1.Embroidery of Central Asia, Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent
I B Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2021
2. Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien” organisé par le CeRMI, qui aura lieu le jeudi 6 mai 2021 de17h à19h en visioconférence (lien de connexion ci-après).
Nous serons heureux d’y accueillir Maria Szuppe (directrice de recherche, CNRS, CeRMI / UMR 8041), pour une conférence intitulée :
Grandes familles locales et leurs réseaux d’influence dans le monde iranien oriental : le cas des khwājas de Barnābād (Hérat) aux XVe-XVIIIe siècles
ID de réunion : 983 2581 4324
Code secret : 854249
3. BIPS (British Institute of Persian Studies) invites applications for Research and Travel Grant Awards.
BIPS Research and Travel Grant Awards are to assist scholars wishing to pursue research in the area of arts, humanities and social science research, relating to the Persianate world, particularly Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Transcaucasia, Iraq, the Persian Gulf littoral and South Asia. Subject areas include, but are not limited to: Art, Anthropology, Archaeology, Classics, Cultural Studies, History, Language, Literature, Politics, Religious Studies, and Sociology. Scholars who apply must be attached to a UK Higher Educational Institution (university, museum or similar).
Most of the grant funds are set aside for collaborative research projects and we are currently seeking to attract applications from scholars under three “umbrella” programmes:
For more information and to download the application form, visit our Grants page.
Deadline for submitting applications: 14th May 2021
4. ONLINE Panel: “Digital Forays in Middle Eastern Studies: Lightning Talks from Junior Scholars”, Kevorkian Center, New York University, 29 April 2021, 12:30 pm EST
What does it look like to think, engage, and do research in this digital age? In this panel, seven PhD/MA Candidates, junior faculty, and independent scholars will present projects that are pushing the norms, boundaries, and forms of Middle Eastern Scholarship through adopting new tools, methods, and modes of dissemination.
Information and registration: https://as.nyu.edu/neareaststudies/events/spring-202011/digital-forays–lightning-talks-from-junior-scholars1.html
5. ONLINE Lecture: “Enlightening Europe on Islam and the Ottomans: Mouradgea d’Ohsson and His Masterpiece “Tableau général de l’Empire othoman” by Carter V. Findley (Ohio State University), Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative, New York University, 14 May 2021, 12:30 pm EST
This was the most authoritative work ever yet published on Islam and the Ottomans. Profusely illustrated with 233 engravings, the work also offered the century’s richest collection of visual imagery on the Ottomans and opened deep insights into the processes and politics of illustrated book production in this period.
Information and registration: https://nyu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYqdO-vrjotHNOA4QnEdSVrmISPCIpClcMq
6. ONLINE “54th Seminar for Arabian Studies”, Organized by the International Association for the Study of Arabia (IASA), 2-4 and 9-11 July 2021 BST
The seminar is in collaboration with “Casa Árabe” which will host a special session and a keynote lecture on 9 July 2021 tht are free of charge.
Information and registration: https://mailchi.mp/026f5d0c9dec/54th-seminar-for-arabian-studies-programme-and-registration?e=18cf0337f7
7. 3rd International Süleymaniye Symposium: “The “Köprülü Era” (1656-1710) in Ottoman History: New Sources, New Approaches”, Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul, 24-26 September 2021
The Köprülü family has profoundly shaped Ottoman history. Many new sources, recent articles, books, dissertations, and projects have opened new frontiers while also expanding on the existing assumptions and approaches about the period.
Abstract submission deadline: 31 May 2021. Information: https://networks.h-net.org/node/11419/discussions/7575183/call-papers-3rd-international-s%C3%BCleymaniye-symposium-24-26
8. Post-Doctorate Researcher (Arabic Poetry in the Cairo Genizah: History of Literacy and Education), University of Dublin (3 Yeaars)
Qualification: PhD in a relevant field; Proven research skills in Arabic/Islamic Literary History, Arabic literature or Medieval/Premodern Islamic History; Research skills in medieval / premodern history and / or literature; Knowledge of Arabic language and literature; Ability to translate Arabic poetry into English.
Deadline for applications: 14 May 2021. Information: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/CFJ702/research-fellow-post-doctorate-researcher-arabic-poetry-in-the-cairo-genizah-history-of-literacy-and-education?uuid=da54c787-a184-11eb-a3a3-064da8edb92a&campaign=jbew20210420&source=jbe
9. Coordinator for “Anti-Muslim Racism Working Group”, European Coalition of Cities against Racism (ECCAR)
Candidate requirements: Experience of working across multiple departments and teams; Degree in Social Science / Political Science; Academic writing skills in English; Fluent proficiency in written and spoken English. Duration: 8 months (starting date: as soon as possible). Part time 30% based on TV-L 11 (German public service salary scale).
Deadline for applications: 30 April 2021. Information: https://www.eccar.info/en/news/eccar-hiring-new-coordinator-anti-muslim-racism-working-group
10. ONLINE or IN-CLASS: “Ottoman Turkish Summer School”: Intensive Instruction in Ottoman Turkish for International Students and Professionals, Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul, 5 July – 27 August 2021
The summer school is designed to comprise co-curricular and extra-curricular activities such as seminars by top scholars on Turkish history, politics, literature, and art; cultural events, and, field trips to historical sites and archives.
Deadline for applications: 29 May 2021. Information: https://oss.ihu.edu.tr/languages-program/
11. ONLINE Summer School “In Search of the Reader: New Approaches to Practices, Functions and Histories of Reading in Arabic Literature, Arts, Media and Culture”, Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA), 16-20 August 2021
The summer school provides PhD students and postdocs of Arabic literary studies from European and Arab universities the opportunity to present their own research in an international academic context, to discuss innovative approaches readers and reading pracices, and to practice the respective foreign language (Eng-lish or Arabic).
Deadline for applications: 30 April 2021. Information: http://arabic-philologies.de/en/online2021.html
12. ONLINE Summer Language Program in Arabic and Persian, University of Maryland
Classes are available for all levels, from complete beginners up to advanced speakers. The program is open to all.
Information: http://www.globalprofessionals.umd.edu/summer-language-institute
13. Articles on “Public Space, Publicness and Social Transformations” for Special Issue of “Egypte Monde Arabe”
This call for papers argues that public spaces and publicness are engines for a better understanding of current socio-spatial and multifaceted overall transformations, namely questioning how both the massive protest events that occurred in the region between 2011 and 2018 and their aftermath but also the growin g commodification and privatization of spaces have modified the understanding, practices, and politics of public spaces?
Deadline for abstracts: 30 April 2021. Information: http://cedej-eg.org/index.php/2021/03/10/call-for-papers-egypte-monde-arabe-30th-of-april-2021/
14. Articles on “Public Space, Publicness and Social Transformations” for Special Issue of “Egypte Monde Arabe”
This call for papers argues that public spaces and publicness are engines for a better understanding of current socio-spatial and multifaceted overall transformations, namely questioning how both the massive protest events that occurred in the region between 2011 and 2018 and their aftermath but also the growin g commodification and privatization of spaces have modified the understanding, practices, and politics of public spaces?
Deadline for abstracts: 30 April 2021. Information: http://cedej-eg.org/index.php/2021/03/10/call-for-papers-egypte-monde-arabe-30th-of-april-2021/
15. Articles for “Nazhruna: Islamic Education Journal”
Editors invite academicians to contribute his thoughts either in the form of research results, in-depth study, and book reviews in accordance with the discipline owned. The script is original, has not been published in other media. The manuscripts are preferably from research results and written in either English or Arabic.
Information: https://e-journal.ikhac.ac.id/index.php/NAZHRUNA
16. Chapters for Edited Book on “South Asian Migration to Gulf: Issues, Perspectives and Opportunities”
The focus of the book will be on fixing the gap between the best possible policies for migrants, after understanding the ground realities and challenges of migrants.
Deadline for abstracts: 15 May 2021. Information: https://grfdt.com/Upload/Event/7176_Invitation_to_contribute_a_chapter_to_th.pdf
17. Events on Islam and the Middle East this week in and around Cambridge (all times are UK time):
Tue 27 Apr
5:00pm – 6:30pm – “Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire”
( SherAli Tareen (Franklin & Marshall College))
Wed 28 Apr
2:00pm – 3:00pm – Music and Islamic Literary Heritage
(Davesh Soneji (University of Pennsylvania) and Richard Williams (SOAS))
Thu 29 Apr
6:00pm – 7:00pm – The power of geography. Ten maps that reveal the future of our world
(Tim Marshall)
Fri 30 Apr
1:00pm – 2:00pm – “Jaina Temple Architecture of Coastal Karnataka: Climatic Dependencies and Artistic Freedoms”
(Julia A. B. Hegewald,)
5:00pm – 6:30pm – The Last Muslim Intellectual: The Life and Legacy of Jalal Al-e Ahmad
(Hamid Dabashi)
1.5th IDHN Conference on Thursday, May 6, 2021. Please find the full program of the conference as a pdf attachment here. Our program also contains information about the conference’s schedule in different time zones.
Session 1 (10:00 am to 12:00 noon EDT)
Sofya A. Ragozina (Russian Academy of Sciences): Virtual Space of Russian Muslims During Pandemics: What Can We Learn on Building Muslim Identity through Digital Ethnography?
Abdullah al-Saleh (University of Leeds): Quranic Verses Semantic Relatedness Using AraBERT
Yusuf Celik (Utrecht University): Footprinter: an online environment for comparatively tracing Qur’an citations in fifty-five works of substantial law
Session 2 (12:30 pm to 2:30 pm EDT)
Ashley Sanders Garcia (University of California, Los Angeles): Uncovering Women’s Socio-Political Roles in Ottoman Algeria: Mining, Mapping, and Measuring the Relationships of Named and Unnamed Entities
Richard Nielson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): The Rise and Impact of Muslim Women Preaching Online
Yasmin Amin (University of Exeter): Waving the Mantle of the Prophet: The Journey of Umm Salama’s Narration of Ḥadīth al-kisāʾ over Six Centuries
To attend this online conference, please register as a member at https://idhn.org/contact/, or email registration@idhn.org to request guest access. We look forward to your attendance at our conference.
2. Introduction to Arabo-Islamic Manuscript Culture is an Intensive Course organized by Qatar National Library and the Chair of Islamic History and Culture, University of Tübingen, Germany. 21-23.6.2021
https://events.qnl.qa/event/jeB91/EN
At the heart of this introductory course are manuscripts and the knowledge they contain. The course consists of six open lectures and three closed practical sessions, taking students on an exploration of Islamic intellectual heritage from its origins to the modern era.
The lectures begin by tracing fundamental perspectives of heritage, along with related terms, concepts and disciplines dealing with manuscripts. After a survey of writing materials and formats, we will focus on the Arabo-Islamic manuscript tradition, outlining its textual and physical aspects. We will also discuss the cultural history of the Qur’an and Hadith documentation and authorship, as well as issues in the history of reading, learning and the transmission of knowledge, the role of libraries, the book trade, and the preparation of editions.
