Shii News – Academic Items

1. Panel Ethno-history of the Middle East and Central Asia: “How Can We Write Ethno-histories in the 21st Century?” Chair: Fakhri Haghani, International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Commission on Anthropology of the Middle East, Institut Francais d’Etudes Anatolienne, Istanbul, 4-6 September 2024.

How cultural productions such as artworks, street protests, performances, and slogans, and religious practices, along with political gestures and stands, lawlessness of situations, mobilization of civilians, expression of anger, trauma, and love have contributed to alternative forms of historical records? Can this analysis shift the methodological process, sources, and even literal terminology of what is defined as “history?”

Deadline for abstracts and a short bio: 15 June 2024. To be sent to Fakhri Haghani, the.fakhrih@gmail.com

Information: http://iuaes.ir/

 

2. International Congress on “Gender and Contemporary Arab Artistic Creation Khalaqat”, ADHUC Universitat de Barcelona, 14-15 November 2024

Academics are invited to share current ideas, theories, and research addressing Arab artistic creation from a gender perspective. Participants are encouraged to explore different forms of artistic and creative expression, engaging with new and interdisciplinary methodologies. Proposals for artistic projects and artist presentations are highly valued.

Deadline for abstracts: 20 June 2024.

 Information: https://www.ub.edu/adhuc/en/node/5998

 

3. Conference “Endgame of Empires: Post-Imperial Transitions, Incomplete Transformations and Imperial Legacies”, New York University Abu Dhabi, 21 April 2025

Main themes: What were the legacies of the Russian and Ottoman empires in the immediate aftermath of imperial collapse? – How did the transition transform the lives of workers, peasants, migrants, and revolutionaries? – What were some of the long-term institutional legacies of empire across Soviet and post-Ottoman space? – How was the transition from imperial to post-imperial statecraft reflected in the new sciences that emerged in Soviet and post-Ottoman states?

Deadline for abstracts: 30 August 2024.

Information: https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20034780/cfp-endgame-empires-post-imperial-transitions-incomplete

 

4. Research Assistant at the Institute for Islamic Studies (50%, Praedoc, 4 Years), Freie Universität Berlin

Job description: Participation in teaching and research in the subject area of “Classical Islam”; administrative work at the institute, and assistance in the preparation of third-party funding applications. The position provides the holder with the opportunity to improve their level of academic qualification. Requirements: Completed university degree (MA level) in Islamic Studies or a closely related discipline.

Deadline for applications: 24 June 2024.

Information:

https://www.fu-berlin.de/universitaet/beruf-karriere/jobs/english/GK-WiMi_Praedoc_10-2024_CM.html

 

5. Articles on “Religious Conversions. Believing and Doing on the Move in the Mediterranean Area” for a Special Issue of the Journal “L´Année du Maghreb” (34|2, décembre 2025)

This issue looks at religion in terms of its ability to mobilise institutions, groups and individuals around plural dynamics that contribute to the redefinition of the religious field itself. Main themes: Media coverage. The stakes, politics and discourse of conversion. – Investing in the cultural field. Production, promotion, mediation. – Everyday life. Local, family and intimate scales.

Deadline for abstracts: 30 June 2024.

Information: https://journals.openedition.org/anneemaghreb/13128#tocfrom1n5

 

6. Articles on “China’s Policy Toward the Middle East Including Iran and Turkey and the Maghreb from Zhou Enlai to the Present Day” for a Special Issue of the Journal “The Maghreb Review”

Themes: China’s new approach towards the Middle East and North Africa region. – China’s Diplomatic relations with the Middle East and North Africa since Zhou Enlai. – Chinese economic involvement in the region through loans, investments, and trade. – Tacit Alliance: The Political Economy of Chinese-Iranian Relations– China-U.S. Rivalry in the Middle East and North Africa. – China’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Etc.

Deadline for papers: 30 June 2024.

Information: https://www.maghrebreview.com/en/authors.html

 

7. M.A. in Kurdish Studies: Applications Open for Fall 2024
Zahra Institute is delighted to announce the opening of applications for our M.A. Program in Kurdish Studies. The deadline for applications for Fall semester is 15 July 2024. The online, two-year M.A. program consists of 31 credits and welcomes full-time and part-time students.

The Master of Arts in Kurdish Studies at Zahra Institute is the first of its kind in the United States. Our courses offer insights into the lives and cultures of the Kurds, a Middle Eastern people living in Kurdistan and beyond, spread across the borders of several modern states and linguistic and cultural zones.

