Categories : Field-specific (academic)

The fall programme of the lecture series on Material Culture, Art, and Architecture of Pre-Safavid Shiʿism is now out.
We will begin on Wednesday, September 23, with a lecture by Ed Hayes and Leone Pecorini Goodall entitled:
Non-Fatimid Epigraphic Depictions of the Alid Family
As usual, we will convene at 15:30 CET on Zoom.
If you would like to attend, please register for the lecture here.
The rest of the fall programme is as follows:
October 7th, 15:30 CET
Bernard O’Kane, American University in Cairo
“The Name of ʿAlī in Architectural Inscriptions”
November 25th, 15:30 CET
Lyla Halsted, Davidson College
“Invoking the Imams: Tracing Medieval Islamic Amuletic and Talismanic Practices to Early Shiʿi Sources”
December 2026 (date TBC)
May Farhat, Lebanese American University
Title TBC

Articles on “Digital Humanities in Alewi-Bektashi Studies” for a Special Issue of the “International Journal of Alevi-Bektashi Studies (IJABS)”
This issue will explore the growing role of Digital Humanities in the study of Alevi and Bektashi commu-nities, histories, cultures, and religious traditions. We welcome proposals engaging with the ways digital methods, tools, archives, and technologies can open new avenues for research in Alevi-Bektashi Studies.
Deadline for abstracts: 30 September 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/wzdce6rv. Contact: akstump@wm.edu

Ismailis of China: history, culture and tradition

What role does sound play in shaping religious life and belonging?

IIS hosts a book talk with Dr Stefan Williamson Fa on his new book, Sonic Relations. The hybrid event takes place on Tuesday 29 September at the Aga Khan Centre, London, and online. Drawing on research with Twelver Shiʿi communities in Turkey, the talk explores how sound shapes devotion.
Register at:
https://www.iis.ac.uk/events/sonic-relations-book-talk/

Ismailis of China: history, culture and tradition
In China’s Xinjiang region, a small Ismaili community sustains its faith through ritual and story. IIS hosts a lecture on the Ismaili Tajiks of this community. The hybrid event takes place on Wednesday 16 September at the Aga Khan Centre, London, and online. Dr Amier Saidula will explore how rituals, oral traditions and vernacular knowledge sustain religious heritage and identity.
Register to attend

Annual Graduate Conference 2026
IIS will host its Annual Graduate Conference on Monday 28 September at the Aga Khan Centre in London and online. This year’s theme, “Muslim Lives in Transition: Continuity and Change in Contemporary Times”, explores how Muslim lives are shaped by both continuity and change.
Register now

Fatimid Sicily: History, Memory, and Legacy
How is the Islamic past imagined in contemporary Palermo, Sicily?
The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) hosts a two-day conference on Fatimid rule in Sicily. The event runs Monday 19 and Tuesday 20 October at the Aga Khan Centre, London, and online. A parallel exhibition, Islamic Traces, follows Palermo residents of different faiths and none as they search for the city’s Islamic past. Through architecture, landscape, language and the arts, they bring their imagined pasts to life in the present.
Register to attend

New Issue on “Alevi Pasts Contested: Neglected Narratives and New Methodologies” Edited by Markus Dressler & Hege Markussen, European Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. 42, 2026, 98 Pages
This special issue aims to address persistent gaps in the historical record of Anatolian Alevi communities and to rethink how such gaps can be studied. The contributions engage diverse sources, including archival documents, oral traditions, poetic texts, and ritual practices, highlighting the productive inter-play between written and embodied forms of knowledge. The analyse the cultural memory in Alevi poetry, the ritual production of historical consciousness, and ethnohistorical reconstructions of community formation.
View: https://journals.openedition.org/ejts/10683

Tobunken Symposium “International Conference “Sunnis” and “Shiʿis” across History: Confessional Identities, Mutual Perceptions, and Academic (Mis)Conceptions”