In this course, we follow the dynamic life cycle of the manuscript and the text, starting from the origin of the work (authorship) and its manifestations and textual relations, through the production of the manuscript(s), until the reception of both in the past and present, considering the social and cultural contexts.
By the end of the course, you will have the basic knowledge and context to better understand the intellectual and social contexts of Arabo-Islamic books and deal with manuscripts in Arabic language and script.
The course will be delivered by Mahmoud Zaki, Manuscript Librarian at Qatar National Library, and Regula Forster, Professor of Islamic History and Culture at the University of Tübingen, with Juliane Müller, Research Associate at the Department of Oriental and Islamic Studies of the University of Tübingen, as a guest lecturer.
The course is taught in both Arabic and English, with simultaneous interpretation. Q&As and participation in sessions can be in either Arabic or English.registration and more information : https://events.qnl.qa/event/jeB91/EN
1.Armenian School of Languages and Cultures – ASPIRANTUM organizes an “Introduction to the Iranian languages” online course. The 2 weeks online school will start on June 21, 2021, and will last till July 2, 2021.
This 2 weeks online school will be organized on working days each week (5 days each week, 10 days during two weeks) and will include 25 hours of intensive teaching (2.5 hours during each day).
To apply and for more details please visit: https://aspirantum.com/courses/introduction-to-iranian-languages
2. Teaching with Manuscripts: Material, Digital, and Collaborative Pedagogies
A 40-minute presentation followed by 50 minutes of Q&A scheduled for Wednesday, 21 April 2021, 4:30–6:00 p.m. ET, via Zoom.
Owing to Zoom’s restrictions, this event is limited to the first 300 people who register. The event will be recorded and made available for later viewing on the RBS YouTube channel.
This panel, sponsored by Rare Book School’s Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (SoFCB), brings together four short, practical papers about teaching medieval, early modern, and eighteenth-century European and Islamic manuscripts through hands-on, digital, and collaborative approaches. Panelists will address issues related to teaching manuscript studies in graduate and undergraduate literature and art history courses, including paleography, editing, computational methods, and the physical analysis of manuscripts. Some of the hands-on and digital methods presented in these papers respond to COVID-19 disruptions of in-person teaching, while others reflect projects that were specifically designed for collaboration at a distance. All papers address the needs of students or curricula at the institutions where panelists teach. Some speakers are also participating in collaborative projects that involve faculty, librarian, undergraduate student, and graduate student researchers at multiple institutions. Together, these papers speak to the work of teaching with manuscripts in the classroom, on the screen, and through collaborative projects that share the work of humanities research and critical bibliography beyond the university.
Everyone is welcome to attend. To ensure the security of the event, advance registration is required; to register, click here.
3. ONLINE Seminar: “Christian-Muslim Diplomacy – Gestures and Words: European Ambassadors and the Mamluk Sultanate” by Dr Alessandro Rizzo (University of Liège) and Prof. Jo Van Steenbergen (Ghent University), Society for the Medieval Maditerranean, 20 April 2021, 7 pm CET
The webinar will focus on the letter of instructions delivered to the first Florentine ambassadors sent to Cairo in 1422, which will be examined in a comparative perspective in relation to other analogous documents.
Information and registration: https://www.societymedievalmediterranean.com/news/2021/4/9/christian-muslim-diplomacy-gestures-and-words-european-ambassadors-and-the-mamluk-sultanate
4. ONLINE Seminar: “The Erotics of Revolution: An Outline of Emotions in the 2011 and 2019 Uprisings” by Mohammed Bamyeh (University of Pittsburgh), Chair: Cilja Harders (Freie Universität Berlin), Europe in the Middle East (EUME) Forum Transregional Studies, 21 April 2021, 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm CET
The large amount of record now available on the movements of 2011 and 2019 demonstrate that one aspect of that mobilization involved pleasure,This talk presents an outline of an evolving project on the role of pleasure in revolutionary movements, and proposes to situate the question of pleasure at the center of studies of revolutionary processes.
Information and registration https://www.eume-berlin.de/veranstaltungen/kalender/details/the-erotics-of-revolution-an-outline-of-emotions-in-the-2011-and-2019-uprisings.html
5. ONLINE Vernissage: “Annemarie Schimmel: Woman Scholar, Linguistic Genius, Poetess and Genial Friend to Many”, Museum of Religions, Marburg, 21 April 2021, 6:00 pm CET
This special exhibition will honor the life of the internationally renowned Islamic and religious studies scholar Annemarie Schimmel (1922-2003).
Information and registration: https://www.uni-marburg.de/de/relsamm/sammlung/sonderausstellungen/annamarie-schimmel/annemarie-schimmel-wissenschaftlerin-sprachgenie-dichterin-und-freundesammlerin
6. ONLINE Workshop: “Ottoman Empire and Global Modernism(s)”, Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative at NYU (OTS-NYU), 23 April 2021, 12:30 pm EST
This panel will explore key figures and works that prompt new ways of understanding the status of the Ottoman state and society within the discussion of globalism and its renderings in the last two centuries of the empire.
Information and registration: https://nyu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAvf–gqTopHdW94kk5Hg-B1WpNzySrvZ2p
7. ONLINE Seminar: “Politics, Energy, and Opposition in the Gulf: What You Need to Know” by Dr Jessie Moritz (Australian National University), Webinar Series “Bridging the Gulf”, Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore, 23 April 2021, 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm SGT
The Gulf is changing. Oil prices are low and that is placing fiscal pressure on Gulf governments. A new generation of royals have come to power, disrupting the status quo. Islamist movements have been more active since the Arab Spring protests in 2011 and Gulf governments are deeply divided over how to respond.
Information and registraton: https://mei.nus.edu.sg/event/bridging-the-gulf/
8. ONLINE Workshop: “Religious Minorities, Sacred Space and Heritage in Transition in the Middle East”, Central European University and Institute for the Study of Religions, Leipzig University, 23-24 April 2021, 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm CET
Sacred space contributed to the formation and preservation of group identity and communal memory, especially among religious minorities who may have had only limited capacity of publicly expressing/affirming their religious heritage. Some sacred space may be shared between different religious groups, often leading to syncretic practices and creating an intricate network of social ties.
Information and registration: https://events.ceu.edu/2021-04-23/religious-minorities-sacred-space-and-heritage-transition-middle-east
9. ONLINE Seminar: “Religious Responses to Covid-19 in Media and Politics: Muslim, Jewish and Christian Experiences”, University of Copenhagen, 26 and 27 April 2021, 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm CET
The seminar’s ten papers provide an insight and highlight the role of religious communities and authorities in the interpretation and handling of Covid-19. The papers cover different religions around the world, such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. The seminar contributes with perspectives on how states and faith communities have approached, mediated, and tried to control the linking of religious and health science issues.
Program and registration: https://ccrs.ku.dk/calendar/2021/religious-responses-to-covid-19-in-media-and-politics/
10. ONLINE Workshop: “Discoursing Sectarianism: Patterns, Trajectories and Identities from 1979 Onwards”, SEPAD, Lancaster University, 30 June 2021, 12:00 pm GMT
We welcome contributions that trace discourse/s of sectarianism by their own and explore the process of their production and articulation irrespective of their end-goals or final functionality. More specifically, we are interested in the ‘global meanings’ such as topics, themes and perspectives under which sectarianism is framed as an ‘interpretive schemata’ or ‘organizing principle’ where we can relate, compare and contrast meanings of the concept in different contexts.
Deadline for abstracts: 7 May 2021. Information and registration: https://www.sepad.org.uk/event/call-for-papers-discoursing-sectarianism-patterns-trajectories-and-identities-from-1979-onwards
11. ONLINE Workshop: “Sects and the City II”, SEPAD, Lancaster University, 26 July 2021, 12:00 pm GMT
The workshop reflects on the urban and spatial dimensions of the protesters in the re-imagining of identities across the contemporary Middle East. We are particularly interested in papers that reflect on sectarianism and urban politics in Kuwait, Syria, Yemen, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Deadline for abstracts extended until 30 April 2021.
Information and registration: https://www.sepad.org.uk/event/call-for-papers-sects-and-the-city-ii
12. Seven Panels at the “27th International Congress of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO)”, Institute for Islamic Theology, University of Osnabrück, 16-18 September 2021
1) Online Databases Instead of History Books? Potentials of Digital Humanities Data-bases in Historical Research on the MENA Region and Ottoman World
2) The Formation of the Concepts of Secularity/Secularism in the Arab/Islamicate Worlds
3) New Perspectives on Sufism, Modern Sunni Reform Thinking and Activism
4) Methodological Approaches to the Study of Muslim Traditions
5) The Qurʾān and its Cultural and Religious Context in Late Antiquity
6) Authoritarianisms in Search of Consolidation and Challenges to the Liberal Order: Remilitarisations, Dynamics of Adaptations and Political Phobias
7) Palestine in Post- and Decolonial Contexts
Please send your paper proposals with title and abstract (about 250 words) to the organiser of the of the specific panel until 15 May 2021. Abstracts of the panels and further information:
13. Annual Conference: “The Age of Populism”, Arab American University in Palestine Ramallah, 23-24 October 2021
Scholars are invited to engage, theorize and contextualize the different ways to understand “populism” in Arab countries and other parts of the world as a concept of analysis and reexamine the term itself and evaluate whether the use of the term should be revisited.
Deadline for abstracts in English or Arabic: 2 May 2021. Information: https://pcrsc.aaup.edu/Conferences/2021-Annual-Conference
14. Panel on “American Muslims” at the Conference of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SMALA 93), Atlanta, 4-6 November 2021
This panel intends to examine the works of Muslim American poets, novelists, playwrights, jazz musicians, punks, hip hop artists, filmmakers, and visual artists. Papers are invited that explore the diverse compositions of Muslim American identities in cultural texts as they challenge and engage with the canonical codes and sociopolitical norms of national, theoretical, literary, and aesthetic spaces.
Deadline for abstracts: 18 June 2021. Information: https://samla.memberclicks.net/callsforpapers#americanstudies
15. Associate Professorship in the History and Politics of Iran, Oxford School of Global and Area Studies
You should have received a doctorate in the modern history and/or politics of Iran, by 1 September 2021. The successful candidate will demonstrate: research achievement at an international level appropriate to the stage of their career, the skills and commitment to contribute effectively to teaching, supervision and academic administration in the School, and fluency in the Persian language.
Deadline for applications: 21 May 2021. Information: https://my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.display_form?p_company=10&p_internal_external=E&p_display_in_irish=N&p_process_type=&p_applicant_no=&p_form_profile_detail=&p_display_apply_ind=Y&p_refresh_search=Y&p_recruitment_id=150478
16. Joint International Master Program (2 Years) on “Comparative and Middle East Politics and Society (CMEPS)”, University of Tübingen and American University in Cairo
Due to its unique profile, the program provides in-depth knowledge of the political and societal developments in the Middle East as well as analytical tools for understanding this region’s complex dynamics and challenges.
