Burhan al-Din of Sivas (d. 1398), it contextualizes his divan in the convergence of Sufism and political power that marked the post-Mongol Islamic east.
Deadline for registration: 11 April 2024.
Information: https://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/islamicbooks/religionwriting/
6. ONLINE Book Presentation “Lives in the Margins: Ethnic and Religious Minorities in the Middle East” by Dr. Güneş Murat Tezcür (Arizona State University), Middle East Librarians Asso-ciation (MELA), George Washington University, 19 April 2024, 9:00 pm CET
Why do some religious minorities, lacking any significant power and presenting no imminent threat, provoke the ire of popular groups and become targets of violent attacks? This talk focuses on the experience of Yezidis, a paradigmatic liminal minority, who were targets of genocidal attacks in the hands of the self-styled Islamic State in 2014.
Information and registration:
https://northwestern.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcpd-CuqjwtHdR7qoBkhjNmxgSkUJ0zjaGo#/registration
7. HYBRID Book Launch “Welfare as Gift: Local Charity, Politics of Redistribution, and Religion in Turkey” by Hilal Alkan, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, 30 April 2024, 5:00 pm
Based on an ethnography of charitable organizations in contemporary Turkey, this monograph examines the ways in which the redistributive task of poverty alleviation and welfare provision has been taken over by gift networks. It offers an in-depth analysis of the relationships between donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries, as well as an exploration of the historical institutional framework and religious imaginary that inform these orga-nizations.
Information and registration:
8. Panel on “Iran after Woman Life Freedom: Domestic and International Politics”, 16th Congress of the Italian Society for Middle East Studies (SeSaMO), Unversity of Cagliari, Sardinia, 3-5 October 2024
The panel seeks submissions that speak to the questions of state-society relations; diaspora politics; political activism and social movements; Iran’s diplomatic, security and international politics; the domestic and transnational gender politics in and of Iran; cultural production and counter-hegemonic cultural expressions; ethnicity and race politics in Iran and the Persianate world.
Deadline for abstracts: 7 May 2024. Information: https://www.sesamoitalia.it/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/31.-Rivetti-Ghaffari-Zakeri-Open-panel.pdf;
contact paola.rivetti@dcu.ie
9. Two Research Assistants (Doctoral Researchers, 75 %, 3 Years), Center for Conflict Studies, University of Marburg
Profile: MSc-degree or equivalent in social sciences; interest in quantiative methods in social sciences; experience with data collection and analysis; familiarity with Afghanistan; knowledge of at least one local language (e.g. Dari or Pashto); interest in research on protest movements and rebel governance. Disposition to own scientific qualification (e.g. a doctorate project in social sciences) is expected.
Deadline for applications: 12 May 2024. Information:
https://stellenangebote.uni-marburg.de/jobposting/9c90be611c968a3cbb8185ad64a7e19823d571480
10. Doctoral Fellowships, Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB)
The fellowships are lasting 7-10 months beginning on 1 September 2024 or shortly thereafter, specifically designed for doctoral candidates engaged in outstanding research projects in the humanities and social sciences. We invite applications across disciplines, time periods, and geographic coverage outlined in our mission statement.
Deadline for applications: 1 May 2024.
Information: https://www.orient-institut.org/support/fellowships/doctoralfellowships.html
11. Postdoctoral Fellowships, Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB)
The OIB is offering visiting fellowships normally lasting 7-10 months beginning on 1 September 2024 or shortly thereafter, to junior scholars in the early stages of the postdoctoral research, in support of excellent projects in the humanities and social sciences.
Deadline for applications: 1 May 2024.
Information: https://www.orient-institut.org/support/fellowships/postdoctoralfellowships.html
12. Visiting Assistant Professor (1 Year) in Middle Eastern Studies, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia
Qualification: PhD in History, Religious Studies, or a closely related field; College-level teaching experience, including the ability to teach courses on history of the Middle East and Islam; A strong research agenda in a related field.
Deadline for applications: 30 April 2024. Information: https://careers.pageuppeople.com/968/cw/en-us/job/529204/visiting-assistant-professor-in-middle-eastern-studies
13. Spring School of the European Network for Islamic Studies (ENIS): “Peripheral Islam: Muslims on the Geographical, Normative, Political and Religious Margins”, Université de Lausanne, 4-7 June 2024
This Spring School focusses on these results of Muslims living, working and writing in the periphery and welcomes papers that show how, where and why peripheral Muslims – varying from marginalised areas and controversial scholars to ostracised politicians and heterodox sects – have shaped this periphery and have been shaped by this periphery.
Deadline for registration: 1 May 2024.
Information: https://nisis.sites.uu.nl/2024/02/09/call-for-papers-enis-spring-school-2024/
14. Joint English-language M.A. Program in Ottoman History (2 Years), Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete/Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH
Students are required to complete: Five history courses (four in Ottoman History, and one in Medieval or Modern History); Four Turkish language courses; Four Ottoman language and palaeography courses. Furthermore, students are required to write an original M.A. thesis based on the critical analysis of Ottoman archival, epigraphic or narrative sources.
Deadline for applications: 20 May 2024. Information: https://www.history-archaeology.uoc.gr/en/graduate-studies/programs-of-post-graduate-studies/joint-english-language-m-a-program-in-ottoman/?lang=en
15. 7 Awards and Prizes by the “Ottoman and Turkish Studies (OTSA)”
Deadline for applications: 15 May 2024. Information:
https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20029790/otsa-call-submissions-2024-awards-and-prizes
16. Newsletter Promoting the Field of Middle Eastern Christianity in the Homelands and the Diaspora (from approx. 1800 until the Present)
This newsletter seeks to connect scholars working on these topics. It appears three times a year and features upcoming events, peer-reviewed publications, open positions and funding opportunities, ongoing projects.
Next deadline to submit content: 15 April 2024. Information: https://etfst.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/team/anna-hager or to join the network, please contact Anna Hager, University of Vienna, anna-hager@univie.ac.at
17. LACIM 2024 International Conference: Grammaticalization in Anatolia-Caucasus-Iran-Mesopotamia area (LACIM2024)
Dec. 4, 2024 – Dec. 5, 2024
The second international conference organized by the European network on linguistics and languages of the Anatolia-Caucasus-Iran-Mesopotamia area (LACIM) will be held in Paris from 4 to 5 December, 2024. It will be dedicated to grammaticalization in Anatolia-Caucasus-Iran-Mesopotamia area.
LACIM is a European network of linguists engaged in research on the languages of Anatolia, the Caucasus, Iran and Mesopotamia. We are primarily interested in the interplay of contact and heritage that has shaped the region’s current linguistic ecology, through millennia of interaction. As such, our research program transcends the boundaries of the different language families that are present in the region and pursues an interdisciplinary approach.
Grammaticalization is often defined as “ … a process which turns lexemes into grammatical formatives and makes grammatical formatives still more grammatical…”. (Lehmann 2002 [1985]:ix). While grammaticalization is commonly viewed as a type of language change, its extent can vary across different studies and theoretical frameworks. Over the past four decades, research on grammaticalization has expanded to include various cross-linguistic theoretical perspectives (Lehmann 1985 [2015], Traugott and Heine 1991, Heine & Hünnemeyer 1991, Bybee et al. 1994, Newmeyer 1998, Haspelmath 1998, 1999, Bisang et al. 2004, Narrog & Heine 2011, Heiko & Heine 2018, Kuteva et al. 2019), as well as to deepen its language-specific description and analysis (Narrog & Heine 2018, Bisang & Malchukov 2020).
The primary aim of the current conference is to thoroughly explore the grammaticalization clines and sources in the languages of Anatolia-Caucasus-Iran-Mesopotamia from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives, with a particular emphasis on capturing the areal dimension as comprehensively as possible. Potential discussion topics may include, but are not limited to, the evolution of:
- Adpositions into cases,
• Verbs transforming into auxiliary verbs,
• Information structure in regard with grammaticalization,
• Differential object/subject marking,
• Preverbs,
• Determiners and pronouns,
• Periphrastic constructions,
• Relative clauses,
• Subordinate clauses, etc.
Furthermore, proposals are encouraged on broader topics within the current study of grammaticalization that offer relevant empirical/analytical insights. These might include the inferences from frequency in the realm of the empirical turn in linguistics, or the delimitation between grammaticalization and other types of language change (e.g. reanalysis, metaphoric transfer, metonymic transfer etc.).
Timelines
Submission deadline: June 10, 2024
Notification of acceptance: July 10, 2024
Conference: December 4-5, 2024
Submission instructions:
Proposals must:
• contain at most 1000 words for 30 minute talks, examples included, references excluded,
• be formatted as a PDF,
• include (1) the proposal title and (2) three or four keywords describing the topics of the paper at the top of the proposal,
• be in English or in French,
• submitted via Linguist List at the following link: https://easyabs.linguistlist.org/conference/LACIM2024/
Submissions are limited to 1 individual and 1 joint abstract per author, or 2 joint abstracts per author.
Please direct questions/concerns to lacim.conference2024@gmail.com.
Submissions open: April 2, 2024 – June 10, 2024
Abstract review period: June 11, 2024 – July 10, 2024
18. University of North Dakota – Teaching Assistant Professor, Pre-1600 World History
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=67107
Closing date: April 15, 2024
19. The Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) is offering several opportunities in conjunction with its Seventeenth Annual Conference taking place in Washington, D.C. on November 2 – 4, 2024.
