Categories : Academic items

1.Position: Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies (Islam in Asia/Asian Religious Traditions), University of Glasgow

Job purpose: To undertake high-quality research and research supervision, to make an active and high level contribution in the School of Critical Studies in the College of Arts to teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level in Islamic Studies and/or Asian Traditions, and to undertake administration as requested by the Head of School.

Hours: Full Time
Contract Type: Permanent

Deadline for application: 31 August 2017.

Information: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BDH613/lecturer-in-theology-and-religious-studies-islam-in-asia-asian-religious-traditions/

 

 

 

2. Position, Assistant Professor of History (South Asian History
specialization), Salisbury University

For details, see https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55345

Salisbury University, History
Assistant Professor of History (South Asian History specialization)

The Department of History at Salisbury University is accepting applications
for the position of Assistant Professor of History. This is a full-time
tenure-track position.

Area of Specialization: South Asian History. Ideal candidate will
complement existing strengths of the department.

Primary Job Duties: Teaching load is 3-3 to include World Civilizations,
upper-division undergraduate, and graduate courses for our M.A. in History
program. Salisbury University faculty members are expected to engage in
appropriate levels of scholarly activity, student advisement, and service
as well as utilize an effective teaching style that supports a diverse
student body.

Website:
http://www.salisbury.edu/hr/careers/employment-opportunities.html?id=3338&e=faculty&t=facu…
<http://www.salisbury.edu/hr/careers/employment-opportunities.html?id=3338&e=faculty&t=faculty-listings>
Posting Date: 08/21/2017
Closing Date 11/01/2017

 

 

 

3. Lecturer in Islamic History

The University of Edinburgh seeks to appoint a Lecturer in Islamic History, based in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies (IMES) (http://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/islamic-middle-eastern) and teaching within IMES.

The lecturer will provide teaching and dissertation supervision at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels and will commence in January 2018 or as soon as possible thereafter. The successful candidate will have expertise in the study of Islamic history, 500-1500 CE.

The role open-ended, is grade UE08 and attracts an annual salary of £39,992 to £47,722 for 35 hours, each week.

The closing date for receipt of applications is no later than 5.00pm (GMT) on Friday 22nd September 2017. We anticipate presentations and interviews will be held on Thursday 9th November 2017.

See: https://www.vacancies.ed.ac.uk/pls/corehrrecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=041030

Informal queries can be emailed for the attention of Dr Nacim Pak-Shiraz, Head of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, at llc@ed.ac.uk.

 

 

 

4. The Institute of Regional and International Studies (IRIS), the policy
research institute of the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS),
is *hiring a Director of Research.*

We would be very grateful if you could circulate the job posting within
your networks. This is an excellent field opportunity for academics and
analysts with an interest in the Middle East, Iraq, and the Kurdistan
Region.

The complete job posting is available here:
http://auis.edu.krd/content/director-research
<http://auis.edu.krd/content/director-research>.

The Director of Research will be expected to manage and contribute to
ongoing research projects and events and to develop its research
portfolio. The Director of Research will also be in charge of IRIS’s
fellowship program. Finally, depending on interest and qualifications,
upon request candidates for Director of Research may receive
consideration for a joint faculty appointment at AUIS.

Ideal candidates would have:

* A graduate (Masters or Ph.D.) degree in a relevant field (Middle
East Studies, International Relations, Political Science, Economics,
Sociology, History, etc.)
* Minimum 1 year of experience in research project coordination/
management (including management of a research team)
* Knowledge of Iraq and/ or Iraqi Kurdistan and the main policy
issues and debates
* Prior field experience in Iraq and/or the Middle East region
* Excellent communications skills, both written and oral, in English
(Kurdish and/or Arabic are assets)
* Experience in donor reporting
* Teaching experience as a Teaching Assistant or Lecturer in a
relevant field (if the candidate wishes to be considered for a faculty
appointment)

Interested candidates should submit CV and cover letter via the AUIS
online application system <http://auis.edu.krd/content/apply-auis-job>.

Questions about the position can be sent to iris@auis.edu.krd
<mailto:iris@auis.edu.krd>.

 

 

 

5. Call for Papers: “Religious? Secular? Re-thinking Islam and Space in Europe”
University of Cambridge, 30th November – 1st December 2017

Call for Papers
We invite scholars to present their work for a two-day inter-disciplinary workshop, “Religious? Secular? Re-thinking Islam and Space in Europe”.

This workshop offers a much-needed opportunity to evaluate questions of space within the study of Islam in Europe. It will take place at the University of Cambridge on 30th November – 1st December, bringing together established academic speakers and postgraduate researchers.

The workshop will be inter-disciplinary in character, connecting fields such as religious studies, geography, politics, anthropology, and architecture. We will look to tackle the subject both in breadth (in terms of content and concepts under discussion) and depth (with particular, but not exclusive, interests in German and UK contexts).

Confirmed keynote speakers are Professor Kim Knott (Lancaster University), Professor Riem Spielhaus (University of Göttingen), and Dr Marian Burchardt (University of Leipzig).

Overview
From identity-framed accounts of territory to contests over mosque construction, questions associated with Islam and space underlie major academic and public sphere debates in contemporary Europe (Fadil 2013; Hopkins and Gale 2008; DeHanas and Zacharias 2011; Baker 2017). The extent of these enquiries is broad, affecting scholarly topics such as place, networks, and the dynamics of identity, as well as familiar policy issues such as values, migration, and political participation (Amir-Moazami 2018; Knott 2005; Minkenberg 2014; Walters 2010). Most recently, both the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and supporters of Brexit have made the presence of Muslims in Europe a key point of their rhetoric. At the same time, ever more sophisticated studies of “local Islams” try to point out the differences of Muslim life worlds varying not only depending on national and ethnic backgrounds, but also with regards to spatially refined levels of analysis such as neighbourhoods, networks, or single mosques (Schiffauer 2014).

The premise of this workshop is that the place of “space” within the study of Islam in Europe has lacked systematic examination. We are therefore looking to bring together researchers tackling questions of space in this field from a range of disciplinary and thematic perspectives, in order to explore challenges and suggest solutions for theoretical, conceptual, and methodological debates associated with the topic.

Proposals
We invite proposals that engage with one or more of the following questions:
– What theories, concepts and methods are most useful in order to investigate the intersections of Islam, secularism/secularity and different dimensions of space in Europe?
– What are the benefits and limitations of utilising space as an analytical lens in the study of Islam and Muslims in Europe?
– How does space connect with other topics associated with the study of Islam in Europe, such as conversion, the state, ethnicity, or the family?
– How should researchers analyse the spatial implications of major scholarly challenges such as debates over Islamic exceptionalism, or the contestation of binaries (e.g., “religious”/”secular”, “public”/”private”)?
– How do particular research contexts require the use of different space-related concepts, such as territory, network, scale, dispositif, or assemblage?
– How can researchers navigate methodological challenges in the study of Islam and space in Europe?
– Why might symbolic and material contestations and/or collaborations be framed in terms of notions of space, and is space an adequate analytical tool in these instances?
– How should we study the role(s) of governmentality in spaces marked as “religious” and “non-religious” (e.g., spheres, publics)?
– How can a critical evaluation of the categories of “Islam”, “Religion”, “Secularism”, and/or “Europe” inform the study of space?
– What can material and sensory approaches (e.g., architecture, media, and orality) to the study of Islam and space reveal?
– How do insights gained within Gender Studies and Postcolonial Theory with regard to agency, power and (subversive) knowledge production relate to a space-sensitive analysis of Islam in Europe?

Format

The format will involve distributing workshop papers (c. 2500-3000 words) two weeks ahead of the workshop (16th November), in order to ensure in-depth engagement with every contribution. Following the workshop, participants will be invited to submit developed papers for a special issue of a leading journal.

 

To Apply…
To apply, please send an abstract (max 400 words) and biography (max 200 words) to islam.space.workshop@gmail.com. Abstracts from postgraduate students and early career researchers are especially welcome, and there will be some expenses available towards speakers’ accommodation and travel. The closing date for proposals is 17th September, with decisions communicated by 25th September.

Sponsors
We are most grateful for the sponsorship of DAAD Cambridge Research Hub for German Studies (www.daad.cam.ac.uk) and Cambridge Institute on Religion and International Studies (http://ciris.org.uk/).

 

Organising Committee

Adela Taleb (Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt University Berlin), Tobias Müller (Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge), Chris Moses (Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge).

For any queries, please contact us at: islam.space.workshop@gmail.com.

 

 

 

6. New Online Resources on the History of Kuwait

A series of archival documents that contain a wealth of information about Kuwait during the 1930s and 1940s have recently been digitized and uploaded on to the Qatar Digital Library. These documents are preserved in a file from the archive of the British Political Agency in Kuwait (now a part of the India Office Records) and consist of several reports covering a broad range of topics including Kuwait’s geography, history, flora and fauna, climate, leading personalities and political structure. In addition to what the files themselves discuss, as colonial records, they also illustrate the extent of British influence in Kuwait at this time, as well as provide a rich illustration of how Kuwait was conceptualised and recorded by British officials that were based in the country

 

http://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2017/08/new-online-resources-on-the-history-of-kuwait.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+asian-and-african+%28Asia+and+Africa%29

 

 

 

1.Call for papers

International conference on ‘Social Policy in the Islamic World’

Tehran, Iran, 12-13 May 2018

Allameh Tabataba’i University (the largest public university specialized in humanities and social sciences in Iran) will hold the first international conference on ‘Social Policy in the Islamic World’ (http://spiw.atu.ac.ir) in May 2018 in partnership with a group of well-known academic institutions from around the world. Lack of a comprehensive social policy agenda is seriously felt amid profound political upheavals in Muslim countries; hence this conference represents a timely response by the academic community.

With a population of about two billion people, Muslims are predominating in nearly 40 countries around the world from Morocco and Algeria through Iran and Tajikistan to Malaysia and Indonesia and still form a considerable part of other mixed societies. One of the most outstanding features of Islamic social teachings revolves around social welfare concepts, principles, as well as strategies and solutions. However, it is not possible to portray a single picture of social policy in Muslim societies given the vast diversity of historical, political, and economic circumstances they have experienced as well as various cultural characteristics they possess. Despite these diversities they have to respond to more or less similar issues and problems with regard to family and gender, inequality and poverty, education, employment and health, housing and social care, as well as juvenile delinquency and criminal justice, etc. Hence, there is an important question on how do they deal with these issues and what is the status and role of Islamic teachings in such social policies. This international conference is aimed to address these broad questions and therefore welcomes papers dealing with a wide range of issues outlined in the conference themes. While focusing on this specific agenda, the conference themes have been designed in a way to cover a broad range of related topics from a multidisciplinary perspective and therefore welcome both individual papers and closed panels from researches engaged in various aspects of social policy.

Conference Themes

1. Historical developments of social policy in Muslim societies
2. Dominant social policy approaches in various policy domains (social security, family and gender policy, inequality and poverty reduction, employment, education, health, housing, social care, environment, social problems and criminal justice policy, etc.)
3. Social policy arrangements regarding the main social policy target groups (children, youth, women, old people, people with disabilities, laborers, immigrants)
4. Emergent patterns of social policies as a consequence of recent political developments (like the Arab Uprising) in Islamic countries
5. State and non-state (NGOs, Charities, Social movements, etc.) forms of social welfare action in Muslim societies
6. Eclectic adoption of elements in mainstream welfare ideologies (social democratic, conservative, neoliberal, etc.) and its relationship to Islamic culture and thoughts regarding social policy and welfare
7. Comparative perspectives between Islam and other religious approaches to social welfare
8. The relationship between social policy failure and the rise of extremism
9. Public attitudes toward social policies among Muslims
10. Globalization and role of international organizations in social policies of Muslim societies and local reactions
11. Status of Co-operations and collaborations in the field of social policy among Muslim societies
12. Appraising systems of financing social policy in Muslim societies
13. Evaluation of successful and unsuccessful social policies in Muslim societies
14. Social entrepreneurship and social innovation for social welfare
15. Local social policies in capital cities of Muslim countries
16. The relation between social policy values, principles, and instruments and Islamic teachings
17. Linkages of social policy interventions with the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals
18. Social policies towards Muslim minorities in Western countries
19. Social policies towards non-Muslim minorities in Muslim majority countries
20. Influence of local and transnational Muslim social actors on shaping social policies towards Muslim minorities in the West

Deadline for Submission of abstracts (and proposals for closed panels) is 2017-10-10

Travel grants

Please visit the following links:

http://spiw.atu.ac.ir/page_569.html

http://spiw.atu.ac.ir/page_570.html

 

Queries

Please do not hesitate to email us (spiw@atu.ac.ir) if you need any further information which could not be found in the conference website.