Deadline for applications: 15 May 2021. Information: https://cmeps.eu
1.ONLINE Research and Training Workshop / Atelier de recherche et de formation
Reading Sources in Area Studies
Contribution of biographical data for the social and cultural history
of Turko-Iranian societies (9th-18th c.)
Lire les sources en études aréales
L’apport des données biographiques pour l’histoire sociale et culturelle
du monde turko-iranien (IXe-XVIIIe s.)
Panel 2: Tuesday 20 April 2021 / mardi 20 avril 2021:
Epigraphy and craftsmanship in the Iranian world / L’épigraphie et l’artisanat du monde iranien
PhD candidate students and advanced MA students are invited to apply for participation
Doctorants et étudiants de Master sont encouragés à participer
To register to get the Zoom link / inscription à la visioconférence
http://www.inalco.fr/webform/ateliers-sources-etudes-areales
Full details and program: https://cermi.cnrs.fr/reading-sources-in-area-studies-contribution-of-biographical-data-for-the-social-and-cultural-history-of-turko-iranian-societies-9th-18th-c/
Contacts: maria.szuppe@cnrs.fr / camille.rhone@univ-amu.fr
2. Arabic with Jordan Language Academy – Summer 2021
Jordan Language Academy (JLA) is pleased to offer its full Arabic courses this summer 2021 in person (in campus) or virtually depending on the student’s choice. You can learn Arabic online or in person with our flexible and engaging programs to help you improve your Arabic and reach your language goals.
Students can join our group classes or have personal tutoring. JLA is also ready to work with the institutes/students on designing a tailor-made program that fits students’ needs and the current circumstances.
For registration and more info please contact us at:
Email: info@jordanla.com
Mobile: +962-779502220
www.youtube.com/user/JordanLangAcademy
3. Open Access Books:
Open Access E-Book: Sufi Masters and the Creation of Saintly Spheres in Medieval Syria
Author: Ephrat, Daphna
Publisher: Arc Humanities Press, 2021
URL: https://globalcommentary.utoronto.ca/?p=654. Direct download of the book: https://globalcommentary.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Practices-of-Commentary-Zeitspru%CC%88nge-Forschungen-zur-Fru%CC%88hen-Neuzeit.pdf.
Stefanie Brinkmann, “Marginal Commentaries in Ḥadīṯ Manuscripts.”
Walid Saleh, “The Place of the Medieval in Qur’an Commentary: A Survey of Recent Editions.”
Jeannie Miller, “Commentary and Text Organization in al-Jāḥiẓ’s Book of Animals.”
Suzanne Akbari, “Ekphrasis and Commentary in Walter of Chatillon’s Alexandreis.”
Jennifer Gerber, “About Form and Function of German Vernacular Commentaries.”
Christina Lechtermann, “Commentary as Literature: The Medieval ‘Glossenlied.’”
Philip Stockbrugger, “Mirroring Authorization in Torquato Tasso’s Rime Amorose.”
New Open Access Journal: Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World
Open Access Journal: Journal of Islamic Ethics
Open Access E-book: Transregional and Regional Elites – Connecting the Early Islamic Empire
Edited by: Hannah-Lena Hagemann and Stefan Heidemann
De Gruyter | 2020
ISBN 9783110669800 (ebook)/ 9783110666489 (hardcover)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669800
Open Access E-Book: The Hajj and Europe in the Age of Empire
Editor: Umar Ryad
Leiden, The Netherlands : Brill, [2014]
Series: Leiden Studies in Islam and Society, Volume: 5
4. PhD position in research project on social contexts of rebellion in the early Islamic period based at Universität Hamburg.
The successful applicant will work on early ‘Alid/proto-Shī‘ī revolts. It’s 2+2 years, deadline for applications is 1 May and preferred start date is 1 August. For more information, please go to https://www.uni-hamburg.de/stellenangebote/ausschreibung.html?jobID=ada1df62a39c324fa8a1e9c61ccef7abce0d0616.
You can also email hannah-lena.hagemann@uni-hamburg.de.
5. Book Launch: Fada’il-i Balkh
Tuesday, 20 April 5-6pm (British Summer Time (UTC+1)
This book is a critical edition and translation of the medieval local history of Balkh, known as Faḍāʾil-i Balkh (“The Merits of Balkh”), which was completed in 610 Hijrī (1214 CE) in Arabic by Shaykh al-Islām Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh al-Wāʿiẓ and translated into Persian by ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusaynī in 676 Hijri (1278 CE). It is the Persian version which survives today and forms the source text for this book.
Balkh is one of the most illustrious cities of the Islamicate East, and yet we know very little about life in the city during the first five centuries of Islam (8th-13th centuries CE). The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh, the oldest surviving local history of Balkh, changes that. You can find out more about the book on the Oxbow Books website, and register for the book launch here.
https://www.ongc.ox.ac.uk/event/book-of-launch-merits-of-balkh
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pYPZO_zrSyeZNvDai8tO1w
1.ONLINE Book Introduction “Familiar Futures: Time, Selfhood, and Sovereignty in Iraq” by Sara Pursley, Centre for Middle East Studies, Brown University, AMEWS, 15 April 2021, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EST
This book considers how the country’s creation under British mandate rule in 1920 through the 1958 revolution to the first Ba’th coup in 1963 reshaped Iraqi everyday habits, desires, and familial relations. Future-oriented discourses about the importance of sexual difference to Iraq’s modernization worked paradoxically, deferring demands for political change in the present and reproducing existing capitalist relations.
Information and registration: https://watson.brown.edu/cmes/events/2021/sara-pursley-familiar-futures
2. ONLINE Conference: “Gulf Research Meeting 2021”, Gulf Research Center (GRC), University of Cambridge/UK, 23-24 July 2021
The workshops cover a wide range of topics in the fields of politics, energy, security, and the wider social sciences as they relate to the wider Gulf region (GCC countries in addition to Iraq and Yemen).
Information: https://www.gulfresearchmeeting.net/
3. Open Panels for the “27th International Congress of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO)” Institute for Islamic Theology, University of Osnabrück, 16-18 September 2021
If you are interested in organizing an open panel for this congress and look for paper presenters, you are kindly requested to send the title and summary (up to 300 words) to the General Secretary of the congress, Amke Dietert (amke.dietert@googlemail.com) before 15 April 2021.
Deadline of submissions: 15 May 2021.
Information: https://www.irp-cms.uni-osnabrueck.de/en/events/27th_international_davo_congress.html
4. Conference on “Translation and Transfer” of the Network “Eastern European-Ottoman-Persian Mobility Dynamics”, University of Marburg, 6-9 October 2021
The conference will stress the pragmatic implications of the translation of texts in its narrower sense and the translators involved in activities across or within the Transottoman focus region. For a closer look at this and the multiple projects within this framework, please visit our website at www.transottomanica.de.
For further information, contact florian.riedler@uni-leipzig.de.
5. Seminar “Reassembling Creation: Green Ethics (GE) and the Scholarly Disciplines in the Islamic Tradition”, Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics (CILE), Doha, 12-14 October 2021
The seminar is convened by Dr. Birgit Krawietz (Freie Universität Berlin) in collaboration with Dr. Mohammed Ghaly (CILE). The papers will be published as part of a thematic issue of the “Journal of Islamic Ethics (JIE)” and/or an edited volume in the peer-reviewed book-series “Studies in Islamic Ethics”, both published by Brill.
Extended deadline for abstracts: 30 June 2021. Information: https://www.cilecenter.org/resources/news/call-research-papers-reassembling-creation-green-ethics-ge-and-scholarly-disciplines
6. 3rd ANU Religion Conference: “Religion and Migration: Culture and Policy”, Australian National University, Canberra, 8-10 December 2021
The aim of this conference is to explore the various phenomena related to religion and migration; the political and social transitions impacting upon the transnational religiosity of contemporary communities.
Deadline for abstracts: 21 May 2021. Information: https://hrc.cass.anu.edu.au/events/religion-and-migration-culture-and-policy-0#acton-tabs-link–tabs-0-middle-1
7. 5 PhD Positions (65 %) in Dependency and Slavery Studies (Focus Islamic World)”, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, Bonn University (1 October 2021 to 30 September 2024)
Applicants are required to have a Master degree in history, archaeology, philology, theology, sociology, anthropology, law, history and societies of the Islamicate World, Religious Studies etc.
Deadline for applications: 30 April 2021. Information: https://www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/career/wissenschaftliche-hilfskraft-whf-mit-ba-abschluss-oder-studentische-hilfskraft-shk-fur-den-bereich-it-19-std.-woche
8. Senior Fellow, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
This position is open rank and open discipline. The successful candidate must hold a PhD (or the equivalent in experience) and show a track record of scholarship on and/or teaching of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Application deadline: 15 April 2021. Information: https://mesana.org/resources-and-opportunities/2021/03/16/senior-fellow
9. Visiting Assistant Professor in the Arabic Language, Middle East and South Asia St/udies Program, Wake Forest University, North Carolina
Applicants must have a Ph.D. in Arabic linguistics, literature, second-language pedagogy, or a related area. They must have native or near-native fluency in Arabic and English, and experience in teaching Arabic language courses of all levels as well as for specific purposes at the university level.
Review of applications will begin 30 April 2021. Information: https://mesana.org/resources-and-opportunities/2021/04/08/visiting-assistant-professor-of-arabic-wake
10. 2021 Book Award of the “Association for Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS)” for Books Published in 2020
The award recognizes and promotes excellence in the field of Middle East gender, women’s and sexuality studies. The award is offered annually to a scholar for a solo-authored book.
Deadline for the nomination of a book: 1 June 2021. Information: https://amews.org/amews-book-award/
11. Book Awards of the Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS)
This award and a monetary prize of $500 is presented to the author of a research monograph, published in 2020, that: 1) represents the most important contribution to Central Eurasian studies, or 2) that holds the greatest potential for furthering scholarship on the Central Eurasian region.
Deadline for applications: 15 April 2021. Information: https://www.centraleurasia.org/2021/call-for-nominations-2021-cess-book-awards/
12. ONLINE Free Workshop: “An Introduction to Arabic Manuscripts, Centre for Near Eastern Studied, UCLA, 23-27 August 2021
The workshop will equip emerging scholars with the basic tools to conduct research with original handwritten texts in Arabic script. The participants will learn the basics of codicology, palaeography, and manuscript production and circulation, in the context of an expansive vision of current debates in Arabic manuscript research.
Application deadline: 22 April 2021. Information: https://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/event/14962
13. Chapters for Edited Book on „Marxism in Muslim Contexts: Communist Organizing, Social-ist Movement, and Religious Response“
Proposals investigating Muslim responses to Marxism from historical, anthropological, literary, sociological, cultural, and religious perspectives are welcomed.