- Research Grant – Grants of up to $2500 will be awarded to support topics in Middle East and African Studies that deserve greater attention (Deadline April 30).
- Travel Grant – Grants of up to $750 will be awarded (Deadline April 30).
- North African Studies Travel Grant Program – Grants of up to $750 will be awarded to those whose research topics are related to the study of North Africa (Deadline April 30).
In addition, we have issued our general Call for Papers and Panels (Deadline May 15) and Call for Poster Proposals.
If you have any further questions about ASMEA, the Annual Conference, or any of our Grant Opportunities, contact info@asmeascholars.org .
URL
https://www.asmeascholars.org/upcoming-conference
20. Hybrid: UCLA Pourdavoud Lecture with Robert Rollinger
The “Persian Wars” An Alternative Perspective?
Wednesday, May 1, 2024 at 4:00pm Pacific
Royce Hall 306
Hybrid Zoom Option Available
21. Embodying Devotion in Indo-Muslim Painting, 1500-1800
Murad Khan Mumtaz
Islamic art is often misrepresented as an iconophobic tradition. As a result of this assumption, the polyvalence of figural artworks made for Hindustan’s Muslim audiences has remained hidden in plain view. By combining an art historical survey with an analysis of primary Indo-Persian literature, this series of seminars shows how figurative painting was intimately linked to a unique Indo-Muslim religious expression that had a wide circulation across South Asia.
DURATION – April 17, 18, 19, 2024
Timing: 6:30 – 8:45 pm IST
For more information and to register: https://www.jp-india.org/programmes/embodying-devotion-in-indomuslim-painting-15001800
URL
https://www.jp-india.org/programmes/embodying-devotion-in-indomuslim-painting-1…
- April 09, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.The first cycle of the Iran Heritage Foundation’s 2024 grant programme, with the deadline of 30th May, 2024, is now open for receipt of application. With the overall aim of fostering knowledge and appreciation of Iran’s rich cultural heritage research grants in various academic disciplines are awarded. The particular emphasis (in alphabetical order) is on archaeology, arts, history, linguistics, and literature, though applications from other disciplines will also be considered.
Projects to be supported may include the most various academic initiatives, from fieldwork to workshops to building databases and digitising images, and will – as previously – privilege new research such as editions and translations of key texts. In order to support multiple initiatives grants of up-to a maximum of £3,000 will be considered.
The application process and conditions for the grants can be viewed on our website.
To apply please click here.
For Terms and Conditions please click here
2. NEW Deadline:
Translanguaging and Linguistic Diversity in Arabic
Conference | University of Cambridge | 18 April 2024
Registration is open for the 4th Biennial Conference on Arabic Language Teaching and Learning in HE which will be hosted at the University of Cambridge. The conference aims to delve into Translanguaging and Linguistic Diversity in Arabic, and provide a platform for robust discussions and networking opportunities.
The new deadline for registrations is 10 April 2024.
More information
3. What They Ate in Old Baghdad, and How We Know with Charles Perry
Tuesday, April 9, 2024 – 7p PST
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Who were medieval Middle Eastern cookbooks written for? What were they used for? To answer these questions, culinary historian Charles Perry delves into the Kitab al-Tabikh (The Book of Dishes), the earliest surviving Arabic cookery text. This 10th-century manuscript is currently on view in Dining with the Sultan: The Fine Art of Feasting. This event is free and in-person. A recording of the lecture will be available on LACMA’s YouTube and Vimeo channels. For more information on this event, please visit LACMA’s event calendar.
Charles Perry is a Los Angeles-based food historian with deep knowledge of medieval cookbooks, the preparation of the associated cuisines (in both theory and practice), and the Arabic nomenclature of recipes. He has led a long and exceptionally varied career, beginning as a journalist for Rolling Stone and including a longtime stint as food writer for the Los Angeles Times. He tests historical recipes in his own kitchen, and has become known, admittedly in narrow circles, for hosting from time to time a complete Abbasid-era banquet. His translated cookbooks include Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook (2017) and A Baghdad Cookery Book (2005).
Contact Email
URL
https://www.lacma.org/event/what-they-ate-old-baghdad
4. A Stroll in the Enchanting Sphere of Persian Wisdom, Language, and Culture
A Series of Courses Introducing Masterpieces of Persian Literature
Course 1:
With Sa‘di in the Delightful Gardens of Golestan
Lecturer: Dr Isa Jahangir
Fee: £100
April 16 – July 16
Tuesdays 6-7:30 pm
Venue: The Islamic College 133 High Road London NW102SW
To register please complete this form or contact the Short Course Department by email: shortcourses@islamic-college.ac.uk
5. CfP: ‘Beyond History: Revisiting the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean Connectivity’
Call for Papers: Journal of Gulf Studies
Special Issue: ‘Beyond History: Revisiting the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean Connectivity’
Guest Editor: Dr Amna Sadiq
View the full call here>>
https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-gulf-studies#call-for-papers
At the geographical convergence of East and West, both regions have been shaped by a dynamically complex system of dependency. The nature of this dependency has transformed over time, moving from early dhows transporting pilgrims and Omani merchants to British oceanic steamship services and, more recently, to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The subsequent advent of the Arabian Gulf region and South Asia as geostrategic and economic powers has shifted the practical means of cooperation across the ocean, from a simple economic corridor to a more sophisticated inter-regional cooperative system.
Today, this inter-regional cooperation plays a significant role in shaping the international system rather than merely being shaped by it. As a result, both regions are involved in a relational and dynamic rather than geographical and static relationship. Tracing the internal dynamics of the connections between the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean has important implications for our understanding of this relationship. By approaching the development of both regions as an evolving process, we can clarify the conditions under which their dependency functions, along with the associated complexities of regional power struggles.
Although the study of the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean has drawn increasing academic interest, scholars have thus far paid scant attention to the changing nature and scope of their system of dependency. Influenced strongly by historical inquiry, the Indian Ocean is frequently conceptualized as a mere container of economic activity, and the Arabian Gulf is seen simply as an economic corridor. This Special Issue of the Journal of Gulf Studies invites scholars and readers to move beyond this tradition and learn about the changing dynamics and contemporary developments in the Arabian Gulf–Indian Ocean relationship.
In this issue, we aim to engage with the latest scholarly trends while also addressing the historical roots of this relationship, offering forward-looking, fresh readings and new approaches to the study of Arabian Gulf–Indian Ocean interactions. We seek to map the rapidly changing patterns of political, economic, and social interactions between both regions as well as clarify the ramifications of these interactions for the international system.
Scholars interested in contributing to this Special Issue are encouraged to pay attention to the timeline identified below:
Abstract submission: Please contact the journal (gulfstudiesj@outlook.com) by 30 April 2024 with a short bio and an abstract of around 300 words. The authors will be informed of their papers’ inclusion into the special issue on a rolling basis.
Delivery of the final paper: 31 September 2024.
For editorial inquiries you can reach the journal at: gulfstudiesj@outlook.com
More information about the journal can be found at: https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/jgs
Kayvan Tahmasebian, Rebecca Ruth Gould
International Journal of Middle East Studies
doi: 10.1017/S0020743824000266, 17 pages. Published Online on 1 April 2024
7. Zoom: The Islamic College Monthly Talk:
‘The Development and Significance of Muslim Chaplaincy’
A Talk by Professor Sophie Gilliat-Ray
Wednesday 24 April 2024
6.00 P.M. – 7.30 P.M. (LONDON TIME)
on Zoom
Meeting ID: 884 0412 9777
Passcode: 821079
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88404129777?pwd=obDh0uVhiKchTaPvAS1B04dKbYhQAp.1
8. The inter-university association Routes de l’Orient, in partnership with the Institut du Monde Arabe and Archaïos, is organizing an international symposium entitled “On the Roads of Arabia: Itineraries by Land and Sea”, to be held at the Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris) on the 12th, 13th and 14th December.
The aim of the symposium is to study the overland and maritime routes of the Arabian Peninsula and the exchanges they made possible, through archaeology, history, philology, religion and life sciences. This topic will be addressed in the longue durée, from the Bronze Age to the Islamic period. The symposium will also examine the networks of exchanges with border regions such as the Indian subcontinent, the Horn of Africa and Egypt, as well as the empires of the Ancient Near East, and the Greek and Roman empires.
This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary and diachronic theme, will be of interest to researchers, lecturers and doctoral students from various international institutions. This symposium is also intended as a meeting place for senior scholars, young researchers and students. It will encourage exchanges between disciplines, in line with current scientific methodologies.
We invite papers from archaeologists, historians, art historians, epigraphists, ceramologists, philologists, ethnologists, anthropologists, biologists, archaeozoologists and others. In this way, we hope to provide a comprehensive overview of the movement of goods and people across the Arabian Peninsula from the Bronze Age to the Islamic period.