 

 

 

2. Illumination and decoration in Chinese Qur’ans

http://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2017/08/illumination-and-decoration-in-chinese-qurans.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+asian-and-african+%28Asia+and+Africa%29

 

 

 

3. ART IN TRANSLATION is pleased to announce the publication of a special issue Spain and Orientalism, vol. 9:1 (2017), co-edited by Claudia Hopkins (University of Edinburgh) and Anna McSweeney (Warburg Institute). For a limited time only the entire issue has been made available for free at this link:
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfat20/9/1

This is the first English-language journal issue dedicated to Spanish Orientalism in art and visual culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. The peer-reviewed articles, drawn from a panel at the Association of Art Historians conference in 2016, examine Spain’s complex relationship with her Islamic past and with Morocco, through art, architecture, photography and material culture. They address a range of topics including patterns of collecting, the reproduction of Islamic art and architecture for private and public spaces, the role of Spain’s Islamic heritage in the construction of a national identity as exemplified in Spanish exhibition pavilions, the intersections between art and colonialism, and the role of Spanish art and visual culture in the wider debates about Orientalism.

 

 

 

4. National Chengchi University – Assistant Professor and above,
Department Of Turkish Language and Culture
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55286

 

 

 

5. 4th International Conference of the Transatlantic Research Group
In partnership with
Global Institute of Commerce and Technology, Abuja, Nigeria/Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja
University of Nigeria, Nsukka
Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Gregory University Press, Uturu, Nigeria
Africa and Asia Encounters: Historical and Contemporary Perspective

28-30 June 2018
Venue: Public Service Institute of Nigeria, Abuja.

Please submit a 250 to 300-word abstract and a 150-word biography latest by 1 February 2018. The biographical information should mention the presenter’s name and title, affiliation, email address, relevant publications.

http://transatlanticresearchgroup.org/index.php/current-call

 

 

6. Conference: “Re-thinking Nationalism, Sectarianism, and Ethno-Religious Mobilisation in the Middle East”, University of Oxford, 26-28 January 2018

There will be a focus session on “Religion and Sectarianism in the Islamic World” in addition to other themes: New theoretical thinking on ethno-religious borders and boundary making, including processes of minoritisation and majoritisation, and the role of religion in ethnic mobilisation and conflict; impact of new technologies and media, etc.

Deadline for abstracts: 15 September 2017. Information: http://www.pmb.ox.ac.uk/content/call-papers-re-thinking-nationalism-sectarianism-and-ethno-religious-mobilisation-middle
 

 

7. Assistant Professor, History of the Islamic World, Baruch College, City University of New York

The position is to begin in August 2018. Specialization is open, but preference will be given to candidates whose research focuses on the Middle East and/or North Africa. Qualifications: Ph.D. degree in area(s) of experience or equivalent. Also required are the ability to teach successfully, demonstrated scholarship or achievement, and ability to cooperate with others for the good of the institution.

Review of applications will begin 16 October 2017. Information: http://www.aaihs.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Assistant-Professor-Islamic-World-History-August-2017.pdf
 

 

8. Assistant Professor and above, Department of Turkish Language and Culture, National Chengchi University, Taiwan

Qualification: Ph.D. in Turkish Turkology teaching or related fields. Applicants should be able to offer courses either in Turkish, English or Chinese.

Deadline for application: 1 November 2017. Information: http://turkish.nccu.edu.tw/news/news.php?Sn=443

 

9. Research Associate for Project on the Theoretical Reconfiguration of Arab Identities, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies

A full-time Research Associate with Ph.D. is being sought for a research project on “Transcultural Identities: Solidaristic Action and Contemporary Arab Social Movements.” At least 2-3 years work experience related to the field of research required.

Deadline for application: 30 August 2017. Information: http://www.dohainstitute.edu.qa/EN/Careers/Pages/Apply.aspx?JobId=DIAC35
 

10. Professor Peter Sluglett passed away on 10 August 2017

The Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore announced the death of Prof. Peter Sluglett, the former president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA):

“It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Professor Peter Sluglett on August 10, 2017. Prof. Sluglett served as Director at the Middle East Institute from 2014-2016. A historian of the 19th and 20th century Middle East, he joined the Institute as a Visiting Research Professor in September 2011, having spent much of his career at the University of Durham (1974-1993) and subsequently at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City (1994-2011).

Prof. Sluglett will be remembered most fondly by all of us. Our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones.”

 

1.The Sixth International Conference on Contemporary Philosophy of Religion

Subject Matter:

Comparative Philosophy of Religion: Basics and Issues

Basics:

– Nature of Comparative Philosophy of Religion

– Possibility of Comparative Philosophy of Religion

– Methodology of Comparative Philosophy of Religion

– Presuppositions of Comparative Philosophy of Religion

– Type of Religion and its Influence on Issues of Philosophy of Religion

– Definition of Religion in Different Philosophies of Religion

Issues:

– Concept of God/Ultimate Reality/the Holy

– Arguments of the Existence of God/Ultimate Reality/the Holy

– Religious Experience and Revelation

– the Afterlife (Immortality)

– The Problem of Evil

– Reason and Faith

– Relationship between God and Nature (Universe)

– Language of Religion (Religious Language)

Time: 6-7 February 2018

Venue: Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

Conference website: http://philorconf.org/

Submissions:
Proposals of papers should consist of a title, a 250-300 word abstract, at least 3 keywords, and the author’s affiliation.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 21 November 2017

Notes!

– Please submit proposals (in both MS Word and PDF formats) to philorconf@gmail.com 

– To register please go to the Registration tab on the left menu.

– In order to get information about conference’s Academic Board, Accommodation, Visa Application Procedure etc. please refer to the correspondent tabs on the left menu.

– Please direct your enquiries to the following email address: philorconf@gmail.com

 

 

2. CFP: Medievalists Without Borders: Cooperative Projects on Popular Culture in Islamic and Christian Lands

International Congress on Medieval Studies

Kalamazoo, MI

May 10-13, 2018

This session came about when we the organizers discovered that we each work on very similar topics in medieval popular culture, one of us primarily in Arabic and one of us primarily in Latin. We seek to build a roundtable at Kalamazoo as a kind of collaborator matchmaking site, finding scholars working on popular culture east and west who could benefit from knowing one another, and asking these pairs to present the results of their collaboration at the conference.

In so doing, we aim to break down some of the artificial barriers between the popular cultures of different civilizations during the European medieval period. Despite the artificial disciplinary boundaries within which we commonly work, these societies were actually quite mobile and intertwined, and their folklore and popular culture shows a great deal of overlap and influence. Our title, “Medievalists Without Borders,” is a gesture toward this breaking down of walls and barriers between scholars, an act we find especially needful at a time when we are witnessing an intensification of disciplinary borders, of disparities between tenure-track and non-tenure track faculty, and of cultural isolationism.

We propose to set up a coterie of collaborations between scholars working primarily in Latin or in the vernacular languages of “Western” Europe and scholars working in Arabic, Persian, or other languages of North Africa and the Middle East, all in the field of popular culture. We will accept proposals both from pairs of scholars who wish to use this as a forum to collaborate and from individual scholars whom we will match with other applicants. The session is open to literary, artistic, historical, folkloric, and musical forms of non-elite production. Because the elite / non-elite divide of “popular culture” has been challenged, we also welcome proposals for work which pushes at this boundary. We are especially seeking inclusivity in our group of participants: not only do we wish to encourage proposals from scholars at all stages and from all types of academic careers, but also from scholars who are marginalized or who work on marginalized populations.

We will accept proposals in two forms:

A joint proposal from two scholars, no longer than 300 words, suggesting a collaboration, or

A request to be paired with a like-minded scholar, consisting of a CV and/or short bio, and a brief description of your interest in popular culture.

Please send materials to Amanda Steinberg (ahsteinberg@gwu.edu) and Kaitlin Heller (kbheller@syr.edu) no later than Sept. 1, 2017. Proposals should be accompanied by the Participant Information Form, available at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions.

 

 

 

3. Media Transitions and Cultural Debates in Arab Societies:
Transhistorical Perspectives on the Impact of Communication Technologies

International Conference of the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA)

Tunis, 24-26 November 2017

Call for Papers

In the last decades, the Arab world has witnessed the emergence and broad diffusion of ʻnewʼ media, most prominently the Internet. The opportunities provided by these new communication technologies have not only inspired and empowered a new generation of youth for political dissent, but have also fostered the emergence of new modes of cultural expression, literary styles and genres as well as new layers of readers and writers.

Digital media, however, is not the first ‘new media’ to appear in the Arab world. The adoption of Internet technologies in recent times could be compared to the transition from oral to script culture that took place in the 9^th century, the spread of print technologies after several centuries of a flourishing manuscript culture in the 19^th century, or the emergence of audio-visual media (radio, TV, photograpy, film) in the 20^th century. The transhistorical perspective has proven useful in the field of media studies in general, but requires further exploration with specifics to the Arab region.

With regard to different media at different historical moments (9^th-21^st century), the conference aims at exploring how the emergence and diffusion of ‘new media’ or communication technologies in Arab societies have affected the (conditions of) literary and cultural production, distribution, and reception and how cultural debates are shaped by the use of different media.

Organizers: Barbara Winckler (University of Muenster), Teresa Pepe (University of Oslo), Carola Richter (Freie Universitaet Berlin), and Bilal Orfali (American University of Beirut).

Speakers will be requested to give a 15 minutes paper presentation, followed by a 15 minutes discussion. Travel and accommodation expenses of invited speakers will be fully covered by AGYA.

Please submit an abstract of 250 words and a short CV to mediatransitions@agya.info by 31 August 2017. Do not hesitate to contact us for general inquiries.

For further information, see the complete Call for Papers: http://agya.info/upcoming-events/?tx_calendarize_calendar%5Bindex%5D=8&cHash=2abf1299651b0f6fd885b4c17f1ddcae

 

 

 

4. The Al-Hikmah Institute of Al-Mustafa International University Organizes Conference on Islam in Europe.

7 February 2018        Al-Mustafa International University, Qom, Iran.

The areas of interest include:  

Potentials of Islam and Muslims to Interact with Europe

• Potentials of Religious and Cultural Centers in Europe to Promote Positive Interaction
• Impacts of Islam and Muslims on Europe
• Contributions of Muslim Emigrants in European Countries
• Potentials of Islamic Teachings for the Establishment of Peace and Security in Europe
• Morality and Spirituality in Islam and its Role in Positive Interaction with Europe

Europe’s Potentials in Interacting with Islam and Muslims

• Islamic Studies in Europe; History and Pathology; the Role of Academic Studies in Understanding Islam and Muslims.
• Admission of Muslim Immigrants into Europe; Opportunities and Challenges
• Minorities’ Rights in Europe and its Impact on Peaceful Coexistence of Muslims and non-Muslims
• The Role Scientific and Technological Advances in Europe in Constructive Interaction Between Islamic World and European Countries

Prospects and Challenges in the Relation between Islam and Europe

• Racism and HostilityToward Muslim Minorities in Europe
• Limitations of Islamic lifestyle in Europe
• Extremism; The Common Threat of Islamic and European countries
• The Role of Islamic leaders in controlling the Radical Extremists.
• The Return of Terrorists to Europe; a Challenge for security.

