Shii News – Academic Items
1.The Seventh Round of the BRAIS – De Gruyter Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World is now open for submissions.
The British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS) and De Gruyter are delighted to announce the seventh round of the BRAIS – De Gruyter Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World. This international prize will be awarded annually to the best doctoral thesis or unpublished first monograph based on a doctoral thesis. English-language submissions on any aspect of the academic study of Islam and the Muslim world, past and present, including Muslim-minority societies are accepted. Applicants can be based in any country, and manuscripts will be assessed on the basis of scholarly quality and originality.
The award includes publication of the winning manuscript and a prize of £1,000, and it will be officially presented at the Annual Conference of BRAIS. The selection process will be undertaken by a nine-member prize committee comprising established academics from across the field. The winning candidate will be notified by July 2022.
*Deadline 5pm GMT on the Friday 7th January 2022*
For more details including past prize winners, visit: http://www.brais.ac.uk/prize
2. Call for Papers: International Journal of Latin American Religions
Special Issue: Islam and Muslim Socialities of Latin America
**Submission Deadline: January 15, 2022**
In recent decades, global Islamic studies expanded to include geographies and cultures beyond a conventional Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) core. Research in South Asia, Europe, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa widened the field’s scope, introducing fresh, critical understandings into scholarly discourses about Islam and Muslims’ lived realities across the world. Nonetheless, global Islamic studies’ scope still fails to fully incorporate marginal geographies and the study of Islam beyond the MENA remains underrepresented. This is particularly evident when it comes to Latin America.
Likewise, research on religion in Latin America has grown to appreciate the changeability and variety of religious expression in the region over the last several decades. Studies on various traditions thickened scholarly understanding of the region’s religious diversity and introduced new ways of understanding transformations in culture, society, and politics across the Americas. Still, the study of Islam and Muslim socialities in relation to this evolution remains negligible when compared to that of other traditions.
This thematic issue invites articles presenting research results from various disciplines, geographies, and historical periods — from the “long” 16th century to today — dealing with the broad theme of “Islam and Muslim socialities of Latin America.” Through case studies and original research, articles should move beyond population surveys, overviews of immigrant communities, and questions of conversion to address theoretical and methodological gaps in the respective fields of global Islam and/or Latin American religion. Especially welcome are submissions dealing with questions of (post)coloniality, gender, race, interreligious encounter, precarity, resilience, transregionalism, materiality, and/or affect.
Submission Deadline: January 15, 2022
Please direct questions to guest editor: Dr. Ken Chitwood (mailto:k.chitwood@fu-berlin.de?subject=IJLAR%20Special%20Issue)
Read more about the submission guidelines (https://fu-berlin.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=218987e5c8b20ce72c5e7da24&id=93f11104a4&e=f70992245e)
3. CfP: Theory and Practice of Rebellion (Hamburg, 22-24 Sep 2022)
The Hamburg-based research group, ‘Social Contexts of Rebellion in the Early Islamic Period (SCORE)’, is thrilled to announce the CfP for our team’s first conference on themes of rebellion in the early Islamicate world. The conference will take place at Hamburg (pandemic permitting) on 22-24 September 2022. Papers will be pre-circulated; the deadline for abstracts (300 words) is 1 February 2022. Travel and four nights’ accommodation will be covered for accepted speakers.
The CfP and further details can be found here: https://www.aai.uni-hamburg.de/…/news/2021-11-23-cfp.html. Abstracts should be sent to hannah-lena.hagemann@uni-hamburg.de. You can also follow us on Twitter to stay up-to-date on our events and activities: https://twitter.com/rebellionUHH.
4. Corrected weblink:
From 6-8 December the Embedding Conquest team (Leiden) will organize an online conference on the language of kinship in Islamic(ate) societies before the modern period (622–1500 CE). We have been investigating the social, political, administrative, religious, and economic ties that sustained strategies and mechanics of protection and dependency in the early Islamic empire, contributing to shaping imperial rule under the Umayyads and the Abbasids. As part of our project, we study how writers and document producers expressed vertical and horizontal relationships, including the use of family terms.
To find out more about the conference go to: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/2021/12/ties-of-kinship-and-the-early-islamic-empire
Keynote: Hugh Kennedy
Speakers: Sobhi Bouderbala; Ana Echevarría Arsuaga; Shounak Ghosh; Matthew Gordon; Ahmad Khan; Pia Maria Malik; Karen Moukheiber; Shirin Naef; Cecilia Palombo; Leone Pecorini-Goodall; Ekaterina Pukhovaia; Janina Safran; Eline Scheerlinck; Petra Sijpesteijn; Josef Ženka.
To register and receive the ZOOM-link mail to: emco@hum.leidenuniv.nl
5. Central Connecticut State University – Assistant Professor, History of the Islamic World
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=62483
Dec 1, 2021 closing date.