During the three days of the symposium, the following themes will be addressed:
• The structures associated with land and sea routes: caravanserais, roads, post houses, trading posts and ports, etc. This theme focuses on the archaeological study of the structures necessary for the movement of goods and people;
• The actors involved in the movement of goods in and around the Arabian Peninsula: traders, buyers, patrons, producers, travelers, camels, etc. From the production of goods to their transport, from the reception of travelers to the financing of expeditions, this theme will explore the identity and function of the actors involved in these commercial, cultural and religious flows;
• Pilgrimage routes: ancient and Islamic pilgrimages. From pre-Islamic sanctuaries to religious practices in the trading outposts of the 1st millennium , from the Darb Zubayda to the Hijaz railway, this theme looks at pilgrimage routes and the practices of pilgrims;
• From coastal shipping to navigation on the high seas: maritime routes, pilots and nautical knowledge. This theme looks at the use of maritime spaces as a means of spreading goods and cultures;
• Circulation of goods, materials and techniques: dissemination and exchange of know-how and raw materials. This theme seeks to better understand the spread of certain craft techniques, chaînes opératoires, raw materials and finished products such as ceramics, metallurgy and glass;
• Leaving one’s imprint, quantifying goods or making a dedication: linguistic and epigraphic diffusion. This theme seeks to understand the linguistic circulation in the Arabian Peninsula.
Conditions for submissions:
Deadline: Friday 17th May 2024
Contributions will take the form of a 20-minute lecture followed by 10 minutes of questions.
An abstract of no more than 300 words should be sent as an attached file (.docx) to surlesroutesdarabie@gmail.com by Friday 17th May 2024. This file must also include the full name, email address, status and affiliation of the author(s), the title of the paper and the chosen topic.
Papers can be submitted in English or French.
The proceedings of this conference will be published digitally in a special issue of our journal Routes de l’Orient.
In line with the objectives and values of Routes de l’Orient, we strongly encourage young researchers (masters, doctoral and post-doctoral students) to submit their contributions.
Contact Information
Sterenn Le Maguer-Gillon
Contact Email
URL
https://www.orient-mediterranee.com/activity/colloque-sur-les-routes-darabie-it…
9. CFP – Arabic Pasts Workshop, October 2024
This annual exploratory and informal workshop offers the opportunity to reflect on methodologies, research agendas, and case studies for investigating history writing in Arabic in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond in any period from the seventh century to the present.
We are interested in papers that consider the practical and conceptual challenges of working on history writing in Arabic. Papers might elucidate the following sorts of questions:
- How did adherents of different confessional or juristic traditions, men and women, and members of different social classes within societies that became “Islamic” imagine the shape and meaning of their specific societies’ own pasts, and their relation to the universal history of the Islamic community? Which ways of writing, remembering, or commemorating did they develop?
- How can marginalised communities and varieties of Arabic be given due attention?
- How can we broaden our scope beyond just textual historiography?
- In what ways do educational institutions, museums, media organisations and proponents of heritage use history writing to shape loyalties and senses of belonging in society?
- How can works of fiction contribute to our understanding of the past?
- How is the past used in creative arts, re-enactment, games, and augmented reality?
- How can we explore the past algorithmically? Can digital methods enhance our understanding of the past? Can they also limit or even alter it? Which new digital tools are being developed? What seem to be particularly promising approaches? What is lacking?
- How does, or could, artificial intelligence alter historiographical work?
Contributions are invited from scholars at all career levels, addressing any period and any part of the Middle East and North Africa, broadly defined. This year we anticipate running the workshop from the Aga Khan Centre in London and in Lisbon, with the possibility to have an online component featuring participants who are unable to travel to the UK or Portugal.
Arabic Pasts is co-convened by Hugh Kennedy (SOAS), James McDougall (Oxford), Lorenz Nigst (AKU-ISMC), and Sarah Bowen Savant (AKU-ISMC).
Please submit an abstract of 300 words or less in word document by Friday, 17 May 2024 to ArabicPastsConf@aku.edu. Please specify whether you wish to participate in London, Lisbon, or online.
The workshop dates: 3-5 October 2024
Contact Information
Anjum Alam
Contact Email
URL
https://www.aku.edu/ismc/events/pages/event-detail.aspx?EventID=2537&Title=Arab…
10. *Iran by Maps*
*CARAVAN ROUTES IN THE CENTRAL ALBORZ **AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY*
/Caravan routes in central Alborz, //Caravan routes in central Alborz/
http://www.irancarto.cnrs.fr/record.php?q=EA-050309&f=local&l=fr <http://www.irancarto.cnrs.fr/record.php?q=EA-050309&f=local&l=fr>
- April 06, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.ONLINE Second Colloquium “Interreligious Interactions in South Asia”, University of Cambridge, 3-12 April 2024
In this online series of table talks, we seek to bring together scholars from a wide spectrum of perspectives to inquire into the kinds of critical tools that are currently deployed to probe interreligious interactions in South Asia over the last eight hundred years or so.
Information, program, abstracts and registration:
https://www.interfaith.cam.ac.uk/interreligious-interactions-south-asia
2. HYBRID Conference “Middle East, Law, and Practice”, NYU Law School’s Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, 9 April 2024, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm EST
The conference is about fostering insightful discussions on legal practice in the MENA region. There will be three panels: Environmental Law in the Middle East. – Islamic Law’s Influence on Legal Practice. –Impact of Terrorism Laws: A Global Perspective.
Information and registration: https://www.eventbrite.sg/e/middle-east-law-practice-tickets-824884199847?aff=ebdsoporgprofile&keep_tld=1
3. ONLINE Workshop on “Alternative Careers for the Islamic Art History PhD”, Historians of Islamic Art Association, 17 April 2024, 12:00 EST
This workshop offers an introduction to “alt-ac” (alternative-academic) and “alt-cu” (alternative-curatorial) career paths for specialists in the discipline. Topics that will be taken up include: How alt-ac and alt-cu jobs provide meaningful and fulfilling outcomes to a doctoral program; how to develop the connections to work outside of the professoriate and the curatorial sphere; and where to find the material resources to support additional training.
Information and registration: https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20028999/hiaa-online-workshop-alternative-careers-islamic-art-history-phd
4. Symposium “The Idea of Iran: Qajar Iran on the Cusp of Modernity”, SOAS, University of London, 11-12 May 2024
The nineteenth century saw the consolidation of the Qajar State and changed relations with the European powers that had been transformed by political, industrial and agricultural revolutions, among them the loss of Britain’s American colonies and the rise of an independent power on the global scene. What does the Idea of Iran mean at this period? What did Iran look like? How does modern scholarship define the distinctive aspects of the period? Etc.
Information and registration: https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/idea-iran-qajar-iran-cusp-modernity
5. Conference “The “Excluded Third” in the Co-Production of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” (Project: The “European Quran”), Como Lake, Italy, 10-13 June 2024
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are often understood as an ensemble of three (‘Abrahamic,’ ‘monotheistic,’ scriptural, or prophetic) religious communities and traditions. But often when adherents of two of these “sibling” religions interact, the third is treated as a figure to be marginalized, stigmatized, or instrumentally exploited vis-à-vis the others. Our conference proposes to explore this dynamic of the excluded third.
Deadline for abstracts: 1 June 2024. Information: https://euqu.eu/2024/03/12/call-for-papers-the-excluded-third-in-the-co-production-of-judaism-christianity-and-islam/
6. HYBRID International Conference of the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies (CMESS): “Middle East after Abolition of Caliphate”, Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, Kharazmi University, Tehran, 14 November 2024
Topics: Abolition of Caliphate and Islamic Movements – Inheritance of Dissolution / Abolition of Caliphate for Middle East Countries – Impacts of Abolition of Caliphate on Türkiye , Iran and Arab World Policy – The Possibility of Revitalizing Caliphate in the Middle East.
Deadline of abstract: 20 June 2024. Information: nasri@khu.ac.ir; research.imess@gmail.com
7. Atelier doctoral “Des musées (post)coloniaux en Méditerranée? Muséographies, recon-figurations politiques et fabrique des identités”, par REM, École des hautes études hispa-niques et ibériques (Madrid), Institut Jacques-Berque (Rabat), IRMC (Tunis) et École française de Rome, Madrid, 25-28 novembre 2024
La perspective interdisciplinaire de l’atelier doctoral, convoquant l’histoire, la géographie, l’anthropologie, la museologie, l’archéologie, la science politique, l’art, etc., permettra de décloisonner des langages et des approches sur le monde muséal et ses reconfigurations spatiales, matérielles, symboliques et sociales à différentes échelles temporelles.
Application au plus tard le 22 avril 2024. Information: https://irmcmaghreb.org/aac-atelier-doctoral-des-musees-postcoloniaux-en-mediterranee-museographies-reconfigurations-politiques-et-fabrique-des-identites/?fbclid=IwAR0n8vPGx3lzdWaN5GIhq8bVgzpCOjWnZVeDz1-kmzrYzFPtBYhb2e9s40w_aem_AR792-PvS1Ni13AF97y5wZFCLS2n1dWvdmaH8HfpP2PSz8LQhnqQo7amjyOPI0_rq0Y
8. MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Project “[HORIZON EUROPE] Horizon Insights”, Universiteit Gent, Belgium
Deadliner for applications: 11 September 2024.
Information: https://bozi.ugent.be/nl/bozi/c83B4eMbBdJ53L2tNRm3WJ/
9. Visiting Assistant Professor of History and International Studies (1 Year, Focus Middle East), Marymount Manhattan College, NewYork
Qualifications: PhD in History, Political Science, International Relations, or related social science field; Regio-nal expertise complimented by a legal sub focus; Demonstrated teaching excellence as well as an active scholarly agenda.