Islamophobia in Europe

• European Media and Portrayal of Islam and Muslims
• The Role of Takfiri Movements in Creating Negative Image of Muslims
• The Role and Position of Islamic Centers in Europe in Making Peace and Reducing Extremism.
• The Role of Academic and Cultural Centers of Islamic and European Societies in Creating a Positive Approach oward Both Sides.

For more information and registration, please visit:

http://alhikmah.miu.ac.ir/en/index.php/conference/

For any question regarding the event, send E-mail to conference@alhikmah.miu.ac.ir or Mor.Maddahi@gmail.com

 

 

 

5. Conference: “Makkah and the Hejaz in Emerging Pan-Islamic Thought: Imperial-era South-South Networks, Migration, and Evolving Scholarly Demographics, 1800-2000”, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyad, 5-6 December 2017

The conference will focus on: Scholarly Networks in the Ottoman Hejaz on the Eve of European Imperialism (1500-1800); Imperial Hajj, Exiled Ulema, and Emerging Muslim Internationalism; Merchants, Minorities & Muhājirūn; Identity Politics & The Holy Cities in the 20th-21st Centuries, Between Religious Establishments & Religious Oppositions.

Deadline for abstracts: 17 September 2017. Information: http://www.facebook.com/research.kfcris/photos/pb.178104892527405.-2207520000.1493213561./447714255566466/?type=3

 

 

6. BRISMES Conference “New Approaches to Studying the Middle East”, King’s College London, 25-26 June 2018

The organizers encourage proposals that take up the theme in original ways, exploring not only new approaches, but bringing different new approaches into dialogue with each other, including across disciplines and across regions. In addition, proposals on any topic related to Middle Eastern Studies are invited, regardless of their fit with the conference’s main theme.

Deadline for abstracts: 1 December 2017. Information: http://www.brismes.ac.uk/conference/call-for-papers/

 

7. Two-year Post Doctoral Fellowship in the Social Sciences, Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, Massachusetts

Applications are invited from outstanding scholars at the start of their careers whose work combines disciplinary excellence in the social sciences (including law) with a command of the language, history, or culture of non-Western countries or regions.

Deadline for application: 1 October 2017. Information: https://academy.wcfia.harvard.edu/programs/academy_scholar

 

8. Associate or Full Professor in Modern Iranian Studies, Princeton University

Research expertise and teaching interests may concern any aspect of modern Iran, from the 19th century to the present; we particularly welcome applications from historians and social scientists.

Deadline for application: 15 November 2017. Information: https://puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/apply/application.xhtml?listingId=2781

 

9. Assistant Professor, Modern Middle East and/or Modern Africa, Gonzaga University, Washington

We seek a teacher-scholar of the Modern Middle East and/or Modern Africa (1800 to present) with experience teaching History of World Civilization II. Qualifications: Ph.D. in History, with specialty in the Modern Middle East or Modern Africa.

Deadline for application: 16 October 2017. Information: https://gonzaga.peopleadmin.com/postings/10685

 

10. Assistant Professor in Ottoman History, University of Pennsylvania

We welcome a range of scholarship in Ottoman history, including transnational and imperial perspectives as well as approaches that address the political, ethnic, and religious diversity of the Ottoman world. Specialists from any period in Ottoman history may apply.

Deadline for application: 15 September 2017. Information: https://facultysearches.provost.upenn.edu/postings/1146

 

11. Persian Literary Studies Journal(PLSJ), a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary periodical designed to comparatively explore literary, artistic and cultural issues, is seeking book reviewers to write essays about the publications it receives.

We also kindly invite publishers to send their publications of interest to the PLSJ office at Farideh Pourgiv, Dept. of Foreign Languages & Linguistics, Eram Campus, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.

For inquiries about titles, our stylesheet and preferred format please contact the book review editor at < massihzekavat@gmail.com > and < zekavat@yazd.ac.ir >. Also, please visit us at <http://plsj.shirazu.ac.ir/ >.

 

1.Announcement of Open Panels for the Fifth World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES-5) in Seville, Spain, 16-17 July 2018

If you want to organize a panel without having the compulsory 4 paper presenters or if you want to invite other potential paper presenters, please submit your proposal to the WOCMES-Secretariat: mailto:wocmes@tresculturas.org.

The proposal should contain the title of the open panel and an abstract of up to 500 words, the name, affiliation and email address of the panel organizer, and the deadline for the submission of paper abstracts to the panel organizer.

The Secretariat will post all the information received at http://wocmes2018seville.org/web/index.php/en/call-for-open-panels so that institutions and/or individuals can contact the panel advertiser.

Further information on WOCMES-5 see http://wocmes2018seville.org/web/index.php/en/
 

 

2. Jobs:

Tenure-Track Professor in Modern Middle East History, Harvard University
The emphasis should be on the Arab world from the late Ottoman to the contemporary era. The appointment is expected to begin on July 1, 2018.
Deadline for application: 15 October 2017. Information: http://academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/7724
 

Assistant Professor, Islamic World History, Lehigh University

The Department of History and the Center for Global Islamic Studies at Lehigh University welcome applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor with expertise in a particular region of the Islamic World combined with broad training in the history of Islam’s transnational, cross-cultural, and global dimensions. This position carries a 2/2 teaching load of graduate (M.A. and PhD in History) and undergraduate courses. Candidates should be capable of teaching introductory level courses in both Islamic World history and a survey of Global History. Thematic research fields are open, with a preference for any of the following: Gender, Intellectual and Cultural Life, Imperialism, Globalization, Religion, Science, Environmental, or Health and Medicine. Fluency in relevant research languages, PhD by August 2018, and evidence of scholarly accomplishment or potential are required.

To apply, please upload letter of application, vita, three letters of recommendation and a writing sample to Academic Jobs Online (https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo). All applications must be complete by October 10, 2017, for full consideration. Questions about the position should be directed to Prof. John Savage (savage@lehigh.edu), Chair, History of Islamic World Search Committee. We are planning on conducting Skype interviews in November and scheduling campus visits in January and early February 2018.

The College of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh is especially interested in qualified candidates who can contribute, through their research, teaching, and/or service, to the diversity and excellence of the academic community. Lehigh University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

Lehigh University is located on a scenic, 1,600-acre campus in historic Bethlehem Pennsylvania, about one and a half hours from downtown New York City and Philadelphia. The Lehigh Valley is an attractive place to live and work with a reasonable cost of living and abundant cultural activities.

Lehigh University offers excellent benefits including domestic partner benefits. More information about policies and benefits for Faculty at Lehigh can be found at: http://www.lehigh.edu/~inprv/faculty/worklifebalance.html 

History Department: https://history.cas2.lehigh.edu/ 

Center for Global Islamic Studies: https://cgis.cas2.lehigh.edu/

 

 

 

3. Articles on “Creative Dissent: Culture and Politics of Transformation in the Arab World” for Special Issue for the “International Journal of Cultural Studies”

The issue is co-edited by Eid Mohamed, Waleed F. Mahdi, and Hamid Dabashi. The purpose of this issue is to conceptualize new cultural modes of expression, if any, and their function in the process of social change. It should highlight the importance of creativity in both informing and echoing the public search for autonomy, agency, and self-representation since 2011.

Deadline for abstracts: 15 October 2017. Information: http://www.dohainstitute.edu.qa/EN/Research/FR/RP/TCI/Publications/Pages/Call-for-Papers.aspx
 

 

4. New issue of open access Mizan journal now online: “The Evolution and Uses of the Stories of the Prophets”

The new issue of Mizan: Journal for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations has just been published and is now online. The thematic issue, “The Evolution and Uses of the Stories of the Prophets,” represents a selection of revised papers from our 2015 conference in Naples on qisas al-anbiya’.

http://www.mizanproject.org/journal-issue/the-evolution-and-uses-of-the-stories-of-the-prophets/

Mizan is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published under a Creative Commons license and supported by the generosity of ILEX Foundation. The journal features an integrated annotation functionality and we encourage readers to engage our authors through this medium (using this functionality requires a quick registration process in order to prevent spamming of the site so we can maintain a civil, professional, troll-free environment).

We are currently accepting proposals for short features to be published on the Mizan Project and Mizan Pop sites, as well as proposals for future thematic issues of the journal. Interested parties are encouraged to contact me directly at mpregill@bu.edu.

Thank you,

Michael Pregill

Interlocutor

Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations

Boston University

 

 

 

5. The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Groningen, seeks to appoint an anthropologist or a scholar from a closely related discipline with expertise in the field of Contemporary Islam (0.8 fte) for a period of 5 years.

The candidate should have a competence in the fields of Islam in relation to migration and identity also with regard to the MENA region in order to be able to teach courses on these themes. Language of instruction is English.

Beside these teaching related competences the faculty is looking for a scholar whose research lies preferably in the field of contemporary Islam in Asia so as to contribute to the Centre for the Study of Religion and Culture in Asia of the faculty. See http://www.rug.nl/research/centre-for-religious-studies/centre-religion-culture-asia/

Early career scholars are explicitly encouraged to apply. For more information, see:
http://www.rug.nl/about-us/work-with-us/job-opportunities/overview?details=00347-02S0005NUP&cat=wp

 

 

6. Historians of Islamic Art Association: Grabar Travel Grant

This competition is open to graduate students (doctoral candidates) who have been invited or accepted as participants in a scholarly conference or other professional meeting for the purpose of presenting papers, chairing sessions or moderating discussions. The maximum amount of the award is $700 US. Applicants must be HIAA members in good standing at the time of application.

*The August 1 2017 deadline has been extended to September 15 2017.*

Notification will be sent within six weeks of the application deadline. Grabar Travel Grants must be used within 12 months of the award date.

Applications must be submitted in English and include:
1. Application cover sheet, available at http://bit.ly/2hkyDCO
2. A cover letter explaining the applicant’s purpose in participating in the conference, the expected benefits of participation, and an itemized travel budget
3. Curriculum vitae
4. Letter of acceptance from the conference/session organizer(s).
5. Letter of recommendation from the applicant’s primary supervisor
6. Abstract of the paper to be presented.

All materials should be submitted by email to the HIAA Secretary, sec.hiaa@gmail.com

Membership status will be verified by the HIAA Secretary, as necessary. Applicants from outside the United States are responsible for meeting the requirements for and obtaining any visas necessary for visits to or residence and research in the United States. Upon request, HIAA will supply documentation of the grant and/or fellowship award, the dates of the award, and financial support.

The Grabar Travel grant is offered twice each year, usually with deadlines of August 1 and December 15.