6. Research Project – Historian/Researcher – Tudor Period/Elizabethan
Era, AND the Ottoman Empire during the Suleiman the Magnificent Period
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=62547
Feb 17, 2022 closing date.
7. HIAA-Sponsored Panel at MESA – Islamic Art and the Politics of Museum Display – November 30
Virtual panel at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association
Sponsored by the Historians of Islamic Art Association (HIAA)
Organized by Philip Geisler and Constance Jame
Chair & Discussant: Dr. Fahmida Suleman, Curator, Islamic World, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto & Assistant Professor (status only cross-appointments), Departments of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations and Art History, University of Toronto
Online – November 30, 2021 – 11:30 AM (EST), registration required
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Since the early 2000s, many Islamic art museums and galleries around the world have reorganized their displays. During the same period, methodological interventions building on post-structuralist and post-colonial theory began to challenge long-standing formal and regional categories defining the field of Islamic art history. These new developments have impacted the display strategies of new museums and exhibitions of Islamic art. As a central interface between the academic study of the Middle East, its global representation, and the general public, the approaches these museums use to mediate between art, material culture, and Islamic/regional cultures play a central role in shaping discussions about the region. This includes its designation through religious and/or cultural, national, ethnic, and geographic parameters. At the same time, Islamic art displays are also embedded in heterogeneous local politics and social discourses. This particularly concerns how museum making is entangled with cultural diplomacy and the production of alterity, diversity, and collective identity that serve regional or national agendas and negotiate the recognition of local diasporas as well as minority and/or majority communities.
Based on museum case studies from Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, Turkey, Western Europe, and Canada, this panel of doctoral students examines the politics of museum display and art discourses from 2000 until today. Rather than interpreting Islamic art displays as passive and neutral representations of the past, this panel theorizes them as a contemporary cultural practice that stages spatialized and immersive, ideological narrations of culture. Through bridging the gap between the often-separated realms of art historical research, curatorial practice, and critical museology, this panel aims to examine the new ways, in which museums of Islamic art communicate broader ideas about the region in various global contexts. For this, the panel assesses curatorial practices and displays in both public and private museums including the Malek National Library and Museum (Tehran), the National Museum and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts (Istanbul), the Louvre Museum (Paris), the Alhambra Museum (Granada), and the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto. Grounded in these accounts, the panel illuminates the politics of these displays and narrations vis-à-vis their local environments and shifted forms of national and/or religious self-fashioning. Through fostering an interdisciplinary and critical discussion, this panel ultimately argues that Islam has become a decisive global marker that enables states across the world to pursue local needs and actualize constitutive socio-political paradigms through cultural institutions and art displays.
Papers
“Between the Transnational and the Local: Assessing the Changing Profile of the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, Istanbul”
Beyza Uzun, Doctoral Student, Scuola IMT Alti Studi, Lucca
“The Cultural Diplomacy and Contested Modernity of Museological Development in Qatar: A Case Study on the Museum of Islamic Art and the Qatar National Museum”
Abdelrahman Kamel, Doctoral Student, Queen’s University, Kingston
“Hybrid Objects in the Louvre: Witness of French Transcultural Identity”
Constance Jame, Doctoral Student, Universität Heidelberg
“Islamic Art as a Multicultural Mythology in Spain and Canada”
Philip Geisler, Doctoral Student, Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies
“The Malek National Library and Museum: Negotiating Curatorial Agency in an Iranian waqf”
Leila Moslemi Mehni, Doctoral Student, University of Toronto
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Panel link and abstracts: https://mesana.org/mymesa/meeting_program_session.php?sid=346cfbc1467051348469531b5e172c0d
Registration:
This panel is part of the virtual program of the Middle East Studies Association’s Annual Meeting. The panel takes place online on November 30, 2021 at 11:30 AM (EST). For information about the registration, please visit MESA’s website: https://mesana.org/annual-meeting/registration
8. Call for application to Afghan Scholar Programme and call for nominations to “Afghanistan regime change (2021) and the international response web archive collection”
Call for application to Afghan Scholar Programme (deadline: 2 Dec 2021)
Please can you reach out to your Afghan colleagues — whether they live inside Afghanistan or outside — to let us know whether they would like to suggest a project to work with us in the Invisible East team that they would like to submit in response to the Bodleian Library’s Afghan Scholars Fellowship call. The incumbent does not need to hold a PhD. The project should be in line with our Invisible East activities and goals, which our website describes: https://invisibleeast.web.ox.ac.uk. They can contact our director, Dr Arezou Azad at arezou.azad@orinst.ox.ac.uk.
