Shii News – Academic Items

[Editor’s note: In the context of COVID-19, I will continue to circulate this ‘academic items’ list but please note that I am unable to know if any of the time-sensitive items are going on, postponed or even cancelled. My advice is to check the website/email address(es) given for each. Stay healthy!]

 

1. Royal Holloway University of London’s Centre for Islamic & West Asian Studies, has introduced CIWAS Scholarships to provide financial assistance to MA in Islamic and West Asian Studies students.

The programme offers an understanding of the history and contemporary politics of Islam and West Asia (Middle East) and introduces a unique approach to exploring issues of contemporary significance.

For more information about the CIWAS Scholarships visit: https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/fees-and-funding/postgraduate/scholarships/ciwas-scholarships/, or email ciwas@rhul.ac.uk

Deadline: 15 June 2020.

 

 

 

 

2. Editor-in-Chief of Iranian Studies: Journal of the Association for Iranian Studies

The Association for Iranian Studies (AIS) is looking for a new Editor-in-Chief for its flagship journal Iranian Studies: Journal of the Association for Iranian Studies. This interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal is dedicated to the study of all aspects of Iran and the Persianate world  from the pre-Islamic period to the present. As the official publication of the Association for Iranian Studies, it has served as the leading forum for the exchange of ideas and promotion of discipline-based and interdisciplinary research in all fields of Iranian studies since 1967.

The Editor-in-Chief oversees the journal’s online peer review and editorial processes and gives strategic direction to the journal.  As an officer of the Association for Iranian Studies, the Editor-in-Chief receives, annually, an honorarium of $4,000 USD, funding for up to two course releases, support for travel to the AIS biennial conference, and a $10,000 USD operating budget to support the editorial process with the expectation of additional support from the scholar’s home institution. The position is a five year appointment and renewable for a second term.

Applicants should be active and published scholars in fields covered by the journal; demonstrate an interest in, and ability to work with, a diverse team of editors and AIS council members; and build relationships with researchers in the field of Iranian Studies. Some previous editorial work and comfort with digital media is preferred. We especially welcome applications from tenured mid-career scholars and institutional applications from scholarly research centers. The disciplinary field and period of scholarly concentration of the Editor-in-Chief is open.

The deadline for applications is May 1, 2020.  Applications will include a CV and a letter of application explaining your vision for the journal and the resources your home institution can provide to support your efforts for augmenting the operating budget. Please send application materials to James Gustafson (Chair, Search Committee) at james.gustafson@indstate.edu.   Informal queries are welcome and encouraged.

 

 

 

3. Harvard Open Collections Program history of epidemics resource

Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics is a digital library collection that brings a unique set of resources from Harvard’s libraries to Internet users everywhere. Offering valuable insights to students of the history of medicine and to researchers seeking an historical context for current epidemiology, the collection contributes to the understanding of the global, social–history, and public–policy implications of disease. Contagion is also a unique social–history resource for students of many ages and disciplines.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100205181504/http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu:80/contagion/index.html

 

 

 

 

4. International Seminar: “Persian-Arabic Poetics and South Asian Literatures: Readings Recoveries and Re-orientations”, Comparative Literature Association of India, Patna, 20-23 March 2020

We look forward to a fruitful exchange of ideas that will unpack the relations between the mainstream and margins, great and little traditions, major and minor languages within South Asia. The very idea of the ‘literary’ here is open to question as the subject proposed covers both the written and the oral, the philosophical and religious, the narrative and the performative.

Information: https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/5412876/international-seminar-be-organized-comparative-literature

 

 

 

 

5. Shi’i Studies Symposium: “‘But by the Love You Bear My Kin’: Devotion (Walāya) and Shiʿi Islam”, University of Chicago, 3-4 April 2020

This conference will be centred on the theme of walāya—the call of devotion to the Ahl al-Bayt that is at the core of Shiʿi beliefs. One unifying theme of the symposia of the past few years has been the institutional development of Shiʿi Islam, as we have considered the authority of the Imams, the development of centers of learning, Shiʿism and governance, and dynamics of sectarianism in Islam.

Information: https://voices.uchicago.edu/shiistudies/3-2/

 

 

 

 

6. Conference: “From Sectarianism to De-sectarianisation – Reimagining Sectarianism, Geopolitics and the State in the Contemporary Middle East”, Lancaster University, 16-17 April 2020

The conference will reflect on sectarianism, ‘proxies’, the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and broader questions about identities, geopolitics, economics and social factors in the contemporary Middle East.

Information: https://www.sepad.org.uk/announcement/sepad-conference-2020-from-sectarianism-to-de-sectarianization

 

 

 

 

7. Graduate Student Workshop on “Religion, Law, and Politics in the Middle East”, Syracuse University, 23 April 2020

The workshop will address the historical and contemporary interactions between religious, legal and political institutions in the Middle East and North Africa region. Topics include state-religion relations, secularism, religious movements, religious law and courts, religious authority, social movements, political violence, democratization, political parties, gender, etc.

Information: https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan/mesp/Annual_Workshop/

 

 

 

 

8. Conference: “Christian-Muslim Missionary Encounters, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries”, Mission and Modernity Research Academy (MiMoRA#3), Leuven, Belgium, 3-10 November 2020

Contributions are invited on: Reactions to Christian/Muslim missionary activities in the fields of education, literacy, health care, etc.; Space-settings of Christian/Muslim encounter-interaction; Muslim responses to (Western) Christian missions; The agency of Islamic activism in transforming the practices and thinking of Christian missionaries; Muslim responses to Christian interventions into Islamic religious practice; etc.

Deadline for abstracts: 1 May 2020.

Information: https://kadoc.kuleuven.be/english/3_research/31_ourresearch/mimora/cfp-mimora-3.pdf

Posted in: Academic items