 

 

 

7. CALL FOR PAPERS
Special Issue: Boundaries, Flows, and the Construction of Muslim Selves through Architecture
Thematic volume planned for June 2019
Proposal submission deadline: October 30, 2017
This special issue of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture takes as its starting point how a new sense of ‘boundary’ emerged from the post-nineteenth-century dissolution of large, heterogeneous empires into a mosaic of nation-states in the Islamic world. This new sense of ‘boundary’ has not only determined the ways in which we imagine and construct the idea of modern citizenship, but also redefines relationships between the nation, citizenship, cities and architecture. Whereas political debates today question the compatibility of Islam with the concept of the nation-state, the construction of the twentieth-century Islamic world was embroiled in debates around the nature of the modern state itself. Such debates oscillated between Islam as a political ideology and Islam as a personal belief system. These debates were often troubled by novel uses of ‘boundary’ in both physical and conceptual forms linked to the phenomenon of the nation-state. These boundaries were further challenged by flows of persons, materials, and ideas that destabilized the political configuration of the nation-state itself.
Hence, in this special issue of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture we invite papers that bring critical perspectives to our understanding of the interrelation between the accumulated flows and the evolving concepts of boundary in predominantly Muslim societies, and within the global Muslim diaspora. This special issue seeks to investigate how architecture mediates the creation and deployment of boundaries and boundedness that have been devised to define, enable, obstruct, accumulate and/or control flows able to disrupt bounded territories or identities. More generally, it proposes to explore how architecture might be considered as a means to understand the relationship between flows and boundaries.
Questions of nationhood and boundary-making critically define the modern era. This is particularly true for global Muslim communities. Nation-building efforts have gone through phases of creativity and disillusionment ranging from the Israel-Palestine question, the creation and fragmentation of Pakistan as a spatiotemporal utopia, the Islamic revolution in Iran, to the post-oil prosperity in the Gulf countries, the repercussions of 9/11, the disenchantment of the Arab Spring, and the rise of South East Asian countries as global powerhouses. The plausible image of an ideal Islamic society vis-à-vis the nation-state has shifted along with these major transformations, and an incongruity between ideals and realities has informed resulting spatial expressions as well.

This special issue seeks to explore alternative definitions of bounded identities, facilitating new approaches to spatial and architectural forms. ‘Boundary’ can be ‘hard’, such as the geopolitical boundaries regulated by states. These boundaries often result in conflicts over the ownership of territory and geological resources or even over history, authenticity, and the nature of the past. Yet boundaries can also be ‘soft’ such as those demarcated by religious, cultural, and linguistic differences among different Muslim factions, or associations of a Muslim population within a predominantly non-Muslim society or vice-versa. Through the transition from empires to nation-states, ‘boundary’ has acquired new ideological meanings in response to questions about Muslim selves and citizenship.
The concept of boundary is further intricately entangled with the concept of flows. In the era of global flows of information, commodities, resources and people, boundaries work together with flows as two corresponding factors in constructing the spatial experience of Islamic societies. Several issues nevertheless complicate the relationship between boundaries and flows. For instance, Muslim diasporic movements, through voluntary migration seeking a better life elsewhere or forced displacement due to war, genocide or climate change, challenge our normative view of Islamic architecture outside of the normative Islamic world. The Muslim diaspora creates its own niches that confront and conform to complex global flows of socio-cultural dynamics, ranging from hate crimes and political resentments to a global awareness of diversity and minority.
Against this context of global flows, several phenomena prompt us to rethink the relationship between architecture, urban planning and boundaries. For instance, the transnational flows of heterogeneous Islamic groups as radical as the Taliban and as moderate as Tablighi Jamaat problematize notions of national ‘hard’ boundaries. Or, while the contemporary media presents the international networks of madrasas and mosques as nothing more than a breeding ground of Islamic radicalism, other roles that these spaces play in serving as transnational nodes in an expanding spatial network remain largely unexplored. This special issue seeks to explore how architecture and urban discourses can shed light on these new forms of identity politics and resulting internal dissonances within Muslim and global communities. How, for example, could an architectural imagination bring a critical perspective to the idea of jihad, notions of the umma, and potentials for a pan-Muslim society?
These questions also disrupt typical approaches to architectural history. The architectural forms of twentieth- and twenty-first-century nation building is often narrated through the pivotal forces of the Cold War, Bretton Woods financial policy, the emergence of development studies, and contested theories of modernization, Islamization, and postcoloniality. Within such a context, the global flows of ideas, money and technical expertise took place through intergovernmental agencies such as the United Nations, the European Union, Commonwealth and Muslim League, and the economic and political interest of funding agencies such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, European Development Fund and USAID. These contested groups of international stakeholders aimed at creating local technical experts and cultivated architects as development agents. The constituent forces of boundaries and flows eventually materialized to disrupt these forces, as architectural and urban projects ranging from small-scale community development schemes such as low-cost housing and rural development programs to large-scale modernization efforts such as the establishment of nuclear research centers.
Gradually, the flows of architectural philosophies regarding the meaning of Islamic architecture in contemporary time created their own sphere of intellectual debate within Islamic societies. Views were exchanged through symposia, professional meetings, architectural magazines and manifestoes. In addition to Euro-American pedagogical and professional establishments, a parallel educational infrastructure – the madrasa – also enabled formidable transnational flows of knowledge and people across the Islamic world.
The focus of the contributions to this special issue of IJIA should follow these variant forms of disruptive flows and address the question of how architecture – defined broadly – creates nuanced definitions of Muslim selves. With an objective to better understand how, in the age of global capital, architecture mediates the forces that constitute flows and boundaries, the contributions should address architecture not only as the byproduct of socio-political forces, but also as the active promulgator of those forces.
Themes that might be addressed include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. How might architecture be used to explore the ways in which the diverse formation of nationalism within Islamicate worlds cater to trans-local exchanges of ideas, ideologies, and human migration across geopolitical borders? Historically, how were different experiences of partition (i.e. in the Indian subcontinent or the Middle East) and nation-building efforts informed by architectural developments and urban planning?
   2. Who are the agents of the exchanges of architectural knowledge and expertise? How are the international flows of ideas, money and expertise defined in competition and collaboration between local and international professionals? In the global context, how do practicing architects tackle the challenges of boundaries? Questions to address include refugee housing or strategies for negotiating cultural identities of immigrant populations in a ‘foreign’ land.
   3. How could the architecture of the Muslim diaspora be used as a means to better understand Islamicate societies in the contemporary world? How is architecture located at the junction of the experience of war, genocide, migration, and partition? What might the architectural expression of a migrant Muslim community tell us about the politics of construction and destruction of the Muslim self?
   4. How do flows of discourse and expert knowledge navigate between institutions (universities, NGOs, intergovernmental agencies etc.) within and beyond Islamic countries? What is the role of architecture in that process? How do these flows work at the intersection of the training of ‘local’ experts in international institutions and thus contribute to the discourse on ‘modern Islamic architecture’?

Essays that focus on historical and theoretical analysis (DiT papers) should be a minimum of 6,000 words but no more than 8,000 words, and essays on design and practice (DiP papers) can range from 3,000 to 4,000 words. Contributions from practitioners are welcome and should bear in mind the critical framework of the journal. Contributions from practitioners and scholars of art history, anthropology, diaspora studies, sociology, and geography and building construction are particularly welcome.
Please send a 400-word abstract with essay title to the guest editor, Farhan Karim, University of Kansas (fskarim@ku.edu ), by October 30, 2017. Those whose proposals are accepted will be contacted soon thereafter and requested to submit full papers to the journal by May 15, 2018. All papers will undergo full peer review.

For author instructions regarding paper guidelines, please consult: www.intellectbooks.com/ijia

 

 

1.Job:

Stanford University – Law and Legal Institutions in Muslim Societies
Assistant- or Associate-Level Faculty Position
Deadline for application: 15 October 2017. Information: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/9282

 

 

 

2. 2 Postdoc Fellowships for 12 Months in 2018, Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies (BGSMCS)

We invite outstanding postdoctoral researchers (not more than four years after submission of thesis) who are engaged in research projects relevant to our research focus.

Deadline for application: 30 September 2017. Information: http://www.bgsmcs.fu-berlin.de/application/BGSMCS_Postdoc_Fellowships_2018_call_for_applications.pdf

 

3. Call for Papers: HIAA-sponsored session at CAA 2018 (Los Angeles, February 21–24)

The “Three Empires” Redux: Islamic Interregionality in the Age of Modernity

Chairs: Chanchal Dadlani and Ünver Rüstem

Discussant: Anastassiia Botchkareva

The concept of the three “gunpowder empires” in reference to the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal polities is well established in Islamic studies and frequently invoked by scholars across disciplines—art and architectural historians among them—to posit and analyze points of interregional comparison and difference. But relatively few attempts have been made to apply this model beyond the empires’ putative sixteenth- and seventeenth-century heydays, or to consider its relevance following the fall of the Safavids in the 1730s. This is in spite of numerous known and proposed cases of later artistic intersection between the Ottoman, Iranian, and Indian spheres, as exemplified by the Afsharid ruler Nadir Shah’s sending of Mughal plunder to the Ottoman sultan. This session seeks to interrogate the idea of the “three empires” in the context of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a period marked by changing political circumstances and increased transnational mobility, commerce, and exchange. We aim to understand the shifting relationships between the material and visual cultures of these regions, including parallels and discontinuities. What defined the transition between the early modern and modern periods? How did artistic taste and aesthetic sensibilities change? What constituted the response to heightened contact with European expansionism? At its broadest, the session examines the applicability of the “three empires” framework to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, considering the possibilities and limits of this interpretive structure. We invite contributions that explore the Ottoman, Safavid,

Afsharid, Zand, Qajar, and Mughal realms, broadly construed, and welcome papers on related regions and contexts.

Paper abstracts (maximum 250 words) and shortened CVs should be emailed to Chanchal Dadlani (dadlani@wfu.edu) and Ünver Rüstem (urustem@jhu.edu) by August 14, 2017 (see p. 39 of the following link for the official Session Participation Proposal Submission Form: http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/call-for-participation.pdf).

 

 

 

4. Call for Papers: Medieval Eurabia: Religious Crosspollinations in Architecture, Art and Material Culture during the High and Late Middle Ages (1000-1600)

2018 Annual Conference of the Association for Art History (U.K.)

Panel organised by Sami De Giosa, Oxford University and Nikolaos Vryzidis, British School at Athens
Email: aahchristianmuslimpanel2018@gmail.com

Venue: Courtauld Institute of Art & King’s College London
Date: 5 – 7 April 2018

The coexistence of Christianity and Islam in the Medieval Mediterranean led to a transfer of knowledge in architecture and material culture which went well beyond religious and geographical boundaries. The use of Islamic objects in Christian contexts, the conversion of churches into mosques and the mobility of craftsmen are manifestations of this process. Although studies beginning with Avinoam Shalem’s Islam Christianized (1996), have dealt extensively with Islamic influence in the West and European influence in the Islamic Mediterranean, sacred objects, and material culture more generally, have been relatively neglected. From crosses found in Mosques, to European-Christian coins with pseudo/-shahada inscriptions, medieval material culture is rife with visual evidence of the two faiths co-existing in both individual objects and monuments.

This panel invites papers from scholars working on intercultural exchange in art, architecture and material culture. We particularly welcome contributions that focus on sacred objects that have been diverted or ‘converted’ to a new purpose, whether inside or outside an explicitly religious context.

Papers should present original research, which expands the boundaries of knowledge and which the scholars would like to be considered for publication. Abstract should be no more than 250 words long.

Deadline: 1 November 2017

http://www.forarthistory.org.uk/events/annual-conference-2018/

 

 

 

5. CfP: Muslim Cultures in the Indian Ocean: Diversity and Pluralism, Past and Present 

The Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations

Date: 12-14 September 2018

Location: Academic Building, 10 Handyside Street, King’s Cross N1C 4DN

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 30 September 2017

Organisers: Stephane Pradines and Farouk Topan

About the Conference
This conference aims to explore the diversity of Muslim cultures prevalent in the Indian Ocean region where, historically, Muslims have interacted for centuries with each other and with other peoples and cultures. Islam not only provided the scaffolding that facilitated cultural exchanges but was also the pivot for transforming local societies. The conference seeks to bring together experts from different disciplines and backgrounds including archaeologists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, and scholars of related disciplines to explore various facets of this diversity. This conference marks a reconnaissance of the Indian Ocean not as a periphery but as a centre for the study of Muslim cultures.