For the 2024 Fall semester courses, Zahra Institute offers the following: Approaches to Kurdish Studies, Introduction to Linguistics and Kurdish Studies, History and Literature of the Kurds, and Kurmanji and Sorani Kurdish language courses.

The M.A. Program provides excellent background preparation for a doctoral degree in any field related to the Middle East and for those interested in pursuing careers in media, government, and international organizations. Our liberal arts approach to Kurdish Studies is based on rigorous academic standards and a strong commitment to scholarly freedom.

We offer both M.A. and Certificate in Kurdish Studies. Kurdish language courses are offered as electives in the M.A. program, or as standalone courses. For application information, visit our website: www.zahrainstitute.org .

Zahra Institute, a research center and graduate school located in Chicago, intends to provide an open, collaborative environment for learning, teaching, and scholarship in the fields of Kurdish Studies and Critical Muslim Studies.

 

8. Hybrid: Cambridge: Afghanistan: A Neglected Reality

Fri 7 Jun 2024 9:00 AM – 6:30 PM (Time zone: London)

https://teamup.com/event/show/id/dezZPnC1p9xqXffpoNcMNYnkQb5RLj

 

9. Pop Islam, Seeing American Muslims in Popular Media

Rosemary Pennington

Indiana, 2024

https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/9780253069375/pop-islam/

 

 

 

 

10. ONLINE Webinar: ‘The New Persian Romance in a Global Middle Ages’,

with Cameron Cross

British Institute of Persian Studies, 17 July 2024, 5PM (UK time).

On Zoom.
In the early tenth century CE, a remarkable literary event took place, in which well-known stories of lovers were recast by court-affiliated poets as independent versified works in the emergent New Persian language.

With a focus on the remarkable story of Vis & Ramin, this talk seeks to situate that event in the broader context of the entangled literary histories of southwestern Afro-Eurasia from late antiquity to the medieval period, showing how the Persian corpus plays a crucial role in the history of romance writing at large.

Register at:

https://www.bips.ac.uk/event/persian-romance/

 

 

 

 

11. Eighth European Congress on Universal and Global History

Critical Global Histories: Methodological Reflections and Thematic Expansions 

Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden, 10−12 September 2025

Since its foundation in 2002, the European Network in Universal and Global History (ENIUGH) has emerged as the leading international association for research and teaching in world and global history. Following seven successful congresses in Leipzig, Dresden, London, Paris, Budapest, Turku, and The Hague, the next ENIUGH congress will be held at Linnaeus University in Växjö, Sweden. The congress will be on site only, although panel chairs may in exceptional cases allow participants to present their papers remotely.

Under the overall theme of “Critical Global Histories” we aim to further discussion, self-reflection, and the exploration of new avenues in global history. Over the past decade, global history has expanded internally (quantitatively and thematically, as well as methodologically and theoretically) and has, in doing so, influenced many other fields of research in the humanities and social sciences. At the same time, the expansion has led to debate and criticism, not least within the field. Objections have been raised against global history’s alleged macro-historical emphasis, connectivity bias, Eurocentrism, Anglophone dominance, and lack of attention to gender perspectives and Indigenous methodologies. Global history has also been accused of being imbued with neo-imperial, teleological, globalizing, exoticizing and neoliberal leanings. In recent years, decoloniality as a research practice and method has raised further questions regarding the situatedness of knowledge and the role of local sources for global history. At the same time, a current nationalist backlash in many countries has led to calls for a return to national history, thereby challenging the fundamental premises of global history.

At the Eighth ENIUGH Congress, we aim to pick up on these discussions and take a step forward by opening a space of dialogue, both between global historians and between global historians and their colleagues in other disciplines who are involved in the study of the global human pasts or who work with transnational, transregional, transcultural approaches in their respective fields. The Eighth ENIUGH-Congress will be a meeting place for scholars from all of the fields that go beyond methodological nationalism and Eurocentrism. We believe that critical thinking – both in the sense of impartial and intellectually disciplined thinking and in the sense of an augmented awareness of the many pitfalls associated with global history – can provide some of the means by which the field can evolve and retain its intellectual vigour and contemporary relevance. By framing the theme in terms of “global histories” in the plural, we aim to promote the inclusion of a broad range of voices, perspectives and orientations within the field, while forcefully rejecting the possibility of insisting on a single, dominating story or grand narrative of global history. The overall theme of the congress will be explored in a series of keynote events, roundtables, and panel discussions and in several of the regular panels and presentations at the congress.

