Shii News – Academic Items

 

1. Workshop – Armenian Manuscript Studies (Berlin, 14-18 March 2016)

We would like to inform you about our workshop on Armenian Manuscript Studies, to be held at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library) from March 14th to 18th 2016. The workshop will be conducted by one of the leading specialists in the field, Prof. Dickran Kouymjian (California State University Fresno, Berberian Chair of Armenian Studies, emeritus). It is a cooperative working seminar between the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and the Martin-Luther-University Halle Wittenberg (Oriental Institute).

The participants will be introduced to the study of different codicological and paleographical aspects of Armenian manuscripts, including an overview on the history, collections and catalogues of Armenian manuscripts. Among the topics to be covered will be bindings, genres, mise-en-texte, mise-en-page, inks, illuminations and miniature paintings, colophons, scripts, periodization, provenance, etc. The theoretical part will be supplemented by hands-on sessions, in which the participants will have the unique opportunity to observe the features discussed among Armenian manuscripts in the collection of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

Applications, including a motivational letter, curriculum vitae, a summary of any current research project, should be sent to orientabt@sbb.spk-berlin.de or by regular mail to Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Orientabteilung, Potsdamer Straße 33, 10785 Berlin, by 15 October 2015.

14-18 March 2016, Berlin: Armenian Manuscript Studies. An Introduction (registration by 15 October 2015) http://staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/fileadmin/user_upload/zentrale_Seiten/orientabteilung/pd…

 

2. Symposium – Friedrich Sarre and the Berlin Museums (Berlin, 23 Oct 2015)

Wie die islamische Kunst nach Berlin kam.

Der Sammler und Museumsdirektor Friedrich Sarre

Tagung 23. Oktober 2015

Archäologisches Zentrum – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz

Brugsch-Pascha-Saal¸ Geschwister-Scholl-Str . 6,  D-10117  Berlin

9.30 – 10.00               Introduction

 

Friedrich Sarre und die Berliner Museen

Friedrich Sarre and the Berlin Museums

 

Chair: Stefan Weber (Berlin)

 

10.00-10.30                 Edhem Eldem (Boğaziçi University,  Istanbul)

Friedrich Sarre, Osman Hamdi Bey, Halil Edhem Bey and the Birth of the Evkaf Museum in Contantinople

10.30-11.00                 Gabriele Mietke (Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst,  Berlin)

Interests and Activities of the Royal Museums of Berlin in the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the 19th century

 

11.00-11.30 Pause / Break

 

Friedrich Sarre und die Türkei

Friedrich Sarre and Turkey

 

Chair: Klaus Kreiser (Berlin)

 

11.30 -12.00                Malte Fuhrmann (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)

That’s What Friends Are For: The Sarres, the Humanns, and Enver Pasha

12.00-12.30                 Patricia Blessing (Stanford University)

Friedrich Sarre and the Discovery of Seljuk Architecture in Anatolia

12.30-13.00                 Veit Veltzke (Preußenmuseum, Wesel)

“Persia – finally cleared for us”: Friedrich Sarre and the expedition Klein between the Persian lion and the Ottoman half-moon during WWI

 

13.00-14.30 Mittagessen / Lunch

 

Orientalismusmode in Berlin

Oriental Fashion in Berlin

 

Chair: Sven Kuhrau (Berlin)

 

14.30-15.00                 Anna Mc Sweeney (SOAS, London)

Arthur von Gwinner and the Alhambra Cupola

15.00-15.30                 Angelika Kaltenbach (Potsdam)

Orient meets Occident: the Aleppo-Room and the Oriental Room in the Villa Stauß

 

15.30-16.00 Pause / Break

 

Der Sammler Friedrich Sarre

Friedrich Sarre as collector

 

Chair: Barry Flood (New York/Berlin)

 

16.00-16.30                 Joachim Gierlichs (Qatar National Library, Doha)

Friedrich Sarre and his collection of Islamic Art

16.30-17.00                 Irina Khoshoridze (Georgian National Museum, Tiflis)

Collectors and Museums –Alexandre Roinashvili (Roinov) and his collection

17.30-18.00                 Eva Troelenberg (Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz)

The Masterpiece, the Golden Age and the Canon. Friedrich Sarre and the Introduction of Islamic Art History as Object-History.