Indeed, over the past couple of decades, significant new research has been undertaken across East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent leading to fresh insights on a number of facets of Indian Ocean cultures. Some of these studies were written about the Indian Ocean on the longue durée and other studies were focused on local and regional histories. Cultural encounters across the Indian Ocean down the centuries have given rise to cities, towns, ports and other constructions and artefacts which, while remaining distinctive in themselves, also exhibit layers of shared features. They manifest the craftsmanship and values of their creators, peoples whose diversity is almost proverbial. Similar endeavours are present in almost all aspects of human creativity through contact, including religious beliefs and practices, literature, architecture, trade, cuisine, textiles and fashion, etc. Cultural contacts, exchanges and networks were facilitated by the sea as a link between these diverse worlds. Like the Mediterranean – so well studied by Fernand Braudel – the Indian Ocean is a rich contact zone that is central to the understanding of cultural diversity in this vast region.

Submission of Proposals
We invite papers on topics that reflect aspects of this rich cultural diversity in Muslim contexts. Proposed papers should be sent to Stephane Pradines by 30 September 2017.

 

For further details, visit: https://www.aku.edu/events/pages/event-detail.aspx?EventID=585&Title=Muslim%20Cultures%20in%20the%20Indian%20Ocean

 

 

 

6. Syria Direct is hiring a Managing Editor!

Syria Direct is seeking an experienced Managing Editor to help lead our team of Syrian and American reporters based in Amman, Jordan.

The Managing Editor should have an in-depth understanding of the Syrian conflict, as well as Syrian history, politics and culture more broadly, in addition to demonstrated editorial and management experience.

Native or near-native Arabic proficiency is a must. Candidates of Syrian descent are highly encouraged to apply. The Managing Editor will report to the Managing Director and Executive Editor. We offer a competitive salary and an opportunity to join a successful and growing media startup.

Responsibilities:

Editorial (60%)

–          Run all editorial meetings and assist with content decisions (in collaboration with Managing Director and Associate Editor)

–          Work with Syrian and American reporters to develop story ideas, craft story angles and fine-tune writing

–          Edit and publish stories to website

–          Write feature-length stories and analytical reports for the website

Managerial (20%)

–          Manage a team of (6) Syrian reporters, (3) American reporters and (2) English-to-Arabic translators

–          Conduct monthly evaluations of staff (alongside Managing Director and Associate Editor)

Administrative (20%)

–          Assist with donor reporting, official correspondence and file maintenance as needed

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis. To apply, please send your resume as well as a (short) cover letter and (3) clips of published work to orion@syriadirect.org.

See also: http://syriadirect.org/pages/about-us/

 

 

 

7. Journal of South Asian Intellectual History

The Journal of South Asian Intellectual History (SAIH) is dedicated to the study of the history of ideas in pre-modern and early modern South Asia. The main concern of the publication is to advance philological and historical research into the rich intellectual history of South Asia in fields such as (but not limited to) philosophy, logic, astronomy, medicine, mathematics, literature, philosophical theology, and mystical traditions. Sources of such investigations may be produced in any of the languages of South Asia, including, for example, Sanskrit, Urdu, Persian, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, and Arabic. Given the nature of intellectual interactions in pre-modern and early modern South Asia, the Journal also welcomes articles, written in English, working across various disciplinary boundaries and languages.

Call for papers
The editors would like to welcome new submissions to the forthcoming Journal of South Asian Intellectual History.
Contributions should be submitted by e-mail to the editors (jsaih.brill@gmail.com).

For detailed instructions for authors, visit: brill.com/saih

Fabrizio Speziale
Maître de conférences
Directeur adjoint du Département d’Etudes Arabes, Hébraïques, Indiennes et Iraniennes
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3
13 rue Santeuil
75231 Paris cedex 05

Mondes iranien et indien (UMR 7528)
CNRS – Sorbonne Nouvelle – INaLCO – EPHE
27, rue Paul Bert
94204, Ivry-sur-Seine

http://www.perso-indica.net/
https://paris3.academia.edu/FabrizioSpeziale

 

 

 

8. 2017 SAMSA Pre-Conference, Thursday, October 26, 2017

On behalf of the South Asian Muslim Studies Association (SAMSA), southasianmuslimstudiesassociation.org, the Co-Chairs of the 2017 Pre-Conference, Raisur Rahman, Sanaa Riaz, and Roger Long, would like to invite you to present your research at the SAMSA Pre-Conference sponsored by the South Asia Studies Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The 2017 Pre-Conference is scheduled for Thursday, October 26, 2017 at the Concourse Hotel in Madison, Wisconsin. The title and theme of the 2017 Pre-Conference is:

“Postcolonial Scholarship at 70: Seven Decades of Research on South Asian Muslims 1947-2017”

The South Asian Muslim Studies Association Pre-Conference invites scholars to present their latest research with reference to the advent of post-colonial South Asia in 1947. We seek papers on any aspect of South Asian Muslim life in South Asia and in the South Asian Muslim diaspora. In addition, we welcome considerations of South Asian Muslim history in the Sultanate, Mughal, and British period with reference to scholarship conducted since 1947. The pre-conference consists of four panels of three speakers each to allow ample time for discussion and questions. The papers can be on any geographical area covering South Asian Muslim life, thought, practice, and culture from Pakistan to Bangladesh, and from Nepal and India to Sri Lanka. In addition, we seek papers that illuminate the South Asian Muslim experience in the diaspora from North America and Australia to Europe. Papers can be on any topic such as theater, literature and arts, women’s studies and feminism, political processes and politics, regionalism and cosmopolitanism, religious experience in practice and theory, and the many manifestations of South Asian Muslim social and cultural practice. We seek contributions from scholars of all affiliations and from any disciplinary perspective such as history and political science, to sociology and anthropology, and from gender studies and feminism, and to theater criticism and film studies. The South Asian Muslim Studies Association embraces all research without reference to ideological position, seniority, or disciplinary perspective. The overarching theme of the pre-conference is a consideration of the latest research on South Asian Muslim life in theory and practice within the context of research conducted during the post-colonial period, but as it does so it seeks to celebrate and exhibit research on the latest themes, topics, and interests of study.

To present at the Pre-Conference, please send a title and a 250-word abstract as soon as possible and no later than September 1, 2017 to Rlong@emich.edu.

The Madison conference website is: www.southasiaconference.wisc.edu.

Also, SAMSA is sending you a Call for Papers for a SAMSA panel at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Meeting which will be held in Washington, DC, March 22-25, 2018. SAMSA is an affiliated organization of the AAS. If you would like to present at the AAS Annual Meeting in 2018, please contact SAMSA President, Laura Dudley Jenkins, at Laura.Jenkins@uc.edu. She requests a paper title and a 250-word abstract by noon, Monday, August 7, 2017.

The AAS Annual Conference website is: http://www.asian-studies.org/Conferences/AAS-Annual-Conference/Conference-Menu/Conference-Home

We hope you have had a good summer and you are looking forward to the seventieth anniversary celebrations. We look forward to hearing from you and possibly seeing you in Madison. After the Pre-Conference on the Thursday there is a reception and immediately afterwards we will be hosting a dinner in the hotel so even if you are unable to attend the Pre-Conference, please join us for dinner. Please note that if you are coming to Madison this year the Annual Conference concludes early on Saturday evening and there is no Sunday morning session.

With thanks and with regards.

Yours,

Roger Long

SAMSA Pre-Conference Co-Chair
Professor Roger D. Long, Ph.D, FRAS, FRHistS
Department of History and Philosophy
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti, Michigan 48197-2112
Rlong@emich.edu; Rogerlong1@gmail.com

1.Announcement – Course Registration Open: Introduction to Islamic Codicology, Cambridge University Library, 4-8 September 2017

Registration Open: Introduction to Islamic Codicology Course

4-8 September 2017

Cambridge University Library

The Islamic Manuscript Association—in partnership with the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation, Cambridge University Library, and the University of Cambridge’s HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies and Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies—announces its eleventh annual Cambridge-based Introduction to Islamic Codicology course, which will be held from 4 to 8 September 2017.

This intensive five-day course will introduce the study of Islamic manuscript codices as physical objects, or the archaeology of the Islamic book. Daily illustrated lectures will provide an overview of writing supports, the structure of quires, ruling and page layout, bookbinding, ornamentation, tools and materials used in book making, and the palaeography of book hands. Participants may choose to register for hands-on sessions during which they will examine Islamic manuscripts from Cambridge University Library and complete a series of practical exercises on manuscript description.

The course will be taught by Professor François Déroche, holder of the Chair of History of the Qur’an, Text and Transmission at the Collège de France, and Professor Nuria Martínez de Castilla Muñoz, Professor of the Codicology and History of the Manuscript Book in the Islamicate World, École Pratique des Hautes Études, both leading scholars of Islamic codicology and palaeography.

All instruction will be in English. The course does not require a knowledge of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, or other languages spoken in the Muslim World, and is suitable for art historians, bookbinders, codicologists, conservators, curators, and anyone else working with Islamic manuscripts.

The full course, including lectures and hands-on sessions, is limited to twelve persons for conservation and security reasons.

Further details, including the programme, fees, and registration form, can be found on the Association’s website, http://www.islamicmanuscript.org/courses/introduction-to-islamic-codicology,-cambridge,-2017.aspx

For more information, one may also contact Davidson MacLaren, executive director of The Islamic Manuscript Association, at davidson@islamicmanuscript.org.

 

 

 

2. Title:  Synagogues of the Islamic World: Architecture, Design and Identity
Edited by Mohammad Gharipour

Publisher:  Edinburgh University Press, 2017
ISBN13: 978-1474411714

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/synagogues-in-the-islamic-world-9781474411714?cc=us&lang=en&

 

 

 

3. CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg Fall School in

“Science and Technology in the Islamic Middle Periods”

Each fall the Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg offers, at no cost, an intensive, five-day course to Mamluk scholars (and those in related fields) at the doctoral and post-doctoral level on topics of mutual interest.

The traditional model for such courses has been group work on medieval Arabic texts. The past two years, however, the Kolleg has innovated with course delivery and themes, to cultivate interdisciplinarity and expand and enrich our methodological approaches. The theme of the Fall School 2017 is “Science and Technology in the Islamic Middle Periods”. The Islamic Middle Periods (roughly 12th-16th centuries) witnessed a shift to mass production and the development of new technologies and crafts. To evaluate the contributions of this period in the development of science and technology in general is one goal of this course.

This Fall School will be taught as a webinar, which allows students (and instructors) to log in from anywhere in the world and meet one another in a virtual classroom in real time.  The webinar format was chosen as an appropriate venue for technological experimentation and to create an environment fostering scientific exchange.

The course runs September 25-29, 2017. There will be generally two, two-hour seminars each day, each taught by a different instructor (or pair of instructors), who are leading scholars in their field.  The seminars combine powerpoint lectures, group discussion of secondary readings, group work with period manuscripts (on science), and hands-on (online) exercises to develop knowledge about a range of technologies and sciences developed during the Middle Islamic Period. Daily seminars will cover the following topics:

• engineering and technology of warfare
• industry, production, and transfer of trade knowledge
• pharmacology and medicine
• water technology and agrarian science
• astronomy and mapping

The language of instruction is English. Applicants will be scholars of medieval Islamic history (or related fields) at the doctoral or post-doctoral level. All participants need dependable internet access and a Skype account, and agree to be available the entire week during the times scheduled for the daily seminars. To apply, send a statement of interest and CV to Dr. Abdelkader Al Ghouz (aalghouz@uni-bonn.de) by August 15, 2017.