Deadline extended to 16 April 2021. Information: dwidmannabraham@ursinus.edu
14. OPenn Primary Digital Manuscripts of the Muslim World Available to Everyone
The digital editions comprise more than 500 manuscripts and 827 paintings from the Islamicate. Together these holdings represent in great breadth the flourishing intellectual and cultural heritage of Muslim lands from 1000 to 1900, covering mathematics, astrology, history, law, literature, as well as the Qur’an and Hadith. The bulk of the collection consists of manuscripts in Arabic and Persian, along with examples of Coptic, Samaritan, Syriac, Turkish, and Berber.
Information: https://openn.library.upenn.edu/html/muslimworld_contents.html
15. Thursday 22 April, 4:30 pm, Michael Sells reads from and speaks about The Translator of Desires
Join the Yale Departments of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Comparative Literature, the Whitney Humanities Center, and the Translation Initiative for a reading and discussion with Michael Sells’s of his new translation of Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi’s The Translator of Desires, on Thursday, April 22, 2021 at 4:30 p.m. EDT, with Feisal G. Mohamed.
Zoom Registration: tinyurl.com/sellsevent
16. The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies Presents:
Women Poets: Gendered Personhood and Displacement
Professor Fatemeh Shams, University of Pennsylvania
Friday April 16, 4:00-6:00 P.M. EST
Zoom Registration: https://uoft.me/IranianStudies
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/765732604290639
1.The Penn Language Center at the University of Pennsylvania invites applications for a part-time Lecturer in Persian starting August 2021.This is a one-year appointment with the possibility of a renewal, contingent upon satisfactory performance, student interest, the availability of funding, and need. Candidates will be expected to teach Advanced Persian language and culture at two levels (one course per semester).
Qualifications: evidence of successful teaching experience at the collegiate level, knowledge of language pedagogy, native or near-native fluency in Persian and English, at least an M.A. in Education, Middle Eastern Studies, or a related field. Candidates must currently be authorized to work in the U.S., without future need of any sponsorship for employment authorization because this is a part-time position.
Please send a letter of application (including a statement of teaching philosophy) and curriculum vitae to Dr. Mahyar Entezari (entezari@sas.upenn.edu). In the letter, please indicate the names and email addresses of three referees who can attest to your pedagogical qualifications.
Review of applications will begin on May 1, 2021, and continue until the position is filled. Preliminary interviews will be conducted via Zoom. The University of Pennsylvania is an EOE. Minorities, women, individuals with disabilities, and protected veterans are encouraged to apply.
2. “The Geopolitics of Womens Rights in the Middle East”, a talk by Dr. Nicola Pratt.
The department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh is delighted to host Dr. Nicola Pratt in this talk, part of our Spring 2021 research seminars. The seminar is open to all and FREE but registration is required.
Date and time: April 19, 5-6 PM, GMT +1.
Please reserve your FREE ticket and details of the Zoom event will be emailed to you directly on the day of the event.
For any questions please contact the seminar organiser, Dr. Ebtihal Mahadeen: ebtihal.mahadeen@ed.ac.uk
Abstract: This paper is based on a chapter of my recently published book, Embodying Geopolitics: Generations of Women’s Activism in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon (University of California Press, 2020). The book explores the ways in which the legacies of colonialism and ongoing neocolonialism shape the politics of gender and sexuality, with consequences for women’s activism and its effects. Drawing on more than 100 interviews with women activists of different generations, it foregrounds their personal narratives as situated and embodied knowledge about Middle East politics.
This paper explores a geopolitics of women’s rights through a case study of women’s rights activism in the wake of the 2011 Arab uprisings. Rather than viewing gender inequality as a stubborn residue of culture, I contend that it is performative of cultural difference that serves to produce a “sovereignty effect” (Roxanne Doty 1996a: 124) for Middle East states, whose sovereignty is otherwise continuously undermined as a result of their subordinate position within the international state system. The paper considers the ways in which women’s rights demands have posed a challenge to the exercise and organization of geopolitical power, or what Edward Said termed ‘the struggle over geography’ – a struggle ‘not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings’ (1993: 7). Viewing women’s rights as integral to the imagining and performance of state sovereignty enables us to understand why regimes may or may not support demands for women’s rights reforms in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Speaker’s bio: Nicola Pratt is Associate Professor (Reader) in the Politics and International Studies Department at the University of Warwick, UK, and Vice President of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES). She teaches and researches on the international politics of the Middle East, with a particular interest in feminist and decolonial approaches and a focus on ‘politics from below.’ She has written and co-edited a number of books on women and gender in the Middle East. Her most recent monograph, entitled, Embodying Geopolitics: Generations of Women’s Activism in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, was published by University of California Press in fall 2020. She has also written extensively on Egyptian ‘politics-from-below’ and is currently co-authoring a book on popular culture and the contested meanings of the 2011 Egyptian revolution; which is also the subject of a multimedia, digital archive that she co-curated: https://egyptrevolution2011.ac.uk/
Link to the Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-geopolitics-of-womens-rights-in-the-middle-east-tickets-149877364231
3. New BRISMES prizes for students and early career researchers
BRISMES is very pleased to announce the following new prizes for 2021:
BRISMES Early Career Development (ECR) Prize
Eligibility
Aims
The aim of the BRISMES Early Career Development Prize is to support activities geared toward strengthening the academic profile and CV of an early career scholar. Two prizes of £2,000 each are available. Eligible activities include (but are not necessarily limited to):
The activity must be completed within 12 months of receipt of the prize.
How to apply
Applicants must send a CV (4 pages max) and a statement of interest (1000 words max) to administrator@brismes.org including the following details:
Deadline
30 April 2021
Reporting
Applicants will submit a narrative summary of completed activities within 3 months after the prize period has ended (500 words max).
BRISMES Conference Student Paper Prize
Eligibility
Aims
To support BRISMES student members in the development of peer-reviewed work. The prize winner will receive £300 and will be mentored through a review process at BJMES by a senior member of the BRISMES academic community. Such a mentor will be identified on the basis of the disciplinary field and topic of the awarded conference paper. In addition, the desk review process will be skipped and the journal will commit to sending the paper directly to external reviewers for the final decision about publication.
How to apply
Send the paper with a short biography (150 words max) and CV to administrator@brismes.org, indicating the disciplinary field to which the paper is contributing.
The estimated word count for a typical paper in BJMES is 10,000 words, inclusive of the abstract, tables, references, figure captions.
Deadline
2 weeks after the end of the Annual Conference in which the paper was presented.
4. Online Zoom webinar on Wednesday, April 14, 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada), hosted by the Institute for Advanced Study, School of Historical Studies (Near Eastern Studies) and Digital Scholarship@IAS.
Bibliotheca Arabica – A Digital Home for the Arabic Manuscript Tradition
Verena Klemm (Institute of Arabic Studies, University of Leipzig, Germany) • Stefanie Brinkmann (Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig) • Boris Liebrenz (Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig) • Thomas Efer (Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig)
Arabic literatures are usually studied as purely creative products, a body of texts disembodied from their material life. Bibliotheca Arabica, in contrast, focusses on the context, the production, transmission, and reception of the manuscripts that for centuries carried the works we study today. Knowing what was copied, read, endowed, or owned when, where, and by whom, offers new perspectives on this immensely rich tradition. However, such a research agenda requires the collection, cross-reference, normalization, and visualization of widely diverse data created over more than one and a half millennia.
The long-term perspective of the Academy Program offers a unique environment to tackle such an ambitious task for an extended period. Over 18 years, the collection of data culled from biographical dictionaries, catalogues, and original manuscript research will enable sharply focused studies (the fate of single books or libraries) as well as broader overviews (literary trends and centers). The project’s database as a combination of bio-bibliography and manuscript reference, including a systematic collection and edition of manuscript notes, will provide a versatile tool not only for our own research agenda, but for the field as a whole.
This presentation will offer an overview of the scope, progress, and challenges of Bibliotheca Arabica, illuminated through exemplary case studies of libraries and marginal commentaries. It will showcase the database tools that are being developed as the backbone of our analytical endeavor.
Register in advance for this webinar here. After registering, you will receive an email containing information about joining the webinar.
For additional information contact María Mercedes Tuya by email to ds@ias.edu
5. IASH-Alwaleed Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021/22: Application deadline 30th April
IASH-Alwaleed Fellowships are open to early career researchers with interests in contemporary Islam and the Muslim world. Fellowship can last between three and ten months and come with a maximum stipend of £13,000.
We would particularly welcome applications linked to the themes of the new Institute Project on Decoloniality (IPD’24) taking place at IASH from 2021 to 2024. This project invites scholars from around the world to visit Edinburgh and conduct research on the theme of decoloniality, broadly understood. Projects dealing with other themes in relation to the contemporary Muslim world will also be fully considered for this round of Fellowships.
For further information, including how to apply, please follow this link: https://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/iash-alwaleed-postdoctoral-fellowship
Application deadline 30th April
6. THE ITS RAMADAN DISCOUNT 2021
In celebration of the holy month of Ramadan and the Eid, the Islamic Texts Society is offering a 15% discount on all titles.*
Books from the ITS are an aid to deepening one’s worship in this holy month, and also make an ideal Ramadan and Eid gift for family, friends and loved ones.
In order to take advantage of this offer, please visit our website by clicking on the button below and enter the coupon code, RAMADAN21, on the purchase page. Discount ends at 11:59PM on Sunday 16th May 2021.
*Excluding Arabic-English Lexicon by E. W. Lane. Coupon cannot be used in conjunction with other coupons nor is it applicable to titles that are already on sale.
7. The Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law & Practice (formerly the Journal of Islamic State Practice in International Laws ) is pleased to announce the call for papers and book reviews for its 2021 Issue. Please take a look at the attached calls.
MJTILP is a peer reviewed journal and can be accessed on HeinOnline. It has recently been accepted to be indexed with SCOPUS.
The journal welcomes submission of articles that meet its objectives for consideration with a view to publication. The journal comprises of three sections: (1) Articles, (2) Recent Developments, and (3) Book Reviews. The normal word length for articles is between 5000-15000 words (16000 including footnotes). The journal also welcomes shorter contributions (between 2000 to 3000 words) for its ‘Recent Developments’ section.
The MJTILP is not restricted to any specific field of law and aims to cover a wide range of subjects relevant to Islamic law and practice. Topics of particular interest include: transnational forms of Islamic law; constitutional developments, law reform and application of international law in the Muslim world; application of Shariah in Muslim or non-Muslim States; accommodation of Muslims in non-Muslim State; comparative practices of Muslim majority States; and intersections between Islamic law and international law or other religious and secular legal systems.
The deadline for submissions for the 2021 Issue is June 30th, 2021. The Issue will be published by the end of October 2021.
Please get in touch with the Editor-in-Chief Dr Ahmad Ghouri (a.a.ghouri@outlook.com) if you have any questions with regards to MJTILP or would like to discuss your paper submission.