 

3. University of Toronto – St. George – Assistant Professor, Islamic Art and Architecture Before 1800

http://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=51576

 

 

4. AUB Post: Faculty position in Modern Arabic Literature

American University of Beirut – Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Languages

The Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Languages at the American University of Beirut seeks applicants in the field of Modern Arabic Literature and Literary Theory (with special emphasis on prose genres)

The language of instruction in this department (and only in this department) is Modern Standard Arabic (fuṣḥā), but mastery of English is an essential requirement. Applicants should be well versed in both Arab and Western classical heritages, including Western literary theory. A reading knowledge of French and/or German is highly desirable, as is the ability to teach a second Semitic language or elementary Persian. Applicants must be able to teach, in Arabic, service courses in Arabic grammar and modern Arabic thought to native speakers of Arabic. Solid knowledge of the Arabic language and heritage and training in modern Western methodologies are essential.

Interested applicants should submit a cover letter, a CV, and arrange for three letters of reference to be sent directly to:

Patrick McGreevy, Dean
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
American University of Beirut
c/o 3 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10017-2303, USA

Or

Patrick McGreevy, Dean
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
American University of Beirut
P.O. Box 11-0236, Riad El-Solh
Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon

Electronic submissions are highly encouraged and may be sent to: as_dean@aub.edu.lb

For best consideration, please submit all required credentials by the early deadline of 15 October 2015 and indicate whether you will be attending MESA. Applications accepted through 30 November 2015. Visiting scholars will be considered.

For more information on this position, please visit http://www.aub.edu.lb/fas/pages/academic-employment.aspx

5. Middlebury College: Program in Arabic

Tenure Track Position in Arabic

Location: Middlebury, Vermont

 

The Program in Arabic at Middlebury College announces an opening for one tenure track position at the Assistant Professor level, beginning the Fall semester of 2016. Superior language proficiency in both Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and English is required, and native or native-like proficiency in at least one Arabic dialect is strongly preferred. The area of specialization for the position is open.

 

The successful candidate will teach MSA courses at all levels, from beginning to advanced levels, and will also offer non-language courses in both MSA as well as in English in their disciplinary area. Candidates should hold a PhD in their area of specialization or should at least have an advanced ABD status with near-term plans for completion of a doctorate by the time of appointment. Candidates must have prior experience teaching MSA at the college level, preferably in a liberal arts college setting, and in accordance with the proficiency-based communicative approach to Arabic language pedagogy.

 

Applications for this position will be accepted starting September 18^th 2015. Review of applications will begin on November 1^st 2015, and will continue until the position is filled.

Middlebury College uses Interfolio to collect faculty job applications electronically. Email and paper applications will not be accepted. Through Interfolio, candidates should submit a letter of application addressed to the Arabic search committee. The letter should include a section addressing approaches to teaching as well as current and future research. In addition, applications should include: a curriculum vitae, graduate transcripts, and three current confidential letters of recommendation (at least two of which must speak to teaching ability/promise). Samples of written scholarship will be solicited from candidates invited for interviews.

 

Inquiries regarding this position should be directed to Usama Soltan, Associate Professor of Arabic, at usoltan@middlebury.edu. More information is available at http://apply.interfolio.com/31686.