 

 

4. Ghent University – postdoctoral research fellows in Arabic
historiography
https://www.ugent.be/en/work/vacancies/scientific/post-doctoral-researcher-fellowship-in-arabic-vugno

 

5. Iranian Studies Summer School

11-17^th September, 2017

Sofia – Bulgaria

 

Contact for more information and registration:

Centre for Iran, Balkans and Central European Studies – IBCE

www.cibce.org

address: Bulgaria, Sofia, blv. Evlogi Georgiev № 101, fl.2

mob. tel. +359 8 77 55 45 62, +359 8 85 04 17 23

e-mail: office@cibce.org

IBCE – Executive Director: Alireza Pourmohammad

e-mail: alireza.purmohammad@cibce.org

 

 

 

6. The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML),  holds the world’s largest collection of resources for the study of manuscript cultures both East and West. Since 1965, HMML has been preserving and sharing the world’s manuscript heritage. Now, scholars have free, online access to manuscripts and research resources on vHMML, <http://www.vhmml.org/>.

As of today, vHMML Reading Room, the sophisticated catalog database component of vHMML, reached a benchmark of 20,000 records available for research – and more are added every day.

About half of the manuscripts on vHMML belong to collections from the Middle East and Africa. There are currently over 10,000 records in Arabic, Syriac, and Garshuni, dating from the fifth century CE to modern times. High-resolution digital images of these manuscripts are available for viewing on vHMML, and the catalog information is searchable.

Registration on vHMML is open to anybody who has a scholarly interest in the manuscripts. Go to <http://www.vhmml.org/> and click on “Register” at the top right.

HMML is located at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. While a modest collection of physical manuscripts and rare print books resides at HMML, most of our online offerings are from manuscripts that were photographed onsite in countries around the world. The photography is done by local teams outfitted and trained by HMML, and the manuscripts remain in the possession of their owning institutions. This work has preserved, in digital form, thousands of manuscripts that have since gone missing or been destroyed due to political upheaval.

David Calabro, PhD
Lead Cataloger, Eastern Christian and Islamic Manuscripts
Hill Museum & Manuscript Library
2835 Abbey Plaza
PO Box 7300
Saint John’s University
Collegeville, MN 56321-7300, USA
<dcalabro001@csbsju.edu>.

 

 

 

7. Stanford University, Art and Art History, Music, Theater and Performance
Studies, Comparative Literature

Islam and the Arts
Assistant Professor/Associate Professor,

Tenure Track Faculty

Stanford University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant  Professor or a tenured Associate Professor faculty position in Islam and
the Arts. The search is open to scholars focused on Islamic religious
arts and performance; non-religious artistic and literary productions of
the diverse cultures of Islamic societies; and scholar/artist
practitioners. The applicant must have a conferred terminal degree in
his/her field by September 1, 2018. The appointment can be in one of the
following departments in the School of Humanities and Sciences: Art and
Art History, Music, Theater and Performance Studies, or Comparative
Literature.

The successful candidate will be based in a humanities department but is
also expected to contribute to the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies’
curricular and outreach efforts. Candidates should demonstrate interests
that afford effective interactions with a broad range of colleagues and
the ability to teach and mentor a diverse student body. Teaching
responsibilities will be determined by the home department.

Applicants should provide a cover letter including a brief statement of
research interests, a curriculum vitae including list of publications,
and one recent writing sample or, in the case of an arts practitioner, a
link to the applicant’s website. Assistant level and untenured
applicants should arrange to have three letters of reference submitted
to AcademicJobsOnline.org. Currently tenured applicants should submit
the names of three references. For full consideration, materials should
be received by October 2, 2017.

Please use the following link to apply:
https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/9281

Contact:
Zack Al-Witri, Ph.D.
Associate Director
The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
Stanford University
zalwitri@stanford.edu

 

1.Call for Papers: Conference on “Ideas of Harmonious Coexistence: Religions and Philosophies of India,” 27-28 December 2017, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, in collaboration with and sponsored by the “Taqreeb Conference Series” of the Qutbi Jubilee Scholarship Program (QJSP), Mumbai, invites the submission of abstracts for a conference on ideas of harmonious coexistence in the religions and philosophies of India. The purpose of the conference is to bring together scholars and community leaders to explore notions of communal harmony in India, as theorized and practiced, historically and today. The conference would create a platform to connect these notions to contemporary challenges to peace and pluralism.

Please send your 500 word (English) abstract by filling the online abstract submission form available on http://taqreeb.org/call-for-papers/ by 5 August, 2017. Selection decisions will be emailed by September 1. The program sponsors are pleased to offer transport within India and New Delhi, as well as meals and accommodation for all invited participants.

For further information on the sponsors, venue, and conference topic, please see attached document.

Please address any correspondence to contact@taqreeb.org

 

 

2. Conference: “Islam and Modernity”, Essaouira, Morocco, 14 September 2017

This conference is sponsored by the Three Cultures of the Mediterranean Foundation, the International Council for Middle East Studies (ICMES) with the collaboration of the Association Essaouira Mogador.

Information: http://www.tresculturas.org/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/07/ICMES-programa-1-1.pdf
 

 

3. Workshop: “Maslaha, Siyasa and Good Governance: Shari’a and Society”, Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Bergen, 19-20 April 2018

This workshop will explore the use of the classical fiqh concepts of “maslaha”, “siyasa” and “maqasid” in contemporary debates. Are such terms used only for reformist rhetoric, or are the classical discussions relevant for legal actors of the modern period? The workshop is part of the EU/HERA project: “Uses of the Past: Understanding Shari’a”.

Deadline for abstracts: 30 October 2017. Information: https://goo.gl/cikwG6 or mailto:knut.vikor@uib.no
 

 

4. Transregional Research Junior Scholar Fellowships: “InterAsian Contexts and Connections”, University of Göttingen, 15 April – 15 July 2018

Invitational priorities for the 2018 Global Summer Semester Residencies include Movements of Knowledge, Transregional Populisms, Religious Networks.

Deadline for application: 27 September 2017. Information: http://www.ssrc.org/fellowships/transregional-research-fellowship

 

 

5. Jobs:

 

James A. Bellamy Professorship in Pre-Modern Arabic Culture, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
We seek to hire an innovative scholar with a specialization in law, theology, or philosophy, or any combination of those fields. Preference will be given to candidates working on questions of social history, gender and sexuality, or critical theory. Candidates must hold a Ph.D. at the time of the appointment, and have native or near-native proficiency in English and Arabic.
Deadline for application: 15 October 2017. Information: http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55131
 

Assistant Professor of Arabic Studies, Williams College, Massachusetts
Beginning July 2018. Specialization open, PhD in hand by September 2018 expected. Excellent training and experience in teaching Arabic to non-native speakers are essential.
Deadline for application: 20 September 2017. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/43331

Two Visiting Assistant Professors, School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University (near New York), Mid-August 2017 – Mid-May 2018
The scholars are expected to teach from one or more of the following areas: 1) research methods;  2) international security; 3) international law; 4) international relations theory; and 5) current global issues including the Middle East, negotiation, and political economy.
Deadline for application: 26 June 2017.  Information: http://jobs.shu.edu/cw/en-us/job/492929/visiting-assistant-professor-1-year

Assistant Professor for Contemporary International History: “Asian or Middle Eastern Transnational”, University of Toronto and Trinity College, Toronto
This position provides a platform for examining the history of recent global processes and transnational relations with attention to Asia and/or the Middle East.
Deadline for application: 28 September 2017. Information: https://utoronto.taleo.net/careersection/10050/jobdetail.ftl?job=1701097

 

 

6. MESA Graduate Student Paper Prize Competition
The author of the winning paper will be presented with a certificate and $250 cash award at the Awards Ceremony at MESA’s annual meeting. In addition, the paper can be submitted for publication in the “Review of Middle East Studies”.
Deadline for papers: 15 August 2017. Information: http://mesana.org/awards/student-paper-prize.html
 

 

7. The University of Texas at Austin: College of Liberal Arts : Department of Middle Eastern Studies

Associate or Full Professor of Arabic

Location: Austin, Texas

Closes: Sep 29, 2017 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time
(GMT-4 hours)

The Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin invites applications for a tenured position as an Associate or Full Professor of Arabic Studies. The position will begin in Fall 2018.

Duties include directing the Arabic Flagship Program, teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses, directing graduate research, and assuming a leadership role in the graduate program. As a member of the faculty, the successful hire will be expected to maintain an active, strong record of research and publication and to engage in service to the Department, College, University and the profession. The Department places a high premium on collegiality and maintaining a diverse and hospitable working environment.  Salary and rank are dependent upon experience and qualifications.

Qualifications

All applicants must have a Ph.D. in hand in Arabic Studies or in a discipline where their expertise falls within the field of Middle Eastern Studies. Applicants must have at least ACTFL Superior-level proficiency in Arabic and pedagogical expertise that is relevant to the goals of the Arabic Flagship. While discipline and research specializations are open, prior engagement with an Arabic program is essential. A successful candidate should demonstrate an established record of managing or running an academic unit and successful grant application(s), as well as scholarly activity and excellence in teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.
In line with our effort to strengthen the Department’s regional profile, preference will be given to candidates who can demonstrate research and/or teaching ability in any of the other established departmental programs: Persian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew, Islamic Studies, or the Ancient Near East.

Application Instructions

To apply, please submit a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, one sample publication, a teaching dossier including sample syllabi (both graduate and undergraduate), student evaluations (both graduate and undergraduate) and the names and contact information for three professional referees. Electronic submissions only (through Interfolio). All materials should be submitted by September 29, 2017 and review of applications will begin October 2, 2017. We intend to conduct preliminary Skype interviews in late October 2017.

For Further Info:
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/mes/ 
512-471-3881
Or:
Esther Raizen, Search Committee Chair and Senior Associate Dean for Research
Email: raizen@austin.utexas.edu

 

 

1.Catholic Orientalism, Portuguese Empire, Indian Knowledge (16th-18th Centuries)

Ângela Barreto Xavier and Ines G. Županov

OUP, 2015

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/catholic-orientalism-9780199452675?cc=gb&lang=en&

 

 

 

2. Governance and Islam in East Africa: Muslims and the State.

Date: January 17-18, 2018​

Location: Aga Khan University, Nairobi.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: August 31, 2017

The Conference
The Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (ISMC) and East African Institute (EAI) seek to bring together academics, civil society actors and policy-makers to explore the relationship between governance and Muslims in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

Recent studies of Muslims in East Africa have tended largely to explore two main approaches. The focus has been either to study Muslims in relation to security issues, or to explore the reforms attempted within the communities and their implications for Muslim theology, rituals and general welfare.

However, a third approach, which has hitherto received less attention, is the relationship between Muslims and the governance of the countries in which they reside as citizens or residents. Such an approach, inclusive also of the other two dimensions, permits us to view the attitudes and activities of Muslims both in relation to themselves and to the various challenges they face in common with their fellow compatriots and citizens.

This approach will be addressed through the broad themes of Institutions, Law, and Politics and discussed in keynote conversations convened by among others Farouk Topan, Alex Awiti, Erin Styles, Hassan Mwakimako, and Kai Kresse.

We welcome paper submissions on a broad range of topics under these themes – see details on the conference web page.

Submission of Proposals
Papers are invited within the conference themes and accepted papers will be grouped into panels, with each speaker having 20 minutes to present their paper. Interested individuals should submit proposals to ismc.governance@aku.edu by August 31, 2017. There is no conference fee and all conference meals will be covered. We will inform you of paper acceptance by end September 2017.