The call details and simple application requirements are here: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/csb/fellowships/afghan-scholars-programme
- Afghanistan regime change (2021) and the international response web archive collection
We’d also like to draw your attention to a UK-wide library initiative seeking nominations for Afghan websites to be preserved and archived. Please do send your suggestions to them!
Details are provided in this blog:
9. Unfreedom in the Premodern World: Comparative Perspectives on Slavery, Servitude & Captivity.
Dublin, 23rd-24th June 2022
The global history of slavery and dependency has flourished in recent years, as scholars have deployed new theories and methodologies to explore the varieties of unfreedom across a range of regions and societies. Studies of the premodern period have been part of this expansion, revealing nuanced analyses of how unfreedom intersected with gender roles, labour patterns, economic networks and religious values before the growth of the early modern trans-Atlantic slave trade. In spite of this work, the periods prior to European colonial expansion remain comparatively understudied, but present enormous opportunities to explore key questions and to push the boundaries of the wider history of slavery and dependency. Unfreedom in the Premodern World: Slavery, Servitude and Captivity in Comparative Perspectives seeks to bring together scholars studying a wide range of regions and periods to address common themes and questions in the history of slavery, and to build towards a comparative and collaborative global approach.
Unfreedom in the Premodern World will be held over two days (June 23rd & June 24th, 2022) at the Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin’s Arts and Humanities research centre. Keynote lectures will be delivered by Prof. Hannah Barker (Arizona State University) and Prof. Stefan Brink (University of Cambridge/University of the Highlands & Islands). Proposals are invited for twenty-minute papers which explore any aspect of the history of unfreedom, slavery, servitude or captivity in the period before 1492. Papers are welcome from any academic discipline and with any geographical focus. Interdisciplinary papers and studies of regions outside of Western Europe are particularly encouraged. Potential topics could include (but are not limited to):
- Definitions and parameters of unfreedom
- Methodologies for histories of unfreedom (source interpretation; archival erasure; theoretical perspectives)
- Unfree labour and the economics of unfreedom
- Unfree mobilities, forced migrations and slave trades
- Manumission and life after unfreedom
- Representations of unfreedom in literature, arts and culture
- Religious reactions to unfreedom (prohibitions; justifications; complicity)
- The histories of unfree women and children
- Resistance to unfreedom (rebellions, escapes, sabotage)
Proposals, consisting of a title, an abstract (max. 250 words) and a short academic biography, should be sent to nosuille@tcd.ie by Friday, 17th December 2021. It is expected that this conference will be held in-person in Dublin, subject to the global public health situation. Limited funding will be available to assist early-career, precariously-employed and independent researchers with travel and accommodation costs.
For any queries and further information, please contact the conference organiser, Dr. Niall Ó Súilleabháin (nosuille@tcd.ie).
10. The Aziz Foundation is awarding 100% tuition fee Masters scholarships to five exceptional British Muslims lacking the financial means to complete postgraduate degrees, at the University of Sussex for the 2022/23 academic year.
These scholarships aim to empower British Muslims to bring positive change to their communities and beyond. For further information, please visit the university website: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/fees-funding/masters-scholarships/view/1349-Aziz-Foundation-Scholarship.
11. Empowering Muslim Women in History, Literature and the Arts
Exploring the imagination and representation of women in history and today is a fully-fledged ambition that this series of lectures would like to explore through MENA women’s work in art, literature, history, archaeology, and social sciences, along with their representation and perception in the works of non-MENA academics.
The series includes speakers from the MENA region as well as from other parts of the globe. The meeting point of these speakers is their research on the women of this region. Through their multi- and interdisciplinary distinctive, innovative, and creative approaches to their fields, they deconstruct the stereotypes of Muslim women and emphasize their diversity. This region, which comprises the Arab World and a large part of the Islamic World, is considered today as one of the hottest spots in world politics and economy, but as usual, women are the least visible participants in and yet the most affected by the consequences of political and economic crises. More positively, they are central to the waves of social changes taking place in this region at a dizzying speed.
The series, which is envisaged as a platform for debate among academics, students and the general public, with interest in the broader theme of Women and Gender in MENA, will start on 1 December 2021 and will run through to the end of the academic year in 2022 on the zoom platform.
The organizers of this lecture series are two women and gender specialist. Professor Zahia Smail Salhi is Chair of Modern Arabic Studies and Dr Hatoon Alfassi is visiting Senior Research Fellow of the University of Manchester, Department of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies. Dr Alfassi was formerly a faculty at the International Affairs Department of Qatar University, and the History Department of King Saud University. Both are very happy to invite you to engage in a Women and Gender Discussion which defeats geographical boundaries and extends the opportunity to participants for everywhere in the world.
Lecture 1: Women of the Arabian Gulf: Tokens of modernity, symbols of piety, or victims of patriarchy?