8. May 20, 2021, 12:00-1:30 pm EST: “Beyond Ethiopia: The Islamic Intellectual History of the Horn of Africa.” Register in advance for this meeting here. IAS Ethiopian Studies Series
Much progress has been made over the past decade in the study of Muslim Ethiopia, and with the ongoing work of digitizing, cataloguing and analyzing the local Muslim manuscript tradition, scholars are in a better position than ever before to assess the intellectual strands prevalent among the Muslims of Ethiopia at any given time in history. Our objective for the webinar is threefold: First, we would like to get a clearer picture of what still needs to be done in terms of salvaging and providing access to the Muslim manuscript tradition of Ethiopia (or Ethiopian provenance) — what are the challenges and what would be the promises? Secondly, we hope to engage in a discussion that will assess the intellectual traditions prevalent among Ethiopian Muslims, e.g. legal traditions, doctrinal stances, and other prevalent expressions of Islamic identity, throughout history. Thirdly, we intend to engage in a discussion that will situate the intellectual history of Muslim Ethiopia beyond its core region and discuss how it intersected over the centuries with other prevalent strands and developments, such as the Horn of Africa (including Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia), Southern Arabia (Yemen), as well as East Africa or even the Indian Ocean network. Lastly, we are eager to think together about where the study of Muslim Ethiopia stands within the larger picture of Ethiopian Studies.
Panelists:
Maria Bulakh (Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow)
Alessandro Gori (University of Copenhagen)
Hassen Muhammad Kewo (Addis Ababa University)
Paul M. Love (Al Akhawayn University)
Anne Regourd (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris)
1.”Teaching the ‘Long’ 18th Century”
Friday, April 23, 2021; 9-11 am ET
Organized by Sarah Betzer, University of Virginia, and
Dipti Khera, Art History and Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Roundtable featuring:
Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Princeton University
Nebahat Avcıoğlu, Hunter College, City University of New York
Emma Barker, The Open University, London
Ananda Cohen-Aponte, Cornell University
Prita Meier, Art History and Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Nancy Um, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Stephen Whiteman, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London
This roundtable brings together scholars from a broad array of geographical foci and institutional perspectives who have been at the forefront of efforts to rethink approaches to thinking, researching, and, crucially, teaching the art and material culture of an interconnected “long” eighteenth century. Convened in conjunction with a session at the 2021 College Art Association conference, the roundtable will appear in distilled form in a dedicated issue of Journal18, forthcoming in Fall 2021.
Two key aims animate the roundtable and its afterlife in Journal18: 1) to reflect upon teaching the “long” eighteenth century, particularly in light of renewed debates on the reparation of objects, revision of histories, and inclusion of colonized and enslaved voices in museums, plantation sites, and public squares; and 2) to compile a list of resources and open-access supporting materials that are pragmatically useful for colleagues engaged in teaching the “long” and “broad” eighteenth century.
Register on Zoom:
https://virginia.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qPSWyVTlSzCdu6PkVWVUlw
2. Anthony Welch
29 April 1942 – 10 February 2021
It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Dr. Anthony Welch, noted art historian, scholar and academic leader. Tony had a long and distinguished career at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, beginning in 1971 as a lecturer with the Department of History in Art (now Art History & Visual Studies) and progressing to full professor in 1980. He also served as Associate Dean (1982-1985) before becoming the longest-serving Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts for a remarkable 13 years (1985-1998).
In the 1960s and early 1970s, there were few opportunities in North America to study Islamic art history. In the US, only Harvard University, New York University and the University of Michigan offered degrees in the subject. When he took up his position at the University of Victoria in 1971, Tony was the first fulltime lecturer in Islamic art history in Canada, and he remained the only one for much of his career.
Despite his administrative duties, Tony continued to teach throughout his career. He was an enthusiastic and inspiring lecturer, whose passion for the field of Islamic art history was immediately evident to all who knew him and which served to motivate and excite his many students. As a teacher, he was kind and encouraging and always willing to take the time to talk to any student individually, even during the years when his administrative duties weighed heavily upon him. He greatly influenced the careers of many of his students, especially those who continued on to study with him at the MA and PhD levels.
Having received his doctorate from Harvard in 1972, Tony’s dissertation formed the basis of his book, Artists for the Shah: Late Sixteenth-Century Painting at the Imperial Court of Iran (Yale University Press, 1976). Between 1972 and 1978, his four-volume catalogue, Collection of Islamic Art: Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, was privately published by Prince Sadruddin; this was an especially important contribution to the field as it made available material that was at the time little known.
In the early years of his career, Tony curated several exhibitions, each time authoring an accompanying catalogue of the same name. The first of these, entitled Shah ‘Abbas and the Arts of Isfahan, took place at The Asia Society in New York in 1973. A second exhibition, Calligraphy in the Arts of the Muslim World, was unique in its time for its singular focus on calligraphy, specifically the inscriptions found on various media and the inclusion of a translation of each one. This exhibition, too, opened at The Asia Society, in 1979, and then, over the following months, travelled to three other venues in the US. At Harvard, Tony had studied under the supervision of the renowned connoisseur and collector of, and lecturer on, Islamic painting, Stuart Cary Welch, with whom he co-curated the exhibition Arts of the Islamic Book: The Collection of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, which was first shown at the The Asia Society, in 1982, and then also travelled to three other venues in the US.
In later years his scholarly interests turned more to South Asia. Despite his increased administrative responsibilities, this engagement led to the publication of important studies on Delhi Sultanate and Mughal architecture, epigraphy, urbanism and landscape design, including, (co-authored with Howard Crane) “The Tughluqs: Master builders of the Dehli Sultanate,” Muqarnas 1 (1984): 123–36; “Architectural patronage and the past: The Tughluq sultans of India,” Muqarnas 10 (1993): 311–22; (co-authored with Hussein Keshani and Alexandra Bain), “Epigraphs, scripture and architecture,” Muqarnas 19 (2002): 12–43; and
“The Emperor’s Grief: Two Mughal Tombs,” Muqarnas 25 (2008): 255-273. He also published on other topics including hydraulic engineering and Indian manuscript painting.
In the latter part of his career at the University of Victoria, he turned his attention also to cataloguing and analyzing the archive of architectural drawings made by Richard Roskell Bayne (1801–78), who worked in the Indian subcontinent, resulting in an article (co-authored with Martin Segger and Nicholas DeCaro) entitled “Building for the Raj: Richard Roskell Bayne,” RACAR: revue d’art canadienne / Canadian Art Review 34.2 (2009): 74-86. Long a student of travelogues and their use for writing art and architectural history, he also edited, annotated, and wrote a substantial introduction for a translation by Clara Bargellini of the journal of a seventeenth-century Venetian traveller: The Travels and Journal of Ambrosio Bembo (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007).
Throughout his academic career, Tony was a member of numerous departmental, faculty and university committees. As Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts (1985-1998), he was a significant and influential contributor to the administration and development of the university. Following his tenure as Dean, he served as executive director of the Office of International Affairs (1998-2003), during which time he travelled extensively in Europe, Asia and South America promoting academic agreements between UVIC and various international universities. He also played a role in the wider community, and in 1992 was awarded a Canada 125th Anniversary Silver Medal in recognition of his work (1987-1991) in the development of an Arts Policy for the City of Victoria.
However, it is perhaps Tony’s very particular and subtle sense of humour that will be most fondly remembered by his former students and colleagues.
He is survived by his wife Hyesoon Kim, his son Nicholas, and his daughters Bronwen and Emily.
Submitted by Marcus Milwright and Elaine Wright
(With thanks to Hussein Keshani, Eleanor Sims, Lisa Golombek, Lesley Jessop and Janis Elliott for their comments and input.)
3. ONLINE Seminar “Alternative Dispute Resolution in Islamic and Middle Eastern Law” by Dr Jonathan Ercanbrack (SOAS), London, 8 April 2021, 5 pm – 6:15 pm GMT
The panel of distinguished experts will explore the practice of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in Islamic and Middle Eastern law and share practical insights on the arbitration practice in Qatar and Turkey. The webinar provides an in-depth opportunity to explore the latest arbitration trends and controversies in the region.
Information and registration: https://www.soas.ac.uk/law/events/08apr2021-alternative-dispute-resolution-in-islamic-and-middle-eastern-law.html
4. ONLINE Roundtable “Umayyads, Early ʿAbbāsids, and Historical Periodization”, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 9 April 2021, 11:00 am PST
The temporal specificity of this subject speaks not onlx to the unstable boundary between Eurocentric Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, but more importantly to local schemes of periodization – Islamic, Jewish, and Christian. Likewise, the geographic specificity of empire that is implied by these dynastic subjects extends beyond the Middle East and cannot be contained by that area studies construct. These dual, overlapping frameworks for analysis offer opportunities for investigation and reflection.
Information and registration: https://mcusercontent.com/4eead3c27d77b3e347cf43c18/files/1ff58878-47ec-4036-84d8-30f3fadcb364/CMES_Periodization_Roundtable_papers2.pdf
5. ONLINE Seminar “Islam, Judaism, and Decoloniality” with Santiago Slabodsky and Sanober Umar, Jewish-Muslim Research Network, University of Michigan, 12 April 2021, 10:00 am ET
The authors suggest some paths towards disrupting/decentering (Eurocentric) intellectual epistemic hegemonies in the broadly defined fields of Jewish Studies and Islamic/Muslim Studies. Together, they will reflect on how we can draw on Southern epistemologies to broaden the horizon of Jewish and Muslim studies.
Information and registration: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/jmrn/upcoming-events/islam-judaism-and-decoloniality-with-santiago-slabodsky-and-sanober-umar/
6. ONLINE International Conference on “Canon and Censorship in the Islamic Intellectual and Theological History”, Berlin Institute for Islamic Theology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 8-10 October 2021
Muslim societies and theologies did not witness the emergence of a single institution that establishes a binding canon for everyone who adheres to Islam. Instead, the constitutional positions are (re)negotiated constantly in a scholarly discourse. Against this backdrop, the conference focuses on the question of how certain texts and positions evolve to a canon while others get lost in time.
7. Annual Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Association (CESS), Ohio State University, Columbus, 14-17 October 2021
Submissions relating to all aspects of humanities and social science scholarship are invited. The geographic domain encompasses Central Asia, the Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan, the Black Sea region, East and Central Europe etc.
Deadline for abstracts: 3 May 2021. Information: https://www.centraleurasia.org/conferences/annual/
8. 4th IDEO Conference: “The Cairo Edition of the Qurʾān (1924): Texts, Histories and Challenges”, Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies, Cairo, 16-17 October 2021
The conference examines the Cairo edition of the Qurʾān printed under the authority of the al-Azhar committee in 1924. The edition`s advent bears a significance that goes beyond the sphere of belief and takes an important place in the history of Islamic civilisation, including the history of institutions, material history, history of religious thought and history of Islamic studies. Papers in Arabic, French and English are welcomed.