Review of applications will begin on 1 April 2024, and will continue until the position is filled.
Information: https://www.mmm.edu/offices/human-resources/faculty-positions.php
10. International MA Program (4 Semesters): “Mediterranean History”, University of Konstanz, Info Session via zoom: 17 April 2024, 10:00 am – 11:30 a.m. CET
This unique MA study program examines trans-Mediterranean dynamics and entanglements over a period of 3,000 years: from antiquity to the 21st century. It provides bachelor graduates in history and cultural studies with a cross-period knowledge of the history, cultures and languages of Mediterranean societies, which is equally important for academic careers and non-academic professions. You will acquire practical skills and regional expertise about a key region of the world,
Deadline for applications: 30 April 2024. Information: https://www.geschichte.uni-konstanz.de/en/study/ma-mediterranean-history/prospective-student/prospective-students/
11. ONLINE Seminar “Mediterranean Art History: An Introduction” by the Mediterranean Seminar, 17-20 June 2024, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm MDT
This seminar provides participants with an overview of key concepts and methodologies in the study of Mediterranean art history. The course will address the themes of mobility, connectivity, and encounter in relation to the visual culture of peoples and territories across the sea. Participants will acquire an art historical tool kit to assist them in conducting their own research on the visual culture and artistic production of the medieval Mediterranean
Deadline for applications: 15 April 2024.
Information: https://www.mediterraneanseminar.org/overview-mediterranean-art-2024
12. Summer School “Comparative Habsburg-Ottoman Paleography” of the Turkology Department (University of Vienna) and Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Vienna, 1-12 July 2024
Participants will join morning lessons taught by experienced teachers and listen to lectures given by recog-nized experts in the afternoons. Included are also visit to the imperial archives (HHStA), the military museum (HGM), and the Ottomans Museum in Perchtoldsdorf, a guided tour of Vienna’s historical highlights that have direct and subtle references to the history of Ottoman-Habsburg encounters.
Deadline for applications: 30 April 2024. Information: https://orientalistik.univie.ac.at/fachrichtungen/turkologie/veranstaltungen/summer-school-of-comparative-habsburg-ottoman-paleography/
13. International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA) Special Issue:
“Gender and Architecture in the Islamic World: Restrictions, Reactions, and Actions”
Thematic volume planned for June 1, 2026
Proposal submission deadline: June 15, 2024
Guest Editor: Dr. Gül Kale, Carleton University
In-house editor: Dr. Alex Dika Seggerman, Rutgers University
Gender and Architecture in the Islamic World: Restrictions, Reactions, and Actions
Real and imagined spaces are inherently gendered based on widely accepted heteronormative and patriarchal ways of living, thereby affecting how buildings and cities are accessed, used, and experienced. Moreover, spatial practices associated with such heteronormative and gender binary systems impact design ideas that shape the built environment. The imposition of traditional gender roles in architecture from patriarchal and heteronormative views affect urban policy making, architectural education, and decision making in the building and transformation of cities. Even the word ‘architect’ was and still is often gendered both in historical and contemporary perceptions of the society due to the male-dominated professional field despite the involvement and contributions of women in the transformation of the built environment for centuries. Hence, space and gender are intrinsically linked and mutually construct one another. Against these complex yet urgent ongoing questions, this special issue of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture aims to interrogate the relation between gender and architecture focusing on feminist, queer, non-binary, and trans perspectives with an interdisciplinary approach from the past and present. However, in order to have a nuanced understanding of diverse dynamics shaping spaces and spatial practices, contributions will need to have an intersectional approach encompassing race, sexuality, age, disability, class, religion, and ethnicity. Moreover, studies mustderive from specific social, cultural, and political contexts and localities to prevent essentialist approaches to Islamic and diasporic communities.
This special issue raises questions around three themes: restrictions, reactions, and actions. On the one hand, while looking at gender history to see the restrictions imposed on various marginalised groups through socio-political structures and institutions, it is crucial to avoid victimising them by also underscoring their reactions, resistance, and attempts to reclaim their rights. On the other hand, it is equally important to show how marginalised and racialized groups took these rejections of heteronormative and patriarchal power dynamics as a starting point to build alternative communities based on their spatial experiences and embodied creative design ideas and practices. The purpose of this threefold approach is to have a well-rounded and nuanced grasp of the role of gender in architecture beyond passive and top-down narratives.
Regardless of traditional gender binary roles that associated women with domestic space and duties, women have contributed to the shaping and building of cities, communities, and spaces for centuries. But when one considers the restrictions imposed on not only women, but also nonbinary people, and their use, design, and experience of architecture in the past, the lack of historical records comes to the forefront as a serious obstacle. Given the scarcity of the primary sources, scholars look at different places for bits of information or read sources through new lenses to construct a narrative about women and marginalised non-binary people, who were not mentioned or centred in state records because they did not belong to courtly circles or other dominant groups. Hence, contributors will need to introduce an interdisciplinary approach and willingness to engage with diverse socio-political and cultural discourses and realities to reveal their hidden histories. For example, in the last decades, court records have emerged as an important source for understanding women’s lives and engagements with the city. These records show that diverse material, visual, and textual sources have the potential to contribute to writing new architectural histories disclosing the lives and spatial practices of women and non-binary groups from ordinary backgrounds. The lack of histories on women and non-binary people cannot be considered distinct from the restrictions imposed on them during spatial practices. What were the restricted spaces for them in the past? This historical perception of gender binary roles is also important in understanding contemporary architectural practices that privilege heteropatriarchal ways of shaping spaces and cities today, which affects the spatial experiences of queer, non-binary,and trans groups. Architecture can be a tool of suppression and segregation, sometimes in spite of the initial intentions behind it. Governing groups have used cities and buildings to subjugate women, queer, and trans communities, both in the past and today. These restricted spaces can expose various issues related to the intersection of gender and access. Spaces built according to a standard, able-bodied male model ignore other bodies outside of this norm. Contributors can examine real or imagined alternative spaces that challenge this normative patriarchal model. Considering the movement and impact of diverse bodies in space, it is equally important to look at the creation of alternative spaces of resistance and action during migration. Wars, authoritative states, or disasters, such as earthquakes and epidemics, cause displacements and relocations for people. Gender plays a critical role in generating spatial injustices and inequalities, particularly for women, queer, and trans communities, who are often made vulnerable to health and hygiene issues caused by gender normative or male-centred spatial organisations insensitive to their needs. Moreover, when people immigrate and settle in new places forming diasporic communities, they might reproduce traditional patriarchal structures such as the practice of sex segregation in religious or educational spaces. In diaspora, people of colour encounter diverse obstacles during urban experiences and through spatial segregations at the intersection of gender, race, and architecture. The contributors are invited to explore private, public, or in-between spaces where women, queer, non-binary, and trans people reclaim their autonomy, pushing the limits by creating new zones of resistance, action, and interaction.
Every restriction causes a reaction. Whereas traditional gender roles affected the various restrictions imposed on people in cities, for centuries women found creative ways to claim their right to experiencing the city even under strict control and patriarchal hierarchies. Modern city planning intersected with women’s movements and new rights. Modern architects introduced houses and buildings for a new way of living that reimagined gender roles and normative spatial measures. It is however important to question how progressive these modern transformations and designs were in terms of considering women’s changing role as well as promoting gender inclusivity and diversity. Architectural representations, drawings, and models can provide insight into understanding these conceptions. Looking closely at the designers who suggested changes to the private spaces particularly can disclose underlying and ongoing heteronormative and patriarchal structures despite the claim of progress as well as gender equality and inclusivity. At this juncture, it is crucial to hear, for example, how women reacted to traditional as well as modern spatial arrangements that acted as norm makers or gatekeepers. But women’s reactions were not limited to discourses. When and how did women gain full access not only to using but also working in and shaping public buildings such as hospitals, schools, libraries, and universities that empowered them? For example, contributors are encouraged to investigate women leaders in medicine, who developed spatial facilities and hospitals that supported women, queer, and trans people’s mental and physical wellbeing. Women who shaped architectural education and changed heteronormative studio practices will be another important topic to examine. Women in labour history as well as women working in architectural offices in diverse capacities emerge as another area to investigate further to understand the formation of the built environment outside the work of the male architect figure. There has been an ongoing effort to alter structural barriers in architecture to propose innovative design solutions overturning suppressed bodies and ideas and to create safe spaces for women, queer, non-binary, and trans people’s empowerment as well as gender inclusive spaces. Contributors might examine gender-neutral and gender inclusive spaces today, and in the past, tracing the alterations in social perceptions within time along with changing political discourses that target marginalised communities. Architecture can be used by power structures to hinder gender fluidity in spaces. But feminist, queer, and trans groups reclaim architecture to create gender fluid and safe spaces as agents of change for themselves and their communities. Contributors are invited to write on the erased, forgotten, or simply ignored contributions of women, queer, non-binary, and trans people to the spatial, social, and technological development of communities, neighbourhoods, and cities, from small scale workshops to alternative educational settings. Just as the male able-bodied model and its measures became the norm for forming spaces, their experiences also became the standard to imagine new spaces and who occupied these spaces. Papers interrogating this understanding to reimagine and reclaim women, queer, non-binary, and trans people’s emotional and multisensory history and lived experiences in architecture, which go beyond positivist and orientalizing discourses focused on the duality between body and the mind or the senses and the intellect are most welcome.