See: https://www.aku.edu/govprogramme/conferences/Pages/home.aspx

 

 

 

3. The newly-formed Great Lakes Adiban Society (GLAS) is holding its first annual workshop on literatures of the Islamicate world (Arabic, Bengali, Kurdish, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, etc.) and related on 30 September to 1 October at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo:

https://sites.google.com/umich.edu/adiban/

 

 

4. The Fifth Conference of the School of Mamluk Studies will be held at Ghent University (Belgium) from July 5-7, 2018.
The conference will be conducted in two parts and will be preceded by a three-
day intensive course on Digital Islamic (Mamluk) Humanities from July 2-4,
2018.
The first day of the conference, July 5, will be themed. The theme of this
part of the conference will be Historiography/Adab. The following two days of
the conference (July 6 and 7) will be structured in pre-organized panels.
For more information, please visit the SMS webpage at
http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/school-of-mamluk-studies.html

 

 

 

5. Open Call: The 2018-2019 Darat al Funun Dissertation Fellowship

DEADLINE: 15 NOVEMBER 2017

Darat al Funun-The Khalid Shoman Foundation is pleased to announce the open call for its 2018-19 dissertation fellowship. The fellowship was established in 2011 to encourage research on modern and contemporary art of the Arab world. The fellowship provides financial support of up to ten thousand US dollars to Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences. One to two fellowships will be granted each year. The fellowship duration must range from 4-6 months of residency at Darat al Funun in Amman.

Fellows are expected to pursue their own research, give at least one public lecture, and participate in Darat al Funun’s cultural and artistic activities. Upon completion of the fellowship, fellows are required to submit a five to seven page research report that will be made available on Darat al Funun’s website.

Fellowship funding is intended to compensate all travel and stipend expenses. Darat al Funun will in addition provide housing and office space. Fellows are responsible for their own health insurance.

Darat al Funun is a home for the arts and artists from the Arab world, housed in six renovated historical buildings from the 1920s and 30s, with a restored archaeological site in the garden. We aim to provide a platform for contemporary Arab artists, to support art practices and artistic exchange, to stimulate critical discourse, and to research, document and archive Arab art. Our specialized arts library includes Arabic and English resources and an archive of video and photographic documentation of Darat al Funun’s activities and files on Arab artists. In addition, Darat al Funun hosts artworks from The Khalid Shoman Collection.

For specific questions about the fellowship contact fellowship@daratalfunun.org

Applications are welcome in Arabic or English by 15 November 2017 with notice of award by 15 March 2018. Applicants should send a research proposal, also specifying their desired period of stay during the academic year 2018-19, two letters of recommendation, a writing sample, C.V., and official transcript. Priority will be given to proposals that indicate the role of Darat al Funun’s archive.

Applicants must have advanced to candidacy by the start of the fellowship. Applications are welcome from students enrolled in any university worldwide.

Application materials should either be emailed (in PDF or Word format, with each document clearly labelled with your name) to fellowship@daratalfunun.org or posted to:

Darat al Funun Dissertation Fellowship
Darat al Funun-The Khalid Shoman Foundation
P.O. Box 5223
Amman, Jordan 11183

 

 

 

6. Conference: “Arab Traditions of Anti-Sectarianism”, Rice University, Houston, 1-2 December 2017

This conference seeks to bring together scholars whose work reflects on different facets of Arab anti-sectarianism. How did Arab political, revolutionary, and intellectual movements, parties, and figures challenge and contest sectarianism? Etc.

Deadline for abstracts: 1 September 2017. Information: http://antisectarianismconference.blogs.rice.edu/
 

 

7. IX Islamic Law and Society Conference, International Society of Islamic Legal Studies, Helsinki & Tampere, Finland, 6-9 June 2018

The conference will be divided into two parts. In the first, which will take place in Helsinki, a keynote address and an invited panel of five speakers will present on “Islamic Law and the Relationship between Ruler and Ruled.”  The second part, which will take place in Tampere over two-and-a-half days, will consist of presentations; preference is given to discussions based on primary text analysis or fieldwork.

Deadline for abstracts: 31 July 2017.  Information: http://www.isils.net/conferences

 

 

 

8. James A. Bellamy Professorship in Pre-Modern Arabic Culture, Department of Near Eastern Studies (NES), University of Michigan

Candidates must hold a Ph.D. at the time of the appointment, and have native or near-native proficiency in English and Arabic. It is expected that they will have experience in curriculum development and will be committed to maintaining and enhancing the long-standing excellence of Arabic Studies at the University.

Deadline for application: 15 October 2017. Information: http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55131

 

9. Assistant/Associate/Full Professor in Islamic Studies, Stanford University, CA

The successful applicant must demonstrate substantial evidence of creativity and excellence in research and scholarship as well as a commitment to excellence in teaching and advising students at both graduate and undergraduate levels. PhD required.The term of appointment would begin September 1, 2018 or as soon as practicable thereafter.

Deadline for application: 15 September 2017. Information: https://apply.interfolio.com/42228
 

10. Post-doc to Analyze Medieval Arabic / Persian Historical Materials on China and its Neighboring Areas, Nanjing University, China

The project will fund three to four months to work in Nanjing University. The qualified international scholars may speak English and should have a good knowledge of Arabic / Persian languages.

Information: Professor Hua Tao huat@nju.edu.cn

 

11. Brill’s Middle East and Islamic Studies Early-Career Paper Prize 2017

The Paper Prize is open to students who are currently registered for doctoral research at a higher education institution, or have obtained their doctoral degree after 1 September 2014.

Deadline for submissions: 1 October 2017. Information: http://www.brill.com/brills-middle-east-and-islamic-studies-early-career-paper-prize-2017
 

 

 

12. Jobs:
Qatar Museums – Curator for Turkey & Central Islamic Lands
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55125

Qatar Museums – Curator for 2019 (EMU) Project
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55126

Qatar Museums – Curator for Central Asia & Iran
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55119

 

 

 

 

13. CfP: “Material Culture Methods in the Middle Islamic Periods”

Sponsor: Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg, University of Bonn

Venue: Bristol Hotel, Bonn

8-10 December 2017

Deadline for application: 8th September 2017

This year’s international conference is devoted to the study of material culture in the Middle Islamic periods, namely the era of the Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman Sultanates and their contemporaries, with a special emphasis on the Mamluk era. Material culture includes the things that people have made and the relationships between people and those things. It is most informative about the realities of daily life, social and economic networks, and the spatial setting of social activities. Rather than focusing on the formal qualities of objects or their “materiality” (dating, provenance, material composition), the conference’s aim is to facilitate the expansion of the kind of questions we can ask about the societies of the Mediterranean in the 12th-16th centuries, through reference to the material record, including “archaeological texts” (papyri, paper documents, and inscriptions recovered from archaeological contexts). The geographical focus of the conference is the Mediterranean and its hinterland.

Participants are challenged to address the explore ways in which “things” fashioned by human hands defined, molded, and reconstituted relationships: the relationships between craftsman and consumer, patron and client, and within social or intellectual groups, for example. What about the relationships between “things”? When objects gained a second life – through reuse, recycling, as spolia – how did these relationships change? How were relationships consolidated or transformed through consumption (or performance), display, or disappearance from public view? What can we learn about the societies of the day in this manner?

We invite both senior researchers and junior scholars using material culture methods in Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman Studies to share and reflect perspectives related to the conference’s topic and aim. Please submit your abstract (no longer than 500 words) and a short vita to Dr. Abdelkader Al Ghouz (aalghouz@uni-bonn.de) before September 8th 2017. Successful applicants are expected to submit a draft paper by November 24th, 2017.

Speakers agree to publish their papers in a conference volume after a review process and confirm that they have not been previously published. For accepted papers, accommodations will be provided and travel costs will be covered. The language of the conference is English. The conference proceedings will be published in a peer-reviewed volume. The publication is planned for October 2018.

For more information, please contact Dr. Abdelkader Al Ghouz.

 

 

 

1.13 July, Film Screening – The Past and Present of a Sufi Order: the Qalāndariyya and Sehwa,

Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations

210 Euston Road

Room 2.3

London

NW1 2DA

Webinar access also available:

See https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/film-screening-the-past-and-present-of-a-sufi-order-the-qalandariyya-and-sehwan-tickets-35958388508

 

 

 

2. Conference: “Ethnicity, Faith and Communal Relations in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean”, University of Colorado, Boulder, 3-4 November 2017

We invite abstracts of in-progress drafts of articles or book/dissertation chapters on any aspect of ethno-religious identity, heterodoxy, inter- and intra-faith relations, minority-majority relations, conversion, missionizing, and related topics in the pre-Modern Mediterranean, broadly construed.

Deadline for abstracts: 21 July 2017. Information: http://mailchi.mp/mediterraneanseminar/cfp-ethnicity-faith-and-communal-relations-mediterranean-seminar-fall-2017-workshop-3-4-november-boulder-920661?e=82aeb6c61d
 

3. 1st Global Conference: “Migration and Diasporas”, Progressive Connections, Vienna, 2-3 December 2017

Our conference seeks to create a lasting network of professionals in all fields related to this topic, to isolate, discuss and explore the main issues, pressing matters and recent developments in this field of research and activity, to identify areas to be subsequently explored in further depth and to generate collaborative action that will lead to lasting change in the way migration and migrants are perceived and approached.

Deadline for abstracts: 4 August 2017. Information: http://www.progressiveconnexions.net/interdisciplinary-projects/cultures-and-societies/migration-and-diasporas/conferences/

 

4. International Conference: “Rethinking Halal: Genealogy, Current Trends, and New Interpretation”, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, 24-25 April 2018

For this conference, we invite scholars and researchers to speak on the genealogy of halal since Muslim religious scholars started to instruct a written knowledgeable debate on “halal” and to unravel Muslim social practices towards halal.

Deadline for abstracts: 8 January 2018. Information: https://de.scribd.com/document/344316016/Halal-International-Conference-on-23-25-April-2018-at-UCL-Louvain-la-Neuve-Belgium
 

 

5. Colloque international : « Pluralisme religieux, sociétés plurielles : les religions dans l’espace public européen », Nantes, 3-5 Octobre 2018

Au cours de ce colloque, nous étudierons l’héritage religieux dans les sociétés européennes et dans leurs espaces d’influence, de contacts et d’échanges à travers cinq sessions académiques sur des thèmes clés en privilégiant des approches favorisant le dialogue entre les disciplines.

Les propositions devront être envoyées avant le 1er septembre 2017. Information: http://ipra.eu/fr/2017/05/03/colloque-international-pluralisme-religieux-societes-plurielles-les-religions-dans-lespace-public-europeen/
 

 

6. Post-doctoral Researcher on “Islamic Activists in Exile: Europe, Middle East and South-Asia”, CEFRES, Prague

Candidates for this two years position are expected to have conducted their doctoral research in one of the regions covered by the project (The Gulf, Turkey, South-Asia), to be proficient of one of its languages (Turkish, Arabic, Malay), and have an important knowledge of the fieldwork.

Deadline for application: 23 August 2017. Information: http://www.cefres.cz/en/6214

 

7. CfP: Emergent Religious Pluralism(s)
April 16th & 17th 2018, The Woolf Institute in Cambridge

We invite 250-word abstracts for an interdisciplinary conference on
thetheme of ‘Emergent Religious Pluralism(s)’. The event will be held at
the Woolf Institute in Cambridge, in April 2018 and will include a keynote
talk from Professor Nasar Meer (University of Edinburgh). Please submit
your abstracts to John Fahy (jef96@georgetown.edu ) by August 15th 2017.

Outline

The concept of religious pluralism has been at the centre of major
political developments and discourse in recent years. The rise of the Hindu
right in India has contributed to an increasing sense of marginalisation
amongst non-Hindu minorities, and Muslims in particular. Donald Trump’s
divisive rhetoric and persistent attempts to impose a Muslim travel ban
have similarly left Muslim minorities in the U.S. feeling targeted. In war
torn countries throughout the Middle East, the place of the dwindling
Christian communities looks ever more precarious, and the rich tradition of
pluralism seems to be disappearing. Across Europe controversial attempts,
both legal and political, to manage the challenge of religious diversity
have led to heated debates on how to deal with difference. At the heart of
these developments, the very ideal of religious pluralism itself is being
contested. But how have changing realities on the ground informed the ideal
of religious pluralism itself in different parts of the world?