Deadline for abstracts: 15 May 2021. Information: https://www.ideo-cairo.org/en/2021/03/call-for-papers-the-cairo-edition-of-the-qur%ca%bean-1924/
9. Journée d’études : « Articuler l’histoire sociale et environmental : Proche-Orient, Maghreb, Afrique, XIXe-XXIe siècles », Aix-en-Provence, 20 mai 2022 (date à confirmer)
Cette journée d’études a pour objectif de rassembler des historien-ne-s contemporanéistes spécialistes du Proche-Orient, du Maghreb et de l’Afrique travaillant dans une optique environnementale.
Date limit pour les propositions de communication : 30 avril 2021. Information : https://iismm.hypotheses.org/51458
10. 6th World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES-6), University of La Manouba, Tunis, 19-23 September 2022
Mind this date!
11. Posts:
Lecturer in Arabic Language (2 Years), University of Bayreuth, Germany
Candidate profile: Native or near-native proficiency in Arabic; knowledge of German or English; A. degree or higher in Arabic language and/or linguistics; specialization or certificates in TAFL (Teaching Arabic as a Second Language) are especially welcome; university-level teaching experience.
Deadline for application: 12 April 2021. Information: https://www.uni-bayreuth.de/de/universitaet/arbeiten-an-der-universitaet/stellenangebote/wiss-personal/SZ-Lektor-ArabischDuE/index.html
Postdoctoral Researcher in Islamic Theology, University of Tübingen
Qualification: Doctorate in the field of Islamic Studies, Arabic Studies or Islamic Theology. We are looking for a highly motivated and talented scholar who is interested in conducting research in the field of theological Hadith studies and who is familiar with the relevant areas.
Deadline for applications: 15 April 2021. Information: https://professorpositions.com/postdoctoral-researcher-in-islamic-theology,i19353.html
12. Articles on “The Qur’an in History: The History of the Qur’an: From Canonization to Critique and Semantic Hermeneutics” for Special Issue for Journal “Religions”
This is issue will explore the correlation between the Qur’an and the historical events that in different ways have affected its understanding and interpretation during the thirteen centuries of Islamic history. The main idea is to work on specific verses, precise suwar (part of them), or singular words through a historicized hermeneutical approach which could frame and share facets, insights, and makings which have settled the understanding of this revelation in a specific phase of Islam and human history.
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2021. Information: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/QH_HQ_FCCS
13. New “Journal of Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies (JLAIBS)”, Edinburgh University Press
The JLAIBS as a hotspot for interdisciplinary dialogue aims to disseminate new approaches and methodologies that intend to transform our understanding of broader Late Antique and Medieval phenomena, such as knowledge transfer and cultural exchanges, by looking beyond single linguistic traditions or political boundaries.
Information: https://www.euppublishing.com/loi/jlaibs
14. New Book Series “Islam, Culture and Society” Leuven University Press
Topics that are of particular interest to the series are the interdisciplinary roles of history, social behaviours, religious (and other) identities, local traditions, cultural and legal systems, as well as diversity, inclusion, and tolerance in (re)shaping the plurality, changeability, diversity and global connectedness of Muslim cultures and societies.
Information: https://iismm.hypotheses.org/52884
15. An ‘enhanced’ Qur’an manuscript from Madura
The British Library
16. Digital Archive of Persian Periodicals
In order to facilitate interchanging the ideas using a community service with both private and public messaging features, a Twitter account (@PersianProject) has just been opened for the project as following:
http://twitter.com/PersianProject
You are kindly requested to join now (if your professional limitations allow) and share your comments and queries while following development of the project.
We will be pleased to discuss on your specific concerns.
Kind regards,
Majid Samavi
Head of the Persian Archives Project
17. The American Lafayette of Iran: The Story of Howard C. Baskerville
by Reza Aslan, April 23, 2021 2:00 pm (EST.
You can register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_RPfjuWavSGqJ4t02duXPPw
Aslan’s forthcoming book, BASKERVILLE, will be published by W.W. Norton & Company.
18. On April 14th at 6pm EST Dr. John Seyller will be giving the 2021 Ananda Coomaraswamy Annual Lecture on South Asian Art at the MFA, Boston.
His lecture, titled “A Rediscovered Mughal Master,” will present new research on Ilyas Bahadur, a long-overlooked artist active in India in the late 17th century.
For information on the lecture click here. Free registration can be found here.
19. The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies Presents:
Women Depicting Freedom of Movement in Iranian Cinema
Professor Nacim Pak-Shiraz, University of Edinburgh
Friday April 9, 4:00-6:00 P.M. EST
Zoom Registration: https://uoft.me/IranianStudies
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/218454189994463
20. La prochaine séance du séminaire “Littératures d’Asie du Sud” accueillera Marc Toutant (CNRS/CETOBaC)pour une communication intitulée :
Le turk est « la langue des rois »
Nouvelles sources manuscrites sur la description de la langue turke dans l’Inde moghole (XVIIe-XIXe siècles)
Le séminaire se tiendra en visioconférence, le vendredi 9 avril 2021, entre 10h30 et 12h30 (heure de Paris). Les personnes souhaitant y assister devront se connecter sur BigBlueButton à partir du lien suivant :
https://webinaire.ehess.fr/b/cas-it0-7mq
1.Call for book proposals
I.B.Tauris is seeking book proposals for a new academic book series: Political Communication and Media Practices in the Middle East and North Africa.
Books in this series critically engage with the complex and fluid relationship between politics, communication and culture in the Middle East and North Africa, taking into account the specificities of social and political local contexts, diverse political and media systems, media institutions, media and political actors and populations as well as differentiations along religious, sectarian, ethnic, gendered and racial lines. Topics and themes include, but are not limited to, the following areas:
-Political communication and crises (wars, conflict, unrest).
-Digital activism in the Middle East and North Africa.
-Social networks as spaces for political communication.
-Gendered political communication in the Middle East and North Africa.
-Political communication and popular culture.
-Affective political communication.
-Journalism as political communication.
-Ethical political communication practices
-Media and emerging political alliances.
-Religion and political Communication
-Hate speech/racism as political communication.
The series publishes monographs and edited collections. All proposal and manuscripts are subject to rigorous peer review.
To submit a proposal, please fill out the form on our website here and submit it to series editors Dr Dina Matar – dm27@soas.ac.uk, Dr Zahera Harb – zahera.harb.1@city.ac.uk, or Rory Gormley, Commissioning Editor at I.B.Tauris – rory.gormley@bloomsbury.com.
2. The Contemporary Turkey book series is open for submissions.
The Contemporary Turkey monograph series is a joint initiative by the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA), internationally renowned for its support of independent academic research, and leading publisher of Middle East and Turkish Studies I.B. Tauris, an imprint of Bloomsbury Academic.
The series publishes cutting edge research monographs and edited collections from a new generation of scholars working on modern Turkey across the social sciences and humanities. In bringing to light new data and insights directly from the field, this series is distinguished by its emphasis on innovative approaches that challenge established ways of examining Turkey.
The series is seeking proposals on the following topics:
If you have a book project or idea that you’d like us to consider for the series, please contact the lead editor Dr Ceren Lord at the University of Oxford, UK – ceren.lord@area.ox.ac.uk, or Rory Gormley, Commissioning Editor at I.B.Tauris – rory.gormley@bloomsbury.com – both of whom will be pleased to give you feedback on your idea.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/series/contemporary-turkey/
3. Posts:
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston – Curatorial Assistant, Art of the
Islamic Worlds
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=61195
Colgate University – Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=61173
University of Alabama – Birmingham – College of Arts and
Sciences-Visiting Assistant Professor- Art and Art History
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=61095
specializing in either the Islamicate World or Africa, with a research focus on transcultural exchange. This is a one-year position, with the possibility of renewal for a second year, and begins in August of 2021.
4. ‘A Mughal Queen and her Manuscript: The Ramayana made for Hamida Banu Begum’
Webinar
12 April 2021
6 pm (Doha, GMT+3)/ 11 am (EST)
MIA is delighted to welcome our former curator Dr. Marika Sardar, Prof. John Seyller, and Prof. Audrey Truschke for a webinar about the publication of our new book – the Ramayna of Hamida Banu Begum.
To book, please visit https://www.qm.org.qa/en/mughal-queen-and-her-manuscript-ramayana-made-hamida-banu-begum . This webinar will be delivered in English.
5. The Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies (CAMES) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) is pleased to announce that our intensive summer Arabic programs will be offered online between June 14 and July 30, 2021.
CAMES offers two separate seven-week programs that provide intensive online instruction in Arabic through a rigorous academic curriculum, complemented by an integrated series of films, guest lectures, and other online activities:
Arabic Language and Culture Program: this program is designed for learners who want to develop their overall proficiency in Arabic in both its Standard and Lebanese varieties. The program emphasizes the development of various skills within a communicative, proficiency-based framework that considers Arabic in all its varieties as “one language”. To this end, it integrates Standard Arabic and Lebanese Arabic within the same course, and gives special attention to the development of intercultural competence in Arabic.
Lebanese Arabic Program: this program is designed for learners who want to develop their proficiency in Lebanese Arabic. The program focuses on speaking and listening skills, as well as building/enhancing intercultural competence in Lebanese Arabic.
Each program provides nine credit hours of instruction at various levels of proficiency. Students may transfer the credits earned to their home institutions.
The application deadline is April 14, 2021. For detailed information about the academic content of our programs, application forms, costs, and financial support, please visit our website.
Contact us on cames@aub.edu.lb if you have any questions.
6. ‘Plague and the Fall of Baghdad (1258)’
Nahyan Fancy and Monica H. Green
Medical History 65/2, April 2021
7. University of Edinburgh – Research fellow in Coptic papyrology:
European Research Council (ERC) project: The Finances of the Caliphate: Abbasid Fiscal Practice in Islamic Late Antiquity (CALIPHAL FINANCES)
UE07, £33,797 – £40,322 – Full-time fixed-term position (35 hours per week) – available from 1st September 2021 to 31st August 2025 (4 years).
The Research Fellow in Coptic Papyrology will be studying the published corpus of Coptic documents relating to fiscal practices, publish new material in this language and research a topic of fiscal history based on that documentation.
Deadline: 23rd April 2021, 05:00 PM (GMT).
How to apply: Research Fellow in Coptic Papyrology – University of Edinburgh Jobs Careers (oraclecloud.com)
For questions, contact:
Dr Marie Legendre
Lecturer in Islamic History
Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies (IMES)
8. Lecturer in Arabic and Comparative Literature (T&R)
Queen Mary University of London – School of Languages, Linguistics & Film
Closing date: 29.4.21
9. Gramsci in the Middle East and North Africa Conference
9-10 May 2022, LSE
Receipt of abstracts: Monday 13 September 2021
https://www.lse.ac.uk/middle-east-centre/news/gramsci-in-middle-east-conference
10. The Social Science Research Council’s Transregional Collaboratory on the Indian Ocean was established in 2019, with generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to catalyze research into the intersections of social and environmental change in the region.
Drawing together scholars and institutions from across the globe, the program funds cutting-edge social inquiry about the Indian Ocean region. It also supports the development of new models of international research partnerships, grounded in principles of ethical collaboration and equity in the production and dissemination of knowledge in and about the Global South. The Collaboratory’s inaugural funding phase, in 2020, focused on the collaborative research planning process, and supported the work of eight interdisciplinary research teams through the Transregional Planning Grants initiative.
