Shii News – Academic Items
1.7th Leiden Summer School “Philology and Manuscripts from the Muslim World”, Leiden University, 18-29 August 2025
This summer school is for graduate (MA and PhD) students and researchers who have an interest in handwritten materials, editing, and the tradition of editing in the Muslim world. It offers theoretical lectures as well as hands-on practice with samples from the world-famous collections of the Leiden University Library with thousands of Arabic, Persian and Ottoman manuscripts from the historic heartlands of Islam and from Asia, al-Andalus and Africa.
Deadline for applications: 5 May 2025. Information:
2. Early Scholars Publication Grants for Dissertations that Reconceptualize “Translating Cultures in the Digital Age”, UNESCO Chair in Translating Cultures, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies
We seek dissertations that explore the evolving relationship between humans and advanced AI systems, including the new interpretive strategies required to navigate AI’s fluid, data-driven formulations, and focus on themes such as agency, authorship, translation, and the human-machine interface. Qualification: PhD in a relevant field, such as Arabic language and culture, translation studies, comparative literature, Middle Eastern studies, cultural sociology, etc.
Deadline for applications: 26 May 2025. Information: https://www.kfcris.com/en/unesco/grant/2025
3. Hybrid: Thursday, March 13, 2025, at 18:00 (GMT) in Room B104 (Brunei Gallery Building, SOAS) for Professor Marcus Milwright’s talk titled “Messages from The Past: Temporal Relationships in the Study of Early Islamic Visual Culture”.
This talk explores how time affects the interpretation of early Islamic art, focusing on the phases of creation and the interplay between ancient themes and contemporary sources. Professor Milwright will delve into how emulation and adaptation of earlier artistic traditions shape our understanding of Islamic art and architecture. Professor Milwright is British Academy Global Professor in the Department of History of Art, University of York and Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology at the University of Victoria, Canada.
To attend in person please make sure to register in advance: https://tinyurl.com/SOAS-ReSIA or write to Matty (mb@royalasiaticsociety.org) to ask for a Zoom link.
4. Pomona College, Art History
Pomona College VAP in Early Modern Art History (European, Islamic, South Asian)
https://www.h-net.org/jobs/job_display.php?id=68623
Closing date: 31.3.25
5. VOL 7 Scenes From The 17th. Century Ottoman Empire
Manchester album and Scroll
MANCHESTER RYELAND MS. 2 AND 4.
(1660- later)
ISBN: 978-90-6921-053-7
17 . Yüzyıl Osmanlı İmparatorluğundan Manzaralar 3
Edited by / Yayına hazırlayan: Mehmet Tütüncü & Ömer Erdem
Graphic Designer: Omer Erdem: omerdem@me.com
CORPUS OF TURKISH ISLAMIC INSCRIPTIONS nr: 50
TÜRK İSLAM KİTABELERİ DİZİSİ no: 50
For ordering, sample pages and more info about published volumes please visit the download page:
https://www.academia.edu/128066168
6. Lecture – Material Transformation as a Catalyst for the Spiritual: The Art of Bianca Bondi
14 March 2025
AFSACK is thrilled to announce its upcoming Salon Conversation with guest moderator Alexandra Baudelot, the Director of the Musée d’Art et de Culture Soufis MTO™, and the visual artist Bianca Bondi, whose work is currently exhibited in Un Ciel intérieur . Exposition inaugurale du MACS MTO™.
Bianca Bondi’s work operates on the border of several worlds, revealing the intangible links that exist between the visible (nature, chemical phenomena, and the transformation of matter) and the invisible (the idea of ritual, which she draws through various forms of mysticism from non-Western sources of knowledge and the sensory experiences evoked through her installations). She creates dreamlike installations that echo the environments in which she exhibits her works. In the context of MACS MTO and its exhibition, the works exhibited resonate with the surrounding nature and river water facing the museum. They reveal the potential for metamorphosis at work in each manifestation of life.
This session will offer the opportunity to explore Bondi’s work and the processes that shape her sculptures and installations.
This event will take place on Zoom.
The Musée d’Art et de Culture Soufis MTO (MACS MTO™) is the first museum dedicated to exploring the principles and artistic expressions of Sufism. Built on a foundational platform of dialogue with the beliefs and questions of our time, MACS MTO engages Sufism as a framework for multidisciplinary exploration.
Contact Information
Parastou Youssefi
Contact Email
URL
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Z0F3snn9TPGIfDr7vhv1wQ#/registration
7. Workshop – Khamseen Pedagogy Workshop (Hybrid Event) – March 28
Khamseen’s pedagogy workshop on teaching Islamic art, architecture, and visual culture on Friday, March 28 at 3:00 pm EST. The event is hybrid, and registration for remote participation can be accessed at the following link: https://myumi.ch/ZD9MN.
Members of Team Khamseen will present flash talks on Khamseen’s free and open-access digital platform. For more information about the talks, see the pedagogy workshop program here.
8. Art Speaks (Back): Historians of Islamic Art Association 2025 Symposium, April 3-5 2025, Boston
Boston College and the MFA Boston.
Please register for the symposium by March 7. Registration for the special events (receptions, lunchtime discussions, art viewing sessions and the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT viewing session) have now closed. All registrants for the sympsoium will receive a confirmation email after March 7, which they will need to present to enter the MFA on Friday April 4th. Those attending the special viewings and lunches will receive separate confirmation emails. While we are not able to host a fully hybrid symposium, Zoom links have been provided below for each session. Online participants will be able to listen to the talks, see the images shared, and ask questions via the Q&A window.
Program
Thursday, April 3 – MIT and Boston College
MIT:
- 10:30am – 1:00pm: Viewing of the collections and the exhibition “Refracted Histories through Stained Glass: 19th Century Islamic Windows as a Prism into MIT’s Past, Present, and Future,” followed by a light lunch. Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT. Capped at 30, please register.
Boston College, Yawkey Center, Murray Room (4th Floor), Boston College, Chestnut Hill, 02467.
- 3pm: Welcome Remarks, Emine Fetvacı and Laura Weinstein
- 3:15 – 4:45 pm: Roundtable: Provenance and Islamic Art: Current Discussions and Future Directions.Speakers: Elizabeth Dospel Williams, Gwendolyn Collaço, Inês Fialho Brandão, Margaret Graves, Amanda Phillips, Eiren Shea, Alyson Wharton(-Durgaryan), Franziska Kabelitz
Zoom Registration Link: https://bccte.zoom.us/meeting/register/Ixev72N1Ri6h7B3VP9lEoQ
- 5 – 6:30 pm: Keynote lecture: Writing (Art) History in the Time of War, Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, MIT.
Zoom Registration Link: https://bccte.zoom.us/meeting/register/8DcIe4ZNTV-dXDs7FBpRAA
- 7:00 – 9:00 pm: Opening reception and visit “Wonders of Creation: Art, Science and Innovation in the Islamic World.”
Location: McMullen Museum, Boston College, 2101 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA
Friday April 4 – Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Alfond Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 465 Huntington Avenue,
Boston, Massachusetts, 02115-5523
- 9:00 – 11:00 am: Panel 1: Inscribed Meaning, Memory, and Identity: The Embodiment of Textiles, Dress and Jewels in the Islamic World
- ‘Reading’ Inscribed Textiles in Context: an Abbasid tiraz textile in a Fatimid Burial. Arielle Winnik, Postdoctoral