 

Offers of employment are contingent on completion of a background check. More information regarding background checks may be found here: http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/administration/prospective_faculty/background_checks

6. CALL FOR PAPERS

International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA)

Special Issue on Imagining Localities of Antiquity in Islamicate Societies; Thematic volume planned for Summer 2017

In honor of the life of Dr. Khaled al-Asaad

Paper proposal deadline: 30 November 2015

The tragically familiar spectacles of cultural heritage destruction performed by the Islamic State group (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq are frequently presented as barbaric, baffling, and far outside the bounds of what are imagined to be normative, “civilized” uses of the past. Often superficially explained as an attempt to stamp out idolatry or as a fundamentalist desire to revive and enforce a return to a purified monotheism, analysis of these spectacles of heritage violence posits two things: that there is, fact, an “Islamic” manner of imagining the past – its architectural manifestations, its traces and localities – and that actions carried out at these localities, whether constructive or destructive, have moral or ethical consequences for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In this reading, the iconoclastic actions of ISIS and similar groups, for example the Taliban or the Wahhabi monarchy in Saudi Arabia, are represented as one, albeit extreme, manifestation of an assumedly pervasive and historically ongoing Islamic antipathy toward images and pre-contemporary holy localities in particular, and, more broadly, toward the idea of heritage and the uses to which it has been put by modern nationalism.

But long before the emergence of ISIS and other so-called Islamist iconoclasts, and perhaps as early as the rise of Islam itself, Muslims imagined Islamic and pre-Islamic antiquity and its localities in myriad ways: as sites of memory, spaces of healing, or places imbued with didactic, historical, and moral power. Ancient statuary were deployed as talismans, paintings were interpreted to foretell and reify the coming of Islam, and temples of ancient gods and churches devoted to holy saints were converted into mosques in ways that preserved their original meaning and, sometimes, even their architectural ornament and fabric. Often, such localities were valued simply as places that elicited a sense of awe and wonder, or of reflection on the present relevance of history and the greatness of past empires, a theme so prevalent it created distinct genres of Arabic and Persian literature (aja’ib, fada’il). Sites like Ctesiphon, the ancient capital of the Zoroastrian Sasanians, or the Temple Mount, where the Jewish temple had stood, were embraced by early companions of the Prophet Muhammad and incorporated into Islamic notions of the self. Furthermore, various Islamic interpretive communities as well as Jews and Christians often shared holy places and had similar haptic, sensorial, and ritual connections that enabled them to imagine place in similar ways. These engagements were often more dynamic and purposeful than conventional scholarly notions of “influence” and “transmission” can account for. And yet, Muslims also sometimes destroyed ancient places or powerfully reimagined them to serve their own purposes, as for example in the aftermath of the Crusader presence in the Holy Land or in the destruction, reuse and rebuilding of ancient Buddhist and Hindu sites in the Eastern Islamic lands and South Asia.

This special issue invites scholars from across disciplines to engage with a critical reassessment of imaginings of the past in Islamicate societies. Papers may draw on historical or contemporary examples to explore some aspect of the themes outlined here, but are not limited to them.

1. How are and were ancient place and locality used in Islamicate societies to create a sense of the past, and what are/were the routes, rituals, and performances by which the past is inscribed on the landscape?
2. How are holy sites, sites of memory, and sites of ancient heritage simultaneously construed as contemporary and situated in the present in Islamicate societies?
3. Although ISIS and other Wahhabi and Salafi groups are often said to be “medieval” in their methods and attitudes, should they in fact be envisioned as hyper-modern, both in their generation of spectacles of violence designed for viral sharing in the social media age, but also in the way they target imaginings of heritage as a cherished building block of the modern nation state and of globalized notions of “universal” values?
4. Is there a broader project of reshaping the meaning of heritage unfolding across the Islamic world? The actions of the Taliban, Wahhabi projects of destruction in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the devastation of heritage in Syria by Assad and rebel groups, and the depredations of Islamists in Mali are recent examples. Can they be considered acts of “iconoclasm” in the traditional sense? Are such acts in fact more closely related to other modern acts of heritage destruction aimed at erasing memory, for example during the Cultural Revolution in China or the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia?
5. Analysis of ISIS’ destruction frequently seems to parrot the agenda of ISIS itself in ways that amplify and reinforce their message, whether through viral sharing of their slickly produced videos on social media or credulous academic and journalistic analysis that takes ISIS at its word. How can researchers analyze these hypermodern forms without re-producing and disseminating the very vision of violence that they crafted? How can we formulate an active response that goes beyond expressions of dismay and condemnation?
6. Although Islamicate societies often found ways to revere, venerate, and coexist with the considerable traces of antiquity in their midst, Muslims were also sometimes agents of destruction. What were the contexts in which Muslims destroyed localities of antiquity in the past? What meanings were claimed for such actions and how were they justified by their agents?
7. Is there an “Islamic” notion of heritage? Can the ways Muslims imagined and continue to imagine the past enable a critical interrogation of notions of universal heritage that are predominant in the broader international community?