This year, the Collaboratory invites proposals for 12-month collaborative research grants to conduct fully conceptualized research projects that deepen understanding of the effects of political, economic, and social processes in contexts of profound climate and environmental change in and across Indian Ocean countries. This competition is open to research teams intending to embark on new research projects or to expand research in progress in novel directions.
The deadline for applications is April 26, 2021, at 12:00 p.m. Eastern time.
https://www.ssrc.org/fellowships/view/transregional-collaborative-research-grants/
11. Understanding the Middle East: The unfinished Arab revolutions: Power, Politics and Governance in the Middle East
Turin, 5-9 July
Application deadline: 17.6.21
The 8th edition of the summer school “Understanding the Middle East” critically unpacks power, politics and governance, exploring the role they have in re-defining the trajectories of Arab states
12. 10 years So-called Arab Spring – a critical perspective
Online Lecture Series | KIARA, University of Leipzig | Wednesdays, 19:30 (CET)
The Critical Students of Islamic and Arabic Studies (KIARA), part of the University of Leipzig, was founded last summer by students from various disciplines. The programme for upcoming lectures in the series ’10 Years So-called Arab Spring – a critical perspective’ is now available. These lectures are intended to offer
a space for critical reflection. The main questions will be the following: What happened in West Asia and North Africa 10 years ago? Which critical perspectives should be included?
13. Ottoman Historical Documents, The Institutions of an Empire
V.L. Ménage
Edited by Colin Imber
Edinburgh, 2021
14. Histories and Archives of Arabic Publishing
Between April-June 2021 the British Library and Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, will co-host Histories and Archives of Arabic Publishing: an online series of talks exploring publishing practices in Arabic as a site for unfolding intellectual networks, artistic practices and political imaginaries from the 1960s until the present.
15. FIRST IMPRESSIONS: PRINT MEDIA IN THE MODERN ISLAMIC WORLD
Mira Xenia Schwerda, Harvard University
Hala Auji, American University of Beirut
Yasemin Gencer, Indiana University
Aditi Chandra, University of California-Merced
Elizabeth Rauh, American University in Cairo
Friday, April 9th, 12:00pm ET
[Webinar]Silsila Spring 2021 Lecture Series, Translations
The first examples of print in the Islamic world, in the form of block print amulets and scrolls, date to the tenth century. From those early productions until the present, various printing technologies and practices have played an important role in Islamic art and visual culture, particularly during the 19th-century when lithography and new engraving methods shaped the technologies of image making. Despite the central role printing plays in producing, circulating, and disseminating visual material and expressions in the Islamic world, studies of print culture rarely feature in textbooks or surveys on Islamic art. One reason is the medium’s resistance to traditional fine art categories: print is a mechanical technology as well as an art form. It also crosses media borders in other ways. As print operates in multiples, the old art historical model centered on the “original” artwork does not apply in studies of printed images and texts.
In Islamic art history, studies of printing and its spread largely focus on surviving medieval examples, cross-cultural encounters, and the introduction of the modern press, and less on the persistent evolution and generative power of this artistic technology. This panel proposes a reframing of how the field addresses the medium of printing by centering the art form as a driving force in image production and artistic developments in the modern Islamic world. The papers will discuss different examples of printing visual culture, from engraved portraits, to photographic postcards, lithographed illustrated periodicals, and examples of contemporary printmaking and popular devotional prints. Such printed images offer new insights into the visual materials and cultural practices of the modern Islamic world.
Full details of the event and a link to register as an attendee can be found at:
Only registered attendees will be able to access this event.
16. BIPS ONLINE LECTURES 22 APRIL 2021, 5PM BST
‘The Unheard Voices from Eastern Iran and the Eastern Islamicate World’
Dr Arezou Azad (University of Oxford)
For further information and to register, see: https://www.bips.ac.uk/event/unheard_voices/
17. The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University seeks applications for a preceptor in Persian Language. The appointment is expected to begin on July 1, 2021. The preceptor will be responsible for teaching five courses per academic year, participating in curricular development, and training and supervising teaching fellows.
The position is three years, renewable for a term of up to five years, contingent on performance, enrollments, curricular need, position availability, and divisional dean authorization.
The successful applicant should have an Advanced degree in Persian, Applied Linguistics, or foreign/second-language acquisition and pedagogy, and native or near-native proficiency in Persian.
Extensive experience and demonstrated excellence in college-level Persian language teaching at all levels (novice to advanced) is preferred.
Please submit the following materials through the ARIeS portal (https://academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/10183).
Minimum Number of References Required: 3
Maximum Number of References Allowed: 5
Applications must be submitted no later than April 30, 2021, 11:59 pm Eastern Time.
Contact information:
Soma Roy, Search Administrator
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
Contact email: roy@fas.harvard.edu
For more information, and to apply : https://academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/10183
1. Webinar – Ziad Jamaleddine, “Drawing The Isolated Mosque” (Series: Re-Approaching Architecture of the Lands of Islam) – 6 April, 2021 / 1 PM EST
From the early nineteenth century onwards, the depiction and analysis of mosque architecture by Europeans, central to the Western discovery of the lands of Islam, has been heavily shaped by Orientalist visual constructs. From the exoticized but scenographic environments depicted by Orientalist painters to the later “scientific” and technical drawings produced by archaeologists and historian, the representation of mosque architecture has had deep impact on disciplinary understandings of these buildings. To trace this effect, this paper will analyze the evolution and reproduction of the plans of five historical mosques through their publication in several of the canonical survey texts of Islamic architecture produced by Western scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through this study of the shifts in each building’s representation, the paper will argue for a relationship between the purification and isolation of the drawing and the translation of the mosque into an idealized and timeless monument. Articulating this connection highlights the gaps of knowledge reproduced with these canonical texts and their impacts on the discipline of architecture.
Jamaleddine is an Assistant Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (NY), and co-founder of L.E.FT Architects (Beirut). His writings have been published in Climates: Architecture and the Planetary Imaginary (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2016), The Arab City: Architecture and Representation (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2016). Among his built projects is the award-winning Moukhtara Mosque (2017).
Register here for the link: https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-c8k2dqKQqqg0fIEoaIrEA
2. Medieval & Early Modern Studies Festival 18-19th June 2021
This two-day event celebrates Medieval and Early Modern history, 400 – 1800, and encourages applications from a wide range of interdisciplinary topics, including but not limited to, politics, religion, economics, art, drama, literature, and domestic culture. MEMS Fest aims to be an informal space in which postgraduate students, early career researchers, and academics can share ideas and foster conversations, whilst building a greater sense of community. Undergraduate students in their final year of study are also welcome at the conference.
We invite abstracts of up to 250 words for individual research papers of 20 minutes in length on ANY subject relating to the Medieval and Early Modern periods. The research can be in its earliest stages or a more developed piece.
We also encourage 700-word abstracts proposing a three-person panel, presenting on a specific subject or theme in Medieval or Early Modern studies. If you have an idea and would like us to advertise for it, please contact us at memsfestival@gmail.com.
Deadline for all Paper and Panel Proposals is Friday 30th April 2021. All applications must be sent to memsfestival@gmail.com with ‘MEMS Fest 2021 Abstract’ as the subject of the email.
This opportunity allows you to showcase your research in a friendly environment and to network with fellow scholars from far-reaching institutions. For more information please contact us on Facebook, Twitter, or at memsfestival.wordpress.com. Please do not hesitate to ask questions.
MEMS Festival 2021 is supported by the Centre of Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent.
3. ONLINE Seminar “Obscene and Sacred Dimensions of Medieval Persian Poetry: Sa’di’s Literary Pornography as “Counter-Text” to Mystical Lyric” by Domenico Ingenito (UCLA), 31 March 2021, 4:00 pm-6:30 pm GMT
As a part of a LGBTQ Iran series, this webinar talks about pornographic depictions of , often same-sex, sexual passions as portrayed in classical Persian literature.
Information and registration: https://www.soas.ac.uk/smei/events/31mar2021-obscene-and-sacred-dimensions-of-medieval-persian-poetry-sadis-literary-pornography-as-cou.html
4. ONLINE Lecture: “Esoteric Authority and Sufi Networks of the hajj. East African hajj Accounts, 1898-1951” by Anne K. Bang (University of Bergen), Leibnitz Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, 1 April 2021, 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm CET
This talk presents a selection of East African travel and hajj accounts and takes note of how the hajj itself is described. It argues that travellers tended to emphasize the esoteric authority they had obtained on their journey (encounters with shaykhs dead and alive) over normative rituals such as the hajj.
Information and registration: https://www.zmo.de/en/events/esoteric-authority-and-sufi-networks-of-the-hajj-east-african-hajj-accounts
5. ONLINE Seminar: “Mosques and Islamist Activism: Spatial Evidence from Interwar Cairo” by Steven Brooke, Middle East Studies Program, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 19 April 2021, 12:00 pm CST
The author`s findings seek to deepen our understanding of the conditions under which certain mosques become sites for Islamist mobilization, and demonstrate how historical spatial data can be utilized to study political activism.
Information and registration: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nSoGrP0TT1O0rfdJoPE2Hg
6. ONLINE 7th International Graduate Conference on “Materiality In the Eastern Mediterranean World”, Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies (CEMS), Central European University (Vienna/Budapest), 28-29 May 2021
We welcome approaches that focus on the relations between humans and their physical surroundings, the way they understand, perceive, and use them. Moreover, in turning towards the material, the conference intends to explore connections and entanglements between human/non-human, spiritual/physical, and phenomenological/epistemological.
Deadline for abstracts: 5 April 2021. Information: https://cems.ceu.edu/cems-graduate-conference-2021
7. International Conference: “Musical Sources and Theories from Ancient Greece to the Ottoman Period”, Ruhr-University Bochum, 10-12 June 2021
Papers will focus on Arabic, Persian and Byzantine music theory, instruments and ways of transmission, with their roots in Ancient Greece and an outlook onto Ottoman and Safavid music. Call for Papers closed. Guests are welcome!
Information: https://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/orient/aktuelles/index.html.en
8. ONLINE International Society for the Sociology of Religion 36th Conference: “Religion in Global/Local Perspective: Diffusion, Migration, Transformation”, 12-15 July 2021
Global migration, labor mobility and travel lead to the diffusion of religion, but also to the questioning of religious boundaries and their potential transformation. The difference between religion, spirituality, culture, and nonreligion become themselves diffuse and even blurred. People feel, rediscover and redefine their religious and non-religious horizons in new ways through their everyday lives. This conference highlights the transnational, global and local character of these issues and aims to explore the nature of religious diffusion, encounters, and transformation.
Information: https://conference-system.sisr-issr.org/conferences/conference-2021/#papers
9. ONLINE Summer Conference of the “Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE)”, 24-25 July 2021
ASTENE organises conferences biennially to allow for a coming together of those with an interest in early travel and early travellers in Egypt and the Near East.