Equally important to underscore is writing about women, queer, non-binary, and trans people’s spatial experiences from their perspective by giving space to supressed voices. This includes a new assessment of the seeming contradiction between the notions of traditional and modern, both of which were often defined according to the heteropatriarchal gaze imposing how, for example, women should look and act. What do attempts to create safe spaces through gender inclusive washrooms, athletic facilities, women only gym classes, women in mosques movements, and shelters offer in terms of protecting one’s privacy and freedom while supporting spatial justice? What kind of a relationship do they establish with the public sphere that can be exposed to gender-based violence? The dichotomy caused by looking at private and public as two strictly separate zones defined by gender binary roles has already been challenged by scholars. They, for example, showed how working at home didn’t prevent women from participating in social, cultural, and economic activities, hence the link between public and private spaces is fluid. For centuries, knowledge has been produced in diverse spaces. It is thus important to delve into this relationship by looking at contemporary interpretations of private space and the notion of privacy by also incorporating changing lived realities and perceptions of gender beyond heteronormative, gender binary, and patriarchal norms.
Some further questions one might consider within the Islamic context might include:
- What are the legal policies that impact women, queer, non-binary, and trans people’s spatial actions and urban experiences today and/or in the past?
- Where can we locate architectural movements and alternative participatory practices that initiated real change for women, queer, non-binary, and trans people in specific neighbourhoods or cities?
- What is the impact of women, queer, non-binary, and trans people’s liberation movements in opening and forming new safe spaces?
- What are the real and virtual sites of resistance for women, queer, non-binary, and trans communities, ranging from gathering at small community meetings to occupying the squares?
- How can we rewrite the history of women’s participation in architectural education from an intersectional perspective?
- What can intersections of critical race theory and gender studies offer to reconsider travel literature and representations produced to convey urban narratives?
Editors welcome articles dealing with similar issues related to gender and architecture from an intersectional and interdisciplinary perspective, encompassing a wide variety of areas including, but not limited to, legal history, law, critical race theory, labour history, environmental history, history of emotions, and history of science.
Articles offering historical and theoretical analysis (Design in Theory; DiT) should be between 6000 and 8000 words. Those on design and practice (Design in Practice; DiP) should be between 3000 and 4000 words. Practitioners, urbanists, art historians, specialists in literary, religious, and gender studies, curators, archivists, librarians, archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers, sociologists, and historians whose work resonates with the topic of this special issue are welcome to contribute discussions that address the critical themes of the journal. Collaboratively authored articles are also welcome. Please send a title and a 400-word abstract to the guest editor, Gül Kale, Carleton University (IJIAgender@gmail.com), by June 15, 2024. Authors of proposals will be contacted by July 30, 2024, and may be requested to submit full article drafts for consideration by January 30, 2025. All submissions will undergo blind peer review, editing, and revision. For detailed author instructions, please consult: www.intellectbooks.com/ijia.
Contact Information
Dr. Gül Kale, Carleton University
Contact Email
14. Hybrid: The Inaugural Catherine B. Asher Lecture in South Asian and Islamic Art on April 19, 4:30pm CDT, Online & Elmer L. Andersen Library 120, at the University of Minnesota.
This event honors the legacy of Cathy’s scholarship and mentorship in both fields. We very much hope that you will join us in honoring and remembering her through the presentation of new scholarship in the domains for which she cared so deeply.
The lecture, “Tactile Histories of the Mughal Album,” will be delivered by Dr. Yael Rice.
As compilations of discrete, fragmentary images and texts in codex format, Mughal albums lend themselves to ocularcentric analysis. How else, if not by sight, would one read a book? Yet the Mughals’ word for album, muraqqa’—Arabic for “patched” or “mended”—, foregrounds other modes of sensory engagement, namely touch. While the term clearly evokes the tactile processes of trimming and pasting together employed in the production of such albums, it also suggests the frequent episodes of repair that any excessively handled book would demand. Following this linguistic cue, this talk situates the Mughal album at the center of a complex matrix of both visual and tactile practices. It examines how physical touch and haptic perception factored in the organization, construction, and use of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century albums both within and beyond the Mughal court. It furthermore places these materials within a broader constellation of stitched textiles and gardens with and in which albums were enjoyed. Thus, this talk also builds on the important work of Catherine Asher, whose scholarship opened up new and vital ways of understanding the Mughal lived environment.
Please join us either in person or online (register here).
This event will be streamed online but it will not be recorded.
15. Tradu/izioni d’Eurasia Reloaded
Liquid Frontiers and Entangled Worlds
2,000 Years of Visual and Material Culture From the Mediterranean to East Asia
Curated by Nicoletta Fazio, Veronica Prestini, Elisabetta Raffo and Laura Vigo
12 April – 1 September 2024
MAO Museo d’Arte Orientale, Turin
Download the press kit https://bit.ly/Traduizioni_reloaded
12 April marks the public opening of the refurbishment of Tradu/izioni d’Eurasia, the exhibition organised by MAO for the 700th anniversary of Marco Polo’s death.
The most significant changes include numerous important loans from the Uffizi, the Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence, the Musei Civici, Bologna and the Museo della Ceramica Duca di Martina, Naples and site specific works by the French-Moroccan artist Yto Barrada.
The exhibition is accompanied by a rich programme of talks, concerts, screenings and performances, offering visitors opportunities for reflection and new readings of the complex, fascinating story that has unfolded along the Silk Road across the centuries.
On 12 April, MAO is unveiling the refurbishment of Tradu/izioni d’Eurasia, an exhibition that tells the fascinating story of the journey of art, culture, traditions and language from East Asia to the Mediterranean basin (and back) through a new, well-chosen selection of pottery, textiles, metalwork and manuscripts.
Like Marco Polo, people travelled along the caravan routes that connected Asia and Europe across thousands of years. Travelling alongside with them were ideas, motifs and knowledge, an entire migrating heritage – material and immaterial – that put down roots everywhere it arrived through a steadfast process of adaptation.
Tradu/izioni d’Eurasia tells this story, a tale made up of connections, influences and betrayals: it is our story, a narrative that unites far-flung corners of the Eurasian continent more than we are inclined to believe and shows that the concept of ‘border’ has always been illusory and arbitrary.
The story unfolds in thematic sections alternating with forays into the contemporary world and united by a new version of Chiara Lee and freddie Murphy’s site-specific sound installation Distilled, which has been developed and added to beyond its October 2023 iteration.
The new display opens with an installation by the Berlin studio Zeitguised and explodes with the theme of blue, often paired with contrasting white: precious vases, plates and bowls of disparate provenance (from China to Delft, passing through Iran), on loan from the Museo delle Civiltà, Rome, the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza and the Museo Nazionale della Ceramica Duca di Martina, Naples, and two masterpieces by Giovanna Garzoni, from the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence.
The paintings, both of which are vibrant still lifes, feature a Chinese vase and cup decorated with typical white and blue motifs, attesting to the fluidity with which objects and iconographic themes have always circulated across Eurasian, whether brought as gifts or sold along the trade routes.
Through painting, Garzoni depicted the ties between Asia and Europe and the powerful fascination with the exotic that began bewitching the European courts, especially that of the Medici in Florence, in the fifteenth century. Art talking about art, in a play of references and decorative motifs that echo – familiar, yet different – at distant latitudes and in remote periods.
The next section is devoted to the theme of grapes and, by extension, wine. Central to Sogdian culture, wine was used not only for libations and during Zoroastrian rituals but also trade. In the exhibition, the decorative motif of the bunch of grapes is represented by pottery from China, Turkey and Iran – attesting to its wide circulation – and an extraordinary Japanese obi by the master artisan Yamaguchi Genbei: a five-metre length of fabric decorated with the well-wishing grape motif.
The heart of the reload is a series of site-specific works by the French-Moroccan artist Yto Barrada, the exhibition’s guest of honour.
Drawing inspiration from Color Problems: A Practical Manual for the Lay Student of Color by Emily Noyes Vanderpoel (1842–1939), for Tradu/izioni d’Eurasia Reloaded Barrada made a series of eight medium-sized canvases that take an at once both archival and poetic approach to exploring the subject of colour and its meanings in works in the MAO collection.
The series is of course an homage to Noyes Vanderpoel, a scholar, activist, artist and patron of the arts who was based in New York in the early twentieth century, but it is especially a narration of subterranean and subordinate stories linked to the theme of diaspora and cultural influence. A story that dispenses with words in favour of the silken materiality of velvet.
Yto Barrada’s project was realised in collaboration with the Fondazione Merz, where the artist will hold a solo exhibition in the autumn of 2024. She is the winner of the fourth Mario Merz Prize, a biennial award instituted in 2013 with the aim of identifying and supporting individuals in the fields of international contemporary art and music.