Essays that focus on historical and theoretical analysis (DiT papers) should be a minimum of 5,000 words but no more than 8,000 words, and essays on design (DiP papers) can range from 3,000 to 4,500 words. Contributions from practitioners are welcome and should bear in mind the critical framework of the journal. Contributions from scholars of heritage history and preservation as well as scholars and critics of heritage in the broadest sense are also particularly welcome.

Please send a 400-word abstract with essay title to the guest editor, Stephennie Mulder, The University of Texas at Austin (smulder@austin.utexas.edu), by 30 November 2015. Those whose proposals are accepted will be contacted soon thereafter and requested to submit full papers to the journal by 1 June 2016. All papers will undergo full peer review.

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

 

7. TUFTS UNIVERSITY

THE ARABIC PROGRAM, and

THE INTERNATIONAL LITERARY AND VISUAL STUDIES PROGRAM

in the Department of German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literatures

The Arabic program and the interdepartmental program on International Literary and Visual Studies at Tufts University invite applicants for a tenure-track Mellon Bridge Assistant Professorship in Comparative Literature with a focus on Arabic literary, film, and/or visual studies of any period. The ideal candidate will provide evidence of excellent research and teaching in these topics, with a rigorously comparative and/or trans-regional emphasis. We are especially interested in candidates whose work engages comparatively with multiple languages and literatures, as well as candidates whose work develops connections between literary and/or cultural studies, understood broadly, and other disciplines or intellectual areas.

Responsibilities include teaching a variety of thematic courses for Arabic Studies, possibly in Arabic, and for the interdepartmental program on International Literary and Visual Studies. There are rich opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration with other departments and programs including, Anthropology, Art History, Classics, Colonialism Studies, English, Film and Media Studies, History, International Relations, Middle Eastern Studies, Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, and Romance Languages.

This position is being supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation to promote scholarship and teaching that bridges different departments and programs in the humanities at Tufts. The successful candidate will receive an appointment as a fellow at the Center for the Humanities at Tufts (CHAT) for the duration of the pre-tenure probationary period. We seek candidates whose research and teaching has prepared them to contribute to our commitment to diversity and inclusion in higher education.

Requirements: PhD by starting date; experience and demonstrated excellence in teaching courses in relevant subjects at the university level. While this position has no language-teaching duties, a high degree of fluency in both Arabic and English is required. Fluency in a third language is a plus.

Letter of Application, CV, statements of research and teaching interests, two writing samples, and three confidential letters of recommendation should be sent via Interfolio at https://apply.interfolio.com/31867 . Further materials will be requested of short-listed applicants. The review of applications will begin on November 16, 2015, and continue until the position is filled. Questions about the search should be addressed to Professor Kamran Rastegar: kamran.rastegar@tufts.edu.

Tufts University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. We are committed to increasing the diversity of our faculty. Women and members of underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply.

 

8. CALL FOR PAPERS: Cambridge workshop 20-22 June 2016

 

 

St Andrews-Cambridge joint research initiative

Khamriyya as a World Poetic Genre:

Comparative Perspectives on Wine Poetry in Near and Middle Eastern Literatures.