Deadline for abstracts: 30 April 2021. Information: conference.astene@gmail.com; http://www.astene.org.uk
10. ONLINE or HYBRID: Fifth Annual Doctoral Conference in Religious Studies: “Wellbeing, Harm, and Religion”, Masaryk Universita, Central European University, Charles University, University of Pardubice, Brno, Czech Republic, 9-11 September 2021
The aim of the conference is to create a platform for the study of the intersections amongst religion, health, and diverse cultural conceptions of harm and wellbeing.
Deadline for abstracts: 30 April 2021. Information: https://religionistika.phil.muni.cz/where2021
11. International Conference: „Media Aesthetics of Occidentalism“, Centre for Near and Middle East Studies, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany, 26-28 January 2022
The conference pursues the central question “How do media aesthetic qualities contribute to the constitution of Occidentalist discourses?”
Deadline for abstracts: 31 May 2021. Information; https://www.online.uni-marburg.de/okzidentalismus/index.php/2021/02/08/internationale-abschlusstagung-26-bis-28-januar-2022/
12. Eight Fellowships (2 years) of the “Academy in Exile” at the Forum Tansregionale Studien in Berlin and the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) in Essen
Eligible are scholars from any country, who have a PhD in the humanities, social sciences, or law, and who are at risk because of their academic work and/or civic engagement in human rights, democracy, and the pursuit of academic freedom.
Deadline for applications: 31 March 2021. Information: https://www.academy-in-exile.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/AiE_Call_for_Applications-VW-February_2021-Extension.pdf
13. Assistant Professor in Middle Eastern Studies (Focus Israel and the Jewish World), University of Groningen
Candidates should have a broad expertise in the contemporary Middle East, with focus on the (modern) history, politics and culture of Israel and the Jewish world in their Middle Eastern context; proficiency in Modern Israeli Hebrew and in Modern Standard Arabic.
Deadline for applications: 12 April 2021.
Information: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/job-opportunities/?details=00347-02S00087BP
14. Assistant/Associate Professor of Arabic, American University in Dubai, Fall 2021
Qualification: Ph.D. in Arabic Literature and/or Linguistics from a Western accredited university; previous experience of teaching Arabic in a Western higher education system, with high ratings of teaching effectiveness.
Information: https://mesana.org/resources-and-opportunities/2021/03/23/assistant-associate-professor-of-arabic
15. Visiting Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York
One-year appointment, beginning fall semester 2021. The successful candidate should have expertise in a field of broad concern to peace and conflict studies, including but not limited to: regional or transnational conflict, gendered conflict, ethnic or religious conflict, racialized policing/violence, etc. We welcome applicants with disciplinary training in sociology, anthropology, political science, international relations, international studies, history, or geography.
Review of applications will begin on 26 March and continue until the position is filled.
Information: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/18202
16. Assistant Professor in Critical Middle East/North Africa Studies and/or Middle East/North African Diaspora Studies, University of Illinois, Chicago
We are especially interested in candidates with a critical approach whose work addresses one or more of these themes: transnationalism, critical race and/or empire, militarism/war, social movements, gender/sexuality, energy and climate justice, critical health/medicine, and media/popular culture.
Deadline for applications: 9 April 2021. Information: https://mesana.org/resources-and-opportunities/2021/03/26/assistant-professor-anthropology-middle-east-and-muslim-societies
17. Funding up to £20,000 with Large Research, Research and Study Grants, British Institute at Ankara (BIAA)
The BIAA supports academics and research focused on Turkey and/or the Black Sea region. The Institute welcomes applications across the arts, humanities and the social sciences, including but not limited to archaeology, ancient and modern history, heritage management, and contemporary issues in public policy and political sciences.
Deadline for application: 28 April 2021. Information: https://biaa.ac.uk/opportunities-grants/open-calls
18. ONLINE Residence Program in Advanced Arabic Language and Social Studies, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Fall Semester 2021
The program meets the language, culture, and academic needs of advanced non-native and heritage graduate students who wish to strengthen their language and cultural skills, as well as prepare for specific challenges related to their academic areas of expertise. The Program is delivered entirely in Arabic.
Deadline for application: 31 May 2021.
Information and registration: https://dilc.wufoo.com/forms/ra88et51c17saf/
19. Chapters for Edited Book on “Muslims and Societies in Africa” (Including Arab Muslims of North Africa), University of Abuja
To what extent has the Muslim life been resilient or influenced by colonialism and globalisation? What is the extent of conformism or dissonance from the various constructs that determine Muslim identity. How does being a Muslim matter in the social, political and economic spheres of African societies.
Deadline for abstracts: 10 April 2021. Information: https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/7149932/muslims-and-societies-africa
20. Articles on “Theoretical and Experimental Issues in Arabic Linguistics” for Special Issue of “Al-Karmil: Studies in Arabic Language and Literature”, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, University of Haifa
Articles are invited on: Phonology and morphology; Grammar of Classical and Modern Standard Arabic; Semantics and pragmatics; Sociolinguistics; Psycholinguistics; Discourse analysis; Syntax of the Qurʾān, written in English or Arabic.
Deadline for submissions: 10 April 2021.
Information: http://alkarmil.haifa.ac.il/index.php/en/instruction-for-authors
21. Tomayto, Tomahto: Identifying Azerbaijani Manuscripts in the British Library Collections
1.7-8 October 2021 Event: Call for Papers – Arabic Pasts: Histories and Historiographies
The Aga Khan University Institute’s for the Study of Muslim Civilisations
This annual exploratory and informal workshop offers the opportunity to reflect on history writing in Arabic. We encourage contributions focused on methodologies, research agendas, and case studies that investigate history writing in the Middle East and North Africa 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 the region. Papers might elucidate the following sorts of questions:
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 (subject to UK government guidelines on travel), with the possibility to have an online component featuring participants who are unable to travel to the UK. As in past years, there is a small budget to provide some travel assistance for scholars outside of London.
Date
The workshop will take place on 7-8 October 2021.
Organisers
Arabic Pasts is co-organised by Sarah Bowen Savant (AKU-ISMC), Hugh Kennedy (SOAS University of London) and James McDougall (University of Oxford).
Submission
Please submit an abstract of 300 words or less by 19 April to ArabicPastsConf@aku.edu.
2. The Center for Language Studies (CLS) at Brown University seeks a dynamic language professional for a full-time position as Visiting Lecturer in Persian beginning July 1st, 2021.
The ideal candidate has experience teaching both classical and modern Persian to undergraduate and graduate students as well as to heritage learners. This is a one-year renewable appointment contingent upon a successful review and the continued needs of the department. The teaching load is 6 courses per academic year (2 semesters).
Brown University has a thriving Center for Middle East Studies and wishes to expand its language program in Persian. The ideal candidate will be motivated to grow the program through excellence in teaching and programming relevant to undergraduate students. The new colleague will join the faculty in World Languages and Cultures.
Qualifications
Application Instruction: http://apply.interfolio.com/85359
Please use the interfolio link above to submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, a teaching portfolio, if available, or a statement of teaching philosophy, two sample syllabi, and a statement on your commitment to a culture of equity and inclusion, as well as two letters of reference. Review of applications will start on May 1, 2021.
Any questions should be addressed to Jane Sokolosky, CLS Director, at languages@brown.edu.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
3. Book launch: Islam and the Liberal State
Online event: Thu, 22 April 2021, 17:00 – 18:30 BST
You are warmly invited to the launch of Stephen H. Jones’s book ‘Islam and the Liberal State’, published by IB Tauris in November 2020. In the book Jones narrates a gradual but, he argues, decisive shift in British Islamic institutions since Muslims settled in the UK in large numbers in the 1950s. Drawing on this narrative, he makes the case for a variety of liberalism that is open to the expression of religious arguments in public and to associations between religious groups and the state.
The event will be chaired by Daniel Nilsson DeHanas and will feature an introduction from the author as well as panel responses from Alyaa Ebbiary, Yahya Birt and Khadijah Elshayyal.
For more details and to register, see the following link:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-islam-and-the-liberal-state-tickets-145834949259
4. Words of Experience, Translating Islam with Carl W. Ernst
Equinox, 2021
https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/words-experience/
5. Le Forum du GIS MOMM se poursuit les 30 mars et 6 avril prochains, avec des tables-rondes sur la recherche française et les nouvelles circulations régionales des savoirs
https://framaforms.org/inscription-au-forum-2021-du-gis-moyen-orient-et-mondes-musulmans-1614176644
——
30 mars 2021
9-12h : Table-ronde 4 : La recherche française et les nouvelles circulations régionales des savoirs : Égypte, Proche-Orient, péninsule Arabique
Modéré par Iyas Hassan (Sorbonne Université) Avec Frédéric Abecassis (IFAO), Agnès Deboulet (CEDEJ), Kamel Doraï (IFPO), Pauline Koetschet (IFPO), Frédéric Lagrange (CEFREPA) Dominique Pieri (IFPO) et Abbès Zouache (CEFREPA)
6 avril 2021
9-10h30 : Table-ronde 5 : La recherche française et les nouvelles circulations régionales des savoirs : Maghreb
Modéré par Choukri Hmed (Paris-Dauphine) Avec Katia Boissevain (CNRS, IDEMEC), Adrien Delmas (CJB), Oissila Saaidia (IRMC)
11h-13h : Table-ronde 6 : La recherche française et les nouvelles circulations régionales des savoirs : mondes turc et iranien, Asie Centrale
Modéré par Elise Massicard (CNRS/CERI, GIS MOMM) Avec Juliette Cleuziou (Université Lyon 2), Adrien Fauve (IFEAC), Denis Hermann (CNRS/IFEA), Sepideh Parsapajouh (CNRS/CéSor), Julien Thorez (CNRS/CERMI), Alexandre Toumarkine (INALCO)
Programme : http://majlis-remomm.fr/71441
Contact : Marielle Morin : marielle.morin@cnrs.fr
6. The conference (March, 25th) “The Umayyad and early Abbasid Reservoir-Enclosure of ‘Ayn Sawdā (Azraq Oasis, Jordan)” by Lorraine Abu-Azizeh, Julie Bonnéric, Barbara Couturaud and Aurélien Stavy (Ifpo) has been cancelled and will be rescheduled to next week (Thursday, April 1st, 3h-4h PM CET, 4h-5h PM in Amman & Beirut).
NEW DATE:
Online Lecture – “The Umayyad and early Abbasid Reservoir-Enclosure of ‘Ayn Sawdā (Azraq Oasis, Jordan)” by Lorraine Abu-Azizeh, Julie Bonnéric, Barbara Couturaud, Aurélien Stavy (Ifpo)
April, 1st (3h-4h PM CET, 4h-5h PM in Amman & Beirut)
https://www.ifporient.org/archaeology-mena/
7. “Rethinking Halal: Genealogy, Current Trends, and New Interpretations”
(Brill, 2021)