Religious pluralism has often been defined in relation to, but as
distinct from, religious diversity. David Machacek defines pluralism as
“meaningful diversity” (2003) while in Diana Eck’s (2006) words “pluralism
is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity”. It is
not just tolerance, Eck writes, but “the active seeking of understanding
across lines of difference”. The ideal of religious pluralism in the
American context, at least, connotes integration, and not segregation. More
than the merely descriptive diversity, it implies both evaluation and
engagement. It is, in other words, a moral response to the existential fact
of diversity.

That such definitions of religious pluralism can encompass the broad
range of ways in which the challenge of religious diversity can (or should)
be managed has been problematised. Taking account of the myriad social,
political and historical factors that shape the kinds of religious
pluralism that have emerged throughout the world, and throughout history,
some now prefer to speak of ‘pluralisms’ (Marty 2007) or ‘modes of
religious pluralism’ (Riis 1999). Such modes of religious pluralism are not
simply alternative approaches to a common ideal, but constitute complex
political responses to particular socio-historical challenges.

But what kinds of challenges elicit what kinds of responses? How is the
ideal of religious pluralism conceived, constructed and contested in
different parts of the world? Are there identifiable approaches to
religious pluralism within or between different religious traditions? How
might we describe the various ways in which the challenge of religious
diversity is being responded to today, and who is responding? What is the
relationship between everyday experiences of diversity, on the one hand,
and ideals of religious pluralism, tolerance and coexistence, on the other?

This conference looks to explore the emergent conceptions of, and
commitments to, the ideal of religious pluralism in different parts of the
world. We invite submissions that engage with one or more of the following
questions:

– How are the ideals of religious pluralism changing in light of recent
social and political developments? Are there identifiable ‘modes’ of
religious pluralism emerging in different parts of the world? Do we find
broader trends that transcend particularities of national (and
nationalistic) political discourses?
– In what ways can the history of religious pluralisms throughout the
world, and across religious traditions, inform our understanding of recent
developments? Is there anything new about how religious difference itself
is being constructed and contested?
– What is the relationship between religious pluralism and broader
strategies for managing difference, such as multiculturalism? To what
extent do ideals of religious pluralism reflect those of other pluralisms,
for example, cultural, ethnic or national?
– What kinds of responses are being offered to the challenge of
religious diversity by both state and non-state institutions and actors?
How is the challenge itself being articulated, and by who? How do the
ideals of religious pluralism, tolerance and coexistence relate to the
everyday experience of diversity?
– What role do religious actors play? How are theological resources
being mobilised to address the challenge of religious diversity, for
example, through interfaith dialogue?
 

 

8. Call for Papers Historians of Islamic Art Association Biennial Symposium
“Border Crossing” Yale University, October 25-27, 2018
The 2018 HIAA symposium will bring together an international group of established and emerging scholars of Islamic art and architecture to present new research on the theme of “Border Crossing.” Very often the field has been defined as one centered on select regions of the Middle East, South Asia, and Central Asia, and focusing on traditional media and categories, such as the decorative arts, manuscript studies, and architecture. Less attention has been paid to regions on the so-called peripheries, including, for example, Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, or to disciplines that are not often associated with the field, such as film and anthropology. “Border Crossing” is an invitation to rethink the field of Islamic art and architecture by interrogating the ideas of translation, transmission, and transgression that are suggested by the theme. Among the questions that may be asked are: How can this lens help us rethink works that form the “canon” of Islamic art? What is at stake in crossing disciplinary borders? What is lost and what is gained in abandoning traditional academic parameters? What may be learned through literal border crossings, whether they are by consrvation authorities or refugees? As the works of several contemporary artists show, border crossings are ultimately ethical positions taken to evince the human condition itself. They thus provide potential to rethink the arts and cultures of the Islamic world, as well as the ways in which we study them today.

 

There are three categories of submission: Pre-arranged panels (4 papers and a discussant); individual papers; graduate student papers. Please submit your abstract/s and a brief curriculum vitae to presidentelect.hiaa@gmail.com by September 7, 2017.

The 2018 Symposium Committee:
Christiane Gruber
Yael Rice
Kishwar Rizvi
Ünver Rüstem

 

 

 

9. THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

DEPARTMENT OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES

PRE-MODERN ARABIC TENURE-TRACK POSITION

 

The Department of Near Eastern Studies (NES) at the University of Michigan invites applications for the James A. Bellamy Professorship in Pre-Modern Arabic Culture at the rank of Assistant Professor (tenure-track) or Associate Professor (with tenure) beginning September 1, 2018. This is a university-year (nine-month) appointment.

We seek to hire an innovative scholar with a specialization in law, theology, or philosophy, or any combination of those fields. Preference will be given to candidates working on questions of social history, gender and sexuality, or critical theory. For a department that prides itself on collaborations across disciplinary, chronological, and linguistic boundaries we seek a colleague who can complement existing faculty strengths in Middle Eastern Studies, history and literature in NES and at the University of Michigan.

Candidates must hold a Ph.D. at the time of the appointment, and have native or near-native proficiency in English and Arabic. It is expected that they will have experience in curriculum development and will be committed to maintaining and enhancing the long-standing excellence of Arabic Studies at the University. Candidates must produce evidence of substantial, innovative research in their fields of specialization. The successful candidate will offer undergraduate and graduate courses in their area of specialization, and be prepared to also teach content courses in Arabic. Salary will be commensurate with the candidate’s training and experience.

Please submit a cover letter with a statement of teaching philosophy and experience, a statement of current and future research plans, evidence of teaching excellence, samples of syllabi and publications, and curriculum vitae. In addition, candidates should send three letters of recommendation.

Application materials must be submitted electronically. Please go to https://webapps.lsa.umich.edu/Apply/1079 to apply.

To be assured consideration, applications must be received by October 15, 2017.  The University of Michigan is an Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action Employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. The University is supportive of the needs of dual career couples.  All applications will be acknowledged.

 

10. Kalamazoo College – Assistant Professor, Medieval or Early Modern
Mediterranean History
http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=55099

 

 

1.Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships 2017
Aga Khan University (International) in the UK

Location: London
Salary: Not specified
Hours: Full Time
Contract Type: Permanent
Placed on: 29th June 2017
Closes: 20th July 2017
The Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London, United Kingdom (“the Institute”) is currently inviting expressions of interest for Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships. Holders of Fellowships will have the opportunity to pursue research within a stimulating and supportive environment by playing an active role in the intellectual life of the Institute. The Institute does not itself award the Fellowship but supports selected applications to the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme.

The Institute aims to focus on issues that are relatively unexplored within contemporary Muslim societies. In particular, it concentrates on two broad research themes:

The Construction of Knowledge about Muslim Cultures and Societies
Understanding the Processes of Social Change in Muslim Cultures and Societies
The Institute is also building several research programmes and projects, two in particular which might benefit from a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow:

Governance for the Public Interest in Muslim Contexts (with a focus on constitutional law in Muslim contexts)
Digital Humanities – KITAB, a project which undertakes a far-reaching evaluation of the classical Arabic textual tradition (750–1200) for the purpose of understanding how cultural memory was negotiated and shaped by authors when they created books. Its ingenuity derives from the application of text reuse methods, which detect the copying of texts into other texts and thus enable study of the form and content of the textual tradition.
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA) provide grants for all stages of researchers’ careers and encourage transnational, intersectoral and interdisciplinary mobility. Individual Fellowships – European are 1-2 years in duration and provide opportunities to acquire and transfer new knowledge and to work on research in a European context (EU Member States and Associated Countries). The scheme particularly supports the return and reintegration of researchers from outside Europe who have previously worked here. It also develops or helps to restart the careers of individual researchers that show great potential, considering their experience.[1]

For further information, see
https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/h2020-msca-if-2017.html#c,topics=callIdentifier/t/H2020-MSCA-IF-2017/1/1/1/default-group&callStatus/t/Forthcoming/1/1/0/default-group&callStatus/t/Open/1/1/0/default-group&callStatus/t/Closed/1/1/0/default-group&+identifier/desc

Those applicants whom we wish to support will be contacted by 31 July 2017.

 

 

 

2. CfP:Iinaugural conference of the Australian Association of Islamic and Muslim Studies (AAIMS).

http://arts.unimelb.edu.au/nceis/news-and-events/islam-and-justice-aaims-inaugural-conference-on-the-study-of-islam-and-muslim-societies

Abstracts (100- 200 words) with a brief bio (50-100 words) to be sent to Dr Joshua Roose: nceis-office@unimelb.edu.au

Abstract submission closes 11 August 2017.

 

 

 

3. What was Philology in Arabic?

Arabic-Islamic Textual Practices in the Early Modern World

Freie Universität Berlin, 13-15 July.

For a list of participants, abstracts and conference schedule see: http://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/en/e/semiarab/arabistik/whatwasphilology/index.html 

 

 

 

4. PhD Fellowship, Faculty of Theology (Qur’anic Studies), University of Copenhagen

A three-year PhD scholarship will be available from October 1st 2017. To be considered, applicants must have a Master’s degree in Islamic studies or any other relevant Master’s degree or similar qualifications. Experience in or knowledge about digital humanities is considered an asset.

Deadline for application: 1 September 2017. Information: http://jobportal.ku.dk/phd/?show=145413

 

5. Jobs:

Lecturer in Arabic, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Selection Criteria: Postgraduate qualification in one or more of: Second Language Acquisition, Arabic Linguistics, Teaching Arabic as a Second Language; Native proficiency in written and spoken Arabic; Experience and demonstrated excellence in teaching Arabic preferably at tertiary level; etc.
Deadline for application: 31 July 2017. Information: http://cml.soh.ntu.edu.sg/aboutUs/Pages/Job-Openings.aspx

 

Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Politics, Claremont McKenna College, CA
The Department of Government invites applications for a tenure-track position beginning July 1, 2018. A qualified candidate, with PhD in hand or a nearly completed doctoral dissertation, would have research experience on the domestic politics or policy of one or more Middle Eastern countries, as well as expertise on the international issues that these countries face. The candidate would have sufficient mastery of one or more Middle Eastern languages to engage in the research.
Deadline for application: 1 August 2017. Information: https://webapps.cmc.edu/jobs/faculty/faculty_opening_detail.php?PostingID=16021

 

6. 2018/19 Civil Society Leaderships Awards, Durham University and Open Society Foundation
The awards provide fully funded Master’s level scholarships for individuals who demonstrate both academic and professional excellence and have the potential to become civil society leaders in their home communities.  Applicants from Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, etc. are eligible to apply for these awards.
Deadline for application: 15 July 2017. Information: http://www.dur.ac.uk/postgraduate/finance/scholarships/csla/

 

7. “Coercion and Responsibility in Islam”, Mairaj Syed

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/coercion-and-responsibility-in-islam-9780198788775?cc=gb&lang=en&

 

 

8. Asma Hilali, The Sanaa Palimpsest: The Transmission of the Qur’an in the First Centuries AH

(Oxford: Oxford University Press in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2017), 271 pp. ISBN: 9780198793793.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-sanaa-palimpsest-9780198793793?q=asma%20hilali&lang=en&cc=us

 

 

 

9. Dans le cadre du 2ème Congrès du GIS “Moyen-Orient et Mondes musulmans”, nous sommes heureux de vous convier à l’atelier “Familles, autorité et savoir dans l’espace moyen-oriental (XVe-XVIIe s.)” qui se tiendra le samedi 8 juillet de 9h à 15h30, à l’INALCO (65 rue des Grands Moulins, Paris 13e) en salle 3.01.

Vous trouverez le programme de cet atelier en pièce-jointe, et toutes les activités du programme de recherche DYNTRAN sur le site : http://www.dyntran.hypotheses.org/