By Dr Hasnaa Mokhtar
Rutgers University’s Center for Women’s Global Leadership
Wednesday 01 Dec 2021, 17:00 GMT on Zoom:
https://zoom.us/j/94322283750
12. The British Association for Islamic Studies is delighted to announce that it will be hosting its 2022 Annual Conference at the University of Edinburgh on Monday 6th and Tuesday 7th June 2022.
The Call for Papers is now live and can be viewed here: http://www.brais.ac.uk/conferences/brais-conference-2022/brais-2022-call-for-papers. Please note, the deadline for submissions is Monday 31st January.
After two years without an in-person BRAIS conference, we are really looking forward to reconnecting with colleagues working across the disciplines and we hope many of you will consider submitting a paper or panel.
Further information about the conference will be circulated in due course, including delgate fees and packages. In the meantime, if you have any questions at all, please contact us directly on: brais2022@ed.ac.uk .
13. The Market in Poetry in the Persian World
Shahzad Bashir,
14. Graduate Fellowship in Iranian Diaspora Studies at SF State
The Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies is pleased to announce the third year of the Azar Hatefi Graduate Fellowship in Iranian Diaspora Studies. San Francisco State University will be awarding two graduate fellowships ($10,000) to admitted students pursuing a Master’s degree at San Francisco State University in 2022-2023. The goal of this fellowship, named in honor of Azar Hatefi, mother of SF State alumna and donor, Neda Nobari, is to support two graduate students for the academic year in the College or Liberal & Creative Arts or the College of Ethnic Studies pursuing a research project in Iranian Diaspora Studies.
The fellowship (awarded to two students) to develop research that engages and fosters new directions in Iranian diaspora topics (everything from art, film, anthropology, sociology, race and resistance studies, history, ethnic studies, etc.). The student must be admitted to an SFSU graduate program and have a stated project that they will pursue for a thesis. The fellowship is renewable for a second year, pending progress on the student’s studies and the culminating project as they advance to candidacy.
Please see the fellowship application requirements and criteria here:https://sfsu.academicworks.com/opportunities/12839
Deadline: 03/30/2022
15. Séminaire « Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien » (2 décembre 2021 – 17h15-19h)
Nous avons le plaisir de vous convier à la prochaine séance du séminaire “Sociétés, politiques et cultures du monde iranien” organisé par le CeRMI, qui aura lieu le jeudi 2 décembre 2021 de 17h15 à 19h. Vous pourrez suivre la séance :
– en présentiel : Salle 5.05, INaLCO, 65 rue des Grands Moulins, Paris, [Attention : le “Pass sanitaire” sera demandé]
– ou en visioconférence (lien de connexion ci-après).
Nous serons heureux d’y accueillir Éloïse Brac de la Perrière (professeur d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie islamiques, Sorbonne Université), pour une conférence intitulée :
Vers une nouvelle histoire de la calligraphie en caractères arabe. Enjeux et perspectives.
Résumé
La calligraphie en caractères arabes est un art fondateur, et fédérateur, dans l’histoire de la civilisation islamique. Omniprésente dans le paysage visuel depuis les débuts de l’Islam jusqu’à la période contemporaine, la calligraphie a été très tôt soumise à des règles précises, un canon défini par des textes, transmis jusqu’à nos jours par des générations de calligraphes. Mais elle a également connu des développements inédits, notamment dans les régions les plus éloignées des centres historiques du monde islamique, où elle s’est développée en un extraordinaire foisonnement de formes, comme un langage à part entière, témoignant de liens historiques complexes entre des zones parfois très éloignées.
Orientations bibliographiques
- Blair, S. (2006). Islamic Calligraphy. Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press.
- George, A. F. (2010). The Rise of Islamic Calligraphy. London, Berkeley: Saqi.
- Schimmel, A. (1984). Calligraphy and Islamic Culture. New York, London: New York University Press.
Participer à la réunion Zoom :
https://zoom.us/j/91304904337?pwd=UytNZUVhOUZWZ3NIWFNQaTF6V1RtUT09
16. Association for Iranian Studies – Awards
Two NEW AWARDS are open for your online nominations on the AIS website. The deadline for both awards is Feb. 15, 2022.
Hamid Naficy Book Award https://associationforiranianstudies.org/awards/hamid-naficy-book-award
Neda Nobari Dissertation Award https://associationforiranianstudies.org/awards/neda-nobari-dissertation
Please go to the AIS website awards pages https://associationforiranianstudies.org/awards for the existing awards listed below. The deadline for your nominations unless stated otherwise on the award description page is December 8th.
The Lifetime Achievement Award
The Ehsan Yarshater Book Award
The Mehrdad Mashayekhi Dissertation Award
The Parviz Shahriari Book Award
Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies Book Award
Posted in: Academic items- November 27, 2021
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