Yto Barrada’s works have been placed in dialogue with textiles and pottery on loan from the Fondazione Bruschettini per l’Arte Islamica e Asiatica. The new selection of works includes refined exemplars of Ottoman art decorated with the cintamani motif, an ancient religious symbol of Buddhist origin that was reformulated and reinterpreted as a symbol of sovereignty, power and well-wishes in Iran and Turkey and, more generally, the Islamic world. These artefacts are paired with a precious sixteenth-century illuminated manuscript of The Shahnameh or Book of Kings, by the Persian poet Ferdowsi, on loan from the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence. In some of the volume’s numerous and extremely fine illuminations, the Persian hero Rustam is wearing a mantle embellished with the cintamani motif.
Thanks to support from MAO and the Istituto per l’Oriente Nallino, Rome, The Book of Kingshas been restored and digitalised: it was a complex, difficult project, but indispensable for being able to display the volume in the museum and for future use by the scholarly community. The manuscript will also be the subject of a public study day planned for June.
The next section explores at the scale motif, with metal and ceramic tableware from India, Turkey, Iran, China and Italy on loan from the Musei Civici, Bologna and a few important private collections.
The scale pattern, symbolising good health and riches, was the result of multiple cultural and artistic encounters and can be considered an emblem of the ‘entangled worlds’ at the heart of the exhibition. It returned, translated and readapted, in the symbol of the dragon and in that of the carp, just as the pilgrim’s flask type re-emerged, represented in the exhibition by a splendid majolica exemplar from fifteenth-century Pesaro.
Next to the room of metalwork from the Aron Collection there is a new selection of seventh- and eighth-century samite, silk textiles used in the past for vestments and sumptuous clothing and embellished with animal motifs (lions and bulls in niches and birds in beaded circles). These textiles are echoed in a seventeenth-century Japanese painting of a Buddhist monk wearing a kesa (the traditional Buddhist mantle) that is as richly decorated as the fabric that covers his chair.
The exhibition ends with a poetic, immersive installation, Anila Quayyum Agha’s Shimmering Mirage (Black), 2018, which transports visitors to an imaginary elsewhere, and a reading room by the Milan publisher by the same name, Reading Room (specialised in independent publications and artists’ books), where there is also a video work by the Lebanese artist Ali Cherri, The Watchman (2023). The video follows Sergeant Bulut (a postmodern version of Lieutenant Drogo in The Desert of the Tartars), who is stationed in a watchtower on the southern border between the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus. There, immersed in a world caught between reality and imagination, the soldier passes endless days and equally endless nights waiting for an enemy that never comes, until vague lights appear on the horizon that give the film a ghostly final twist. It is a powerful and needed reflection on the concepts of border and death, the intrinsic violence of the frontier and the absurdity of war rhetoric.
The final component of the exhibition is the light installation MOSADEGH (2023) by the Iranian artist Shadi Harouni, which invites reflection on themes like democracy and hope through the poetic and fierce account of the complex history of modern Iran, in dialogue with one of the 100 fragments of the copy of a Caucasian carpet made for the Pergamon Museum, Berlin as part of ‘CULTURALXCOLLABS – WEAVING THE FUTURE‘, a participatory art project that goes beyond museum walls to engage with the community and create a dialogue between past, present and future, in an exchange between culture, museum and individuals with different stories and sensibilities.
The project begins with the extraordinary story of a seventeenth-century Caucasian carpet decorated with a dragon motif. It entered the collection of the Berlin museums in 1881, but it was partially destroyed by a fire bomb during World War II, which spared only a few fragments. Using these fragments, a complex restoration project was launched in 2004 that gave the carpet the look of an almost graphic puzzle. In 2022, a copy of the carpet was made by hand in India for CulturalxCollabs – Weaving the Future and cut into 100 equal fragments, which began to circulate around the world, creating a tangible link between the museum, which is currently closed for renovations, and people, with the aim of generating a collective, shared narrative at the end of the project, planned for 2027.
The fragment-copy is displayed with two precious Caucasian carpets from the seventeenth century: alarge carpet with a floral pattern and two fragments of a carpet with a dragon motif, both from the Bruschettini Collection. These motifs, tied to traditional Chinese and Persian symbolism, evoke cosmological myths about the opposition of light and darkness, fertility and the origin of life, and symbolise power and spirituality.
In keeping with all of MAO’s exhibition projects, this refurbishment is also accompanied by a rich public program of musical events and performances, once again by Chiara Lee and freddie Murphy, and a series oftalks and meetings that offer the public new opportunities for reflection on complex themes intimately tied to current issues.
Finally, a booklet containing texts that take a closer look at and expand upon the themes of the exhibition will be distributed free of charge in the museum.
The reload of the exhibition is accompanied by the rehang of the Islamic Asian Countries gallery, including the display of an extraordinary group of Kerman carpets, a particular type of rug from the Safavid period (1501–1722) called ‘vase carpets’: twelve precious fragments from the collection of the Fondazione Bruschettini per l’Arte Islamica e Asiatica and a rare large exemplar from MITA, the Museo Internazionale del Tappeto Antico, Brescia.
Produced in the Iranian city that gives them their name, Kerman carpets are a type of Persian rug marked by technical refinement and innovative taste and distinctive for their vast variety of patterns, an especially rich colour range and remarkable durability. The quality of these carpets tells us that although Kerman was never the seat of the Safavid court, it was an especially important city and entrusted to princes close to the sovereign. ‘Vase carpets’ have a large, often monumental, vase motif in the middle, filled with stylised flowers, plant motifs and geometric shapes. The borders of this carpet type are generally relatively thin in relation to the middle field.
The display of these carpets is a new instalment of the project Flowers in Wool, which began in Genoa in 2022 with the exhibition I magnifici tappeti Sanguszko, and the next instalment of which is an upcoming major exhibition of Kerman carpets from Italian collections.
16. Simon Fraser University – Farley Distinguished Visiting Scholar in History
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=67088
17. NEW Deadline
The Arabic Language and Literature department at UAE University is currently advertising a full-time professor position in Classical Arabic. They are seeking a scholar who can teach in Arabic and possess a distinguished profile in Scopus in terms of publications and citations. UAEU provides exceptional benefits, including free accommodation, a tax-free salary, a children’s school allowance, return tickets in the summer, and comprehensive health care coverage. Please feel free to reach out if you require further information.
The new deadline is 15/4/2024. Here is the link to apply:
https://jobs.uaeu.ac.ae/Postings/PostingDetails/3996
18.New interdisciplinary journal on Amazigh Studies launched
As part of a wider project aimed at establishing Amazigh Studies Program at UCLA, Professor Aomar Boum of UCLA Anthropology, a CNES Faculty Advisory Committee member, and Professor Brahim El Guabli of Williams College, launched the first issue of the new Tamazgha Studies Journal (TSJ). Drawing on the Amazigh Cultural Movement’s use of Tamazgha to refer to the historical Amazigh homeland extending from the Canary Islands to southwest Egypt, TSJ will use the new developments in Amazigh Studies to create new knowledge in this field of study. A detailed history of Amazigh studies at UCLA and the role of CNES in its establishment is explored in one of the articles featured in the issue.
19. Of Language and Identity in Early Islam
The 2024 Giorgio Levi Della Vida Award presentation and conference
Thursday, May 16 – Friday, May 17, 2024
10:00 am
Charles E. Young Research Library
UCLA
The award will be jointly presented to Michael Cook, Class of 1943 University Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, and Hossein Modarressi, Bayard Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, in recognition of their decades-long collaboration and their enormous contributions to the fields of Near Eastern and Islamic Studies.
https://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/event/16624
- April 02, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of the University of Chicago is honored to have Prof. Dominic Parviz Brookshaw as the fourth speaker in the Franklin Lewis Lecture Series of 2022-2025. The lecture will be in person and on zoom on Friday, April 19 at 5:00-7:00 PM US Central Time.
Title: ‘Illusory Originality: Appropriation, Repurposing, and Response in the Poems of Tahira Qurrat al-‘Ayn’
Zoom link:
https://uchicagogroup.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0ocuqpqzkuHdC41RztwbolJdTYUouiJ6d1#/registration
2. At the end of last year, GINGKO published Precious Materials: The Arts of Metal in the Medieval Iranian World.
First published in French in 2021, the book showcases the pre-Mongol metalwork held at Louvre in Paris and has now been translated into English in an edition revised by the author, Annabelle Collinet.
3. Online: “The Introduction of Islamic Coinage in 697-98″
with Michael Bates, Stephen Heidemann, and Stuart Sears.
Friday, April 5th, @12 noon EST
https://www.gc.cuny.edu/events/introduction-islamic-coinage-697-98-and-after
4. Caliphate and Imamate
An Anthology of Medieval Muslim Texts on Political Theology
H Ansari, N Husayn, eds.
Cambridge, 2023
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/caliphate-and-imamate/93727020916F4855058FD7DC472C8EBD
5. World Cultures Curator (Arabic and Persian)
The University of Edinburgh
This post sits within Heritage Collections, Research Collections team working within the Centre for Research Collections in the Main Library in George Square. It reports to The University Archivist and Research Collections Manager. The working hours and pattern are usually 35 hours a week with much of this on campus working with the collections.
Deadline | 4 April 2024
More information
6. Bennett Boskey Fellowship in Modern Global History (1700 -present)
University of Oxford
Exeter College invites applications for the Bennett Boskey Fellowship in Modern Global History (1700-present). The Fellowship, which is strictly temporary, will be tenable for a period of up to 36 months (with effect from 1 September 2024, or as soon as possible thereafter). We particularly seek applications from candidates who focus on the history of the Middle East (including North Africa) or the South Atlantic (West Africa and Latin America).