Aside from the events related to the overall theme of the congress, we expect the congress to reflect the entire span of current research in global history, and we look forward to welcoming to Växjö scholars from all over world working on global and world history and related fields of study. Proposals can include a wide range of topics related to global, entangled, and transnational historical processes and phenomena, with no geographic or chronological limitations. While we expect most of the congress delegates to be historians, we also welcome scholars from other disciplines engaged in the study of humanity’s global pasts.

We invite contributions consisting of presentations of original research and empirically grounded work in progress, as well as theoretical, methodological, ethical, and historiographical reflections. We particularly encourage contributions that reflect on how critical thinking can be applied in global historical investigations. Although the main language of the congress will be English, individual presentations and panels in other languages can be accommodated (see further below).

In particular, we welcome contributions (both panels and individual papers) tailored to one of the following themes:

• Temporalities and periodizations in global history
• Ethical aspects of doing global history
• Expanding the global archive
• Multivocality in global history
• Global history and decoloniality
• Transdisciplinary approaches
• Indigenous perspectives and methodologies
• Challenging modernity from the perspective of global history
• National history, nationalist backlash, and identity politics
• Global environmental history
• Nordic colonialism

In addition to the main conference themes we also invite proposals dealing with relations, transfers and entanglements between states, peoples, communities and individuals located in or spanning different parts and regions of the world.

Proposals

We invite proposals for panels, double panels, roundtables, and individual papers. Papers and presentations may be in any language, but abstracts for all panels, roundtables, and papers must be provided in English. Panel chairs must ensure the openness, accessibility, and coherence of their panel, and it is recommended that Q&A sessions be held in English regardless of the language of the presentations. All congress delegates are expected to participate on site in Växjö. In exceptional circumstances, panel chairs may allow a minority of presentations to be held remotely.

Panels may comprise up to four presentations, and double panels may comprise up to eight presentations, in addition to commentators and chairs. Panels must consist of scholars representing at least two different institutions in at least two different countries. Double panels must include participants from at least three different institutions in at least three different countries.

Roundtables may include up to five participants, in addition to commentators and chairs. Like double panels, roundtables must include scholars from at least three different institutions in at least three different countries.

We also welcome proposals for individual papers, which, if accepted, will be assigned to a panel by the steering committee of ENIUGH. Papers that speak to one or several of the themes listed above are particularly welcome, and the theme of most relevance to the proposal should be indicated in the submission form.

Submissions:

All abstracts for panels and papers must be submitted by October 15 via the congress website: https://research.uni-leipzig.de/~eniugh/congress/. Please note that all speakers of a panel must submit their papers individually in addition to the collective panel submission.

Abstracts for panels should be 250 – 300 words long and should indicate all panellists, their institutional affiliations as well as their paper titles. Additionally, panel abstracts should be pertaining to one of the conference themes.

Abstracts for papers should be 200 – 250 words long and indicate whether the paper is submitted as an individual paper or as part of a panel. In the latter case the abstract should name the panel title as well as the convenor’s name.

All abstracts should be in English. If the presentation is in a language other than English, please state this in the abstract. (Papers are selected solely on the basis of content, not linguistic criteria.)

Abstracts should also indicate whether you plan to participate in person or online. Please note that the convenor and a majority of participants in each panel must participate on site.

Selected panels and papers will be notified in December 2024.

Kind regards from the Organizing Committee,

Stefan Eklöf Amirell (Professor of Global History, Director, Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies

Birgit Tremml-Werner (Stockholm University, affiliated researcher at Linnaeus University)

Katrin Köster (Leipzig University)

Contact: congress@eniugh.org

Website: https://research.uni-leipzig.de/~eniugh/congress/

 

 

12. The Heidi Marx Prize: Call for Submissions

Submissions will open on 1 July for the inaugural Heidi Marx Prize.

We have established this prize, in recognition of Heidi Marx’s ongoing scholarly contributions, not least her co-founding of ReMeDHe, to be awarded annually for the best article on medicine, health, and healing in the ancient Mediterranean.  Articles published within the last three years are welcome, and the winner will receive $250 toward books of their choosing as well as recognition on the ReMeDHe website.

Nominations and self-nominations are all welcome, with a final deadline of 1 March 2025 for an announcement in June 2025.

 Full details, including eligibility, selection criteria, and instructions, are available on the ReMeDHe website.  Inquiries and questions can be sent to Kristi Upson-Saia (upsonsaia@oxy.edu) or Jonathan Zecher (jonathan.zecher@acu.edu.au).

Posted in: Academic items