 

 

After the success of the first Khamriyya workshop held in St Andrews in November 2014 and the Lecture Series supported by the Honeyman Foundation in St Andrews during the 2014-15 academic year, we are now launching the second workshop, to be held in Cambridge (UK) on 20-22 June 2016, supported by the Cambridge Soudavar Fund for Persian Studies and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. The results of this collaborative research will be published in a dedicated volume or special issue of a specialised journal.

 

The organisors designed the two workshops to function as real “work”shops where shared and mutual critical assessment and open discussions will clarify the state of the question and open up new avenues of research. By opening up the participation to specialists across language and cultural boundaries, we hope to foster a better understanding of the phenomenon of wine-poetry across Near and Middle Eastern Literatures.

 

The initiative welcomes contributions exploring various aspects of wine poetry in comparative perspective of Near and Middle Eastern literatures with the focus on the following topics:

 

1. Recusancy and transgression: wine poetry challenging cultural, social and

religious norms of society,

2. Imagery and stylistics: aesthetic transformations in the history of wine poetry,
3. Adoption and transmission: wine poetry crossing linguistic and cultural borders.

 

 

In order to put together the Programme, we would be grateful if you could submit your paper abstract (400 words max) and CV by the deadline of 30^th November, 2015 at the following email address: cv223@cam.ac.uk. The organisation panel will consider the applications and respond by 15^th January 2015. The scientific committee might suggest further focusing of some of the topics in order to better serve the comparative perspective of the workshops. The language of the presentations and publication is English.

 

 

For further information please contact Dr Kirill Dimitriev: kd25@st-andrews.ac.uk

or Dr Christine van Ruymbeke: cv223@cam.ac.uk.

 

9. Séminaire ‘Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien’

 

Séance du 8 octobre 2015, 17h-18h30

 

 

Hawzhin Baghali, doctorante, CETOBAC, EHESS, Paris

 

« Le soufisme et le salafisme au Kurdistan d’Iran : une discontinuité historique dans le discours religieux contemporain »

 

Dans cette présentation, nous nous intéressons au changement discursif religieux dans une région qui constitue de nos jours le Kurdistan d’Iran. L’histoire des régions périphériques tel que le Kurdistan  a généralement été ignoré au déterminent d’une histoire du centre. Sur la plan politique, l’Iran est connu peut être la capitale du monde chiite, tandis que la plupart de ses régions frontalières de pays sont sunnites, même que la plupart de la population kurde d’Iran. Cette dernière présente un visage sensiblement différent à par rapport à l’Iran chiite.

Les acteurs religieux dans la société kurde se présentent à travers deux discoures religieux. L’un repose sur le soufisme et l’autre sur l’islam politique. Aujourd’hui, les soufis sont considérablement marginalisés, moment où le Kurdistan était l’un des centres du soufisme depuisle  XIVe siècle jusqu’au milieu du XXe siècle. En fait l’islam soufiste représentait l’islam dominant  au Kurdistan. Mais à partir de cette date, l’islam politique émergé comme  discours dominant par une rupture historique.  Actuellement, il y’a trois groupes au Kurdistan sous la formes de groupe islamique ; Dawat va eslah-e Iran qui a  l’approche des frères musulman, Maktab-e Qoran qui veut présenter un islam kurde et les petites groupes salafistes.

Donc  en présentant de la situation de l’islam soufi et l’islam politique au Kurdistan nous nous demandons  que comment  l’islam politique a pris la place de soufisme au Kurdistan en tant que le discoures religieux dominant, de sorte que le soufisme se redéfini sous la forme du groupe politique aussi ?

 

 

Lieu : Université Sorbonne nouvelle – Paris 3, centre Censier, 13 rue de Santeuil, salle 410 (4^e étage), 75005, Paris.

 

Organisateurs :

Matteo De Chiara (INaLCO), Denis Hermann (CNRS), Fabrizio Speziale (Paris 3), Julien Thorez (CNRS).

 

Posted in: Academic items