Deadline | 5 April 2024
More information
7. Irish Research Council (IRC) Doctoral Researcher
University College Dublin
Applications are invited for a PhD doctoral researcher within the UCD School of Politics and International Relations to deliver the research objectives of a project funded by the Irish Research Council. The project applies methods from quantitative text analysis/NLP in Arabic and cognitive mapping (Axelrod 1976) to examine interviews with participants in Muslim resistance movements.
Deadline | 8 April 2024
More information
8. Lecturer in Arabic Studies
The University of Manchester
To further strengthen our teaching portfolio, the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures wishes to appoint a Lecturer in Arabic Studies. The post is tenable from September 1st 2024 to June 30th 2027. This post in Arabic Studies is a teaching and scholarship position. Applicants must have a relevant PhD and demonstrate the ability to meet flexible curricular and teaching needs and demonstrate capability to contribute organisationally to the wider Departmental community.
Deadline | 8 April 2024
More information
9. Research Associate in Early Modern Global History (Islamic World Focus)
The University of Manchester
Applications are sought for a full-time Postdoctoral Research Associate to work with Dr Edmond Smith, conducting research for the ERC-selected, UKRI-funded project “Institutional Transformation and the Entangled Commercial Cultures of International Trade, 1450-1750” (INTRECCI). The successful applicant will hold a PhD in the field of early modern, global, or economic history, or in another relevant field, with expertise in the history of trade and empire in the Islamic World.
Deadline | 10 April 2024
More information
10. Research Associate in Early Modern Global History (Islamic World Focus)
The University of Manchester
Applications are sought for a full-time Postdoctoral Research Associate to work with Dr Edmond Smith, conducting research for the ERC-selected, UKRI-funded project “Institutional Transformation and the Entangled Commercial Cultures of International Trade, 1450-1750” (INTRECCI). The successful applicant will hold a PhD in the field of early modern, global, or economic history, or in another relevant field, with expertise in the history of trade and empire in the Islamic World.
Deadline | 10 April 2024
More information
11. Evans-Pritchard Lectureship 2024-25
All Souls College, Oxford
Applications are invited for the Evans-Pritchard Lectureship, to take place during the academic year 2024-2025. The Lecturer will deliver a series of four to six lectures in the course of a month, usually during May, based on fieldwork or other indigenous primary materials concerning Africa, the Middle East or the Mediterranean, and offering an empirical analysis of social relations.
Deadline | 7 May 2024
More information
12. Call for Submissions | Second Symposium on Middle Eastern, North African and Central Asian Dances, Music and Performing Arts
Symposium, Pomona College (Claremont, CA), 3-6 October 2024
Submissions are invited for the second scholarly symposium on MENA and Central Asian dances. This year’s topics include music and performing arts from the same regions. The goal is to gather as many scholars as possible in one academic environment to present their most recent research. All submissions must be accompanied by an abstract (150-250 words).
Deadline | 1 April 2024
13. Hudood: Rethinking boundaries
Exhibition | Brunei Gallery | 11 July-21 September
The exhibition introduces contemporary art from the Barjeel Foundation, with a focus on the overarching theme of “Boundaries” as both a subject and a tool for meaningfully accessing a diverse array of art from the SWANA region. Delving into the profound implications of walls and borders on artistic expression, the exhibition prompts the question of whether it is the artist’s perspective that ultimately transcends these boundaries.
More information
14. ONLINE Webinar “Staging Piety: The Takkiyya Muʿavin al-Mulk in Kermanshah”
With Nahid Massoumeh Assemi
British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS), 4 April 2024, 5:00 pm UK Time
This talk gives a brief account of the development of the rituals of commemoration of the Battle of Karbala in Iran, and their patronage by the state and the elites of society, who solicited the loyalty of the broader public by building takkiyyas, providing the venues for pious forms of entertainment. It also argues for the role of takkiyyas in creation of a sense of community and group identity; the formative stage of the emergent idea of nationhood at the time.
Information and registration:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/3717098146803/WN_Wc0se2GzSxC0F4HCmWxgEg#/registration
- March 30, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment
Shii News – Academic Items
1.HYBRID Lecture “Roads to Civilization: Imagining, Mapping, and Integrating Dersim into the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish State” by Cevat Dargın, New York University, 11 April 2024, 10:30 pm CET
This talk explores the historical journey of Dersim in eastern Anatolia with a predominantly Kizilbash Kurdish population, as it transitioned from the Ottoman Empire to the modern Turkish state. It analyzes how racialized ideologies and colonial policies influenced the treatment and perception of this ethno-religious group across both the empire and the nation-state. The talk provides critical insights into broader issues of identity, violence, and statecraft in the region.
Information and registration: https://nyu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYvcOutqjIjGNH17xw2qwwQRtSOZdzulNtE#/registration
2. „DAVO-Werkstattgespräche” to Promote Young Scholars during the Congress of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO), University of Goettingen, 26-28 September 2024
Young scholars will have the chance to present their scientific theses (Master thesis, PhD) in progress in German or English language. Since the general idea of the workshop is not to present finished works, young scholars are explicitly invited to contribute their projects in an early stage of conception or implementation.
Deadline for proposals: 15 May 2024. Information: contact Dr. Tobias Zumbrägel (tobias.zumbraegel@uni-heidelberg.de)
3. Conference “The Social Sciences and Humanities in Iran: Possibilities and Constraints”, Iranian Studies Unit of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Doha, Qatar, 9-10 October 2024
The conference will reflect on the state of social sciences and humanities in theory, methodology, and practice, and will examine how they are taught and researched in Iran. In addition to looking at some of the key institutions that have shaped social sciences and humanities research in Iran, the conference will examine the impact of the Islamic Republic’s establishment and its policies on research and teaching.
Deadline for abstracts: 17 April 2024. Information:
https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/Events/iranian-studies-unit-2024-conference-/Pages/index.aspx
4. International Conference “A Decolonial Mediterranean? Disparities, Imaginations, Power Relations“, Merian Center for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM), Tunis, 4-6 November 2024
The conference aims at critically investigating the legacies of European colonialism in the subsequent states around this maritime space and at addressing different or complementary representations of the Mediterranean within the Maghreb or other regions of the world, such as the interconnections between “White”, “Red” and “Black” Sea, put forward by intellectuals and politicians of the Ottoman Empire or other spatial imaginations, historical legacies, ideas and practices.
Deadline for abstracts: 30 April 2024.
Information: https://application.trafo-berlin.de/procedure/6c6c7876-9bf8-4349-8b45-1504b5a4b033
5. Workshop “State Islam and Authoritarian Rule: Comparing Control Over Religious Institutions in Muslim-majority States”, Lancaster University, 11 December 2024
Contributions should discuss the role of state Islam in a Muslim-majority state or states within a particular region, including the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Central or South Asia, or East Asia. What is the extent and form of state control over religious institutions? In what ways have these controls been shaped by historical state-religion relations? Why do states intervene in the religious sector? To deny space for Islamist opponents to operate? To combat the threat of religious extremism?
Deadline for abstracts: 31 May 2024.
Information: https://www.sepad.org.uk/announcement/call-for-papers-state-islam-and-authoritarian-rule
6. University Assistant (PhD Position), Department of Islamic Theology and Religious Education, University of Innsbruck
In this position you are expected to write a dissertation in a stimulating environment using the university’s infrastructure. You will hold your own lectures, tutor students and participate in administration. 50% of the working time is reserved for the thesis
Deadline for applications: 1 April 2024.
Information: https://lfuonline.uibk.ac.at/public/karriereportal.details?asg_id_in=14072
7. Postdoctoral Researcher (12 Months), Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies / Gender Studies and Islamic Studies, University of Zurich
This is a position in the research project “Fragmented Sovereignties in the Colonial Age: ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jazāʾirī (1808-1883) and the Making of an ‘Arab Hero'” funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Your profile: PhD in Middle Eastern Studies/Islamic Studies or a related field; relevant research expertise in the area; proficiency in both Arabic and French is essential; knowledge of Ottoman Turkish is desirable.
Deadline for applications: 31 March 2024. Information:
https://jobs.uzh.ch/offene-stellen/postdoctoral-researcher/3403c21c-9fb1-4a40-a70a-8eb202065f28
8. Postdoctoral Fellowships of the Marie S. Curie Actions (MSCA), Ghent University
The European Fellowships provide postdocs with a budget to work for one or two years at a European institution in a different country from where they have been working and residing in the past years. With a Global Fellowship, postdocs can go to an institution outside of the EU Member States or Associated Countries for 1 to 2 years, and then come back to a European institution for the final year of the fellowship.
Deadline for applications: 11 September 2024.
Information: https://bozi.ugent.be/nl/bozi/c83B4eMbBdJ53L2tNRm3WJ
9. ERC Postdoctoral Researcher for the “Invisible East Research Programme”, University of Oxford
You will be responsible for carrying out research on medieval writing in the Islamicate East and its connections with the history of language. You will contribute to building an online digital corpus of documents written in Persian, Arabic, Bactrian, Pahlavi, Hebrew and other languages of the medieval Islamicate East. You will have expertise in a language of the Islamicate world, and knowledge of the history and civilisations of Islamicate world.
Deadline for applications: 2 April 2024.
Information: https://my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.display_form
10. Project Manager in Conflict Transformation in Erbil, Iraq, forumZFD
You will support local communities and contribute to non-violent conflict transformation. Your profile: University degree in social/political sciences, law, peace and conflict studies or other relevant discipline. – Minimum of 5-years professional experience in conflict transformation and peacebuilding in a conflict or post conflict setting. – Experience as Civil Peace Service Expert and regional knowledge of the Iraqi context is an asset.
Deadline for applications: 31 March 2024.
Information: https://www.forumzfd.de/en/job/project-manager-mfd-erbil-iraq-3
11. ONLINE Intensive Course “The Tenth Yemen Exchange”, Sana`a Center and The Exchange Foundation, 22 April – 3 May 2024
The course is designed to provide unique access to information, perspectives, updates, and analysis on Yemen for those seeking to develop a working background on the country as well as those already thoroughly versed in its dynamics.
Deadline for application: 31 March 2024.
Information: https://sanaacenter.org/event/the-tenth-yemen-exchange
12. Summer School for “Current Issues in Middle East Politics”, Bodrum Institute, Bodrum/Turkey, 2-7 June 2024
The program will focus on the Middle Eastern regional order, regional conflicts, alliances, wars, and peace-making as well as the state-society dynamics. The course will cover the Arab world, Iran, and Israel.
Deadline for applications: 15 April 2024. Information: http://www.bodruminstitute.com/index.php/educations/126-current-issues-in-middle-east-politics
13. Grant of the British Yemeni Society for Academic Study Related to Yemen (up to £1,000)
Applications are invited from anyone carrying out research in, or on Yemen, at a university, preferably one that is based in Britain or Yemen. Applicant’s nationality is irrelevant. Applications may be made to assist with study in any subject or field, so long as it is concerned with Yemen, and is for a specific qualification (e.g., BA, MA, PhD etc.).
Deadline for applications: 31 May 2024. Information: https://britishyemenisociety.org.uk/what-we-do/
14. Articles for “Keshif: E-Journal for Ottoman-Turkish Micro Editions”
Ottoman Studies is a manuscript science, and all scholars who work on manuscripts know this situation: one “discovers” accidentally short texts in manuscripts–single poems, letters, contracts, and marginal notes of different, often private matters. Our vision for Keshif is to provide a forum for researchers to make these frag-ments accessible to a wider audience, i.e. to bring together the many pieces of the mosaic, such that complete pictures gradually emerge.
Deadline for contributions: 5 June 2024. Information: https://journals.univie.ac.at/index.php/keshif/index
15. Arabic Lectureship, UC Santa Barbara
The Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara invites applications for a lecturer position in Modern Standard Arabic beginning in the 2024-2025 academic year.
Responsibilities consist of teaching both first-year Arabic (Introductory Arabic) and second-year Arabic (Intermediate Arabic). The total teaching load is six courses over the three quarters of the academic year. A reasonable estimated full-time rate for this position is $66,259-$72,404. Position percent time is 67%. The anticipated start date for this Appointment begins July 1, 2024.
This lecturer position will complement core faculty in Islamic Studies (Religious Studies), Middle Eastern history, Global Studies, Comparative Literature, Middle Eastern Ethnomusicology, and other disciplines. In addition to its strong graduate program in Islamic Studies, the department of Religious Studies administers an undergraduate B.A. degree in Middle East Studies. UCSB is also home to a vibrant Center for Middle East Studies (www.cmes.ucsb.edu).
The department is especially interested in candidates who contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through research, teaching, and service. UCSB has recently been designated a Hispanic serving institution under the U.S. Department of Education’s guidelines (where total Hispanic enrollment constitutes a minimum of 25% of total enrollment).
Applicants should submit: (1) cover letter; (2) curriculum vitae; (3) statement of teaching pedagogy; (4) summary of teaching experience; (5) summary of teaching evaluations; and (6) arrange to have three letters of recommendation submitted through UC Recruit at https://recruit.ap.ucsb.edu. Inquiries may be addressed to the department’s Academic Personnel Coordinator, Kasey Odell, at kodell@hfa.ucsb.edu.
16. Breathtaking Revelations:
The Science of Breath from The Fifty Kamarupa Versesto Hazrat Inayat Khan
by Carl W. Ernst & Patrick J. D’Silva
This contains translation of a 14th-century Persian text on the power of breath and yogic practices, The Fifty Kamarupa Verses, plus an English text on the same topic written by Hazrat Inayat Khan and edited by Patrick J. D’Silva.
The book is available from Suluk Press at https://sulukpress.com/books/breathtaking-revelations/
There will be an author chat about the book on Saturday, April 27 at 3-4:15pm EST at Breathtaking Revelations Author Chat Tickets, Sat, Apr 27, 2024 at 3:00 PM | Eventbrite
17. Course name: Arabic Manuscripts Codicology and Philology
Course venue: Library of the Academy of Science, Lisbon, Portugal
Course dates: 08 – 11 July 2024
Course details: https://www.aku.edu/ismc/events/pages/event-detail.aspx?EventID=2533&Title=Arabic%20Manuscripts%20Codicology%20and%20Philology
18. Where did Homo sapiens go after leaving Africa? New study has an answer
19. Hybrid event – Edinburgh’s Alwaleed Centre is delighted to be hosting Dr Shabana Mir (American Islamic College, Chicago) for a special hybrid seminar this coming Thursday 28 at 4pm GMT.
‘Campus Connections and Ruptures: Muslim Students in the United States’ will explore the first ethnographic study of Muslim American college students, asking listeners to reflect on their implications for Muslim belonging, in the United States especially but in Western nations generally.
This event is available to attend in-person at the Alwaleed Centre, University of Edinburgh, or online via Zoom.
For further information and to register for free, click here: www.alwaleed.ed.ac.uk/events/shabana-mir
20. Centre of Islamic Studies Cambridge Events:
Wednesday 27 March
Afterlives of Urban Muslim Asia
Paul Anderson with Professor Magnus Marsden & Dr Vera Skvirskaja
2:00 – 3:30 – Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Booking email address: cis@cis.cam.ac.uk
All talks are free and open to all.
21. Armenian School of Languages and Cultures – ASPIRANTUM is organizing the seventh 16-week Persian language semester program in Yerevan, Armenia. The 16-week semester program of Persian language will start on August 18, 2024, and will last till December 6, 2024 (111 days, 300 hours of Persian language instruction).
For more details and to apply, please visit https://aspirantum.com/courses/study-persian-language-semester-abroad
During the Persian language summer classes, the following components will be covered every day to foster the Persian language knowledge of participants:
Grammar: Every day class will cover the main grammatical concepts of the modern Persian language as well as parallels with classical Persian.
Vocabulary: During the 16-week course, it is anticipated that the participants will learn more than 3000 new Persian words from literary language and words used in everyday life.
Listening: The classes are scheduled so that participants, with the guidance of an experienced instructor, learn the Persian language through songs and movies, watching and listening to news and other short videos about interesting and sometimes funny topics and stories about Iranian realities.
Speaking: Every day, the Persian language classes will push the students to exercise their speaking abilities through discussions, conversations, and role-plays about different texts and topics.
Writing: Each day, the participants of the Persian language class will have assignments and homework to complete for the next day, and the homework will primarily involve writing assignments.
Reading: Every day, students will read and discuss political texts, prose and poetry, conversations, and news. The corpus of texts to be read and discussed during the classes comprises different prominent Persian authors, daily conversations, and news of the day.
You can check the video testimonials of our previous students here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQXUOf6S4Po
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfQMbcNJrvY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0BG9AJb-XU
During our summer school, we have planned exciting trips to some of Armenia’s most renowned cultural heritage sites. These include the Quba Mere Diwane Yezidi Temple, the Garni Pagan Temple, the Geghard Monastery, the Mausoleum of Kara Koyunlu Emirs, the Amberd Fortress, and the picturesque Lake Sevan. We will also visit Martuni, Ayrivank on Lake Sevan, Ejmiatsin, Tsaghkadzor, Bjni, Khor Virap, Noravank, and more.
These tours offer students a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in local culture. They will have the chance to milk and shear a sheep, savor cheese under a shepherd’s tent, and sample the finest Armenian cuisine in traditional restaurants. Additionally, they can enjoy a refreshing swim in Sevan Lake, which is 1900 meters above sea level, and Kari Lake, which is at an elevation of 3185 meters.
To get a glimpse of what these tours entail, you can watch a recap of our previous excursions here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3PmyCWDsvg and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R4JlteBOxw
Participation fee:
The participation fee is 12,900 USD for the 16 weeks of the Persian Language course.
Discount: The participation fee will be 10,900 USD if you apply before April 25, 2024, and pay by April 30, 2024.
For more details and to apply, please visit https://aspirantum.com/courses/study-persian-language-semester-abroad
22. Uyghur Women Activists in the Diaspora
Restorying a Genocide
Susan J. Palmer, Dilmurat Mahmut and Abdulmuqtedir Udun
Bloomsbury, 2024
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/uyghur-women-activists-in-the-diaspora-9781350418332/
- March 26, 2024
- by Andrew Newman
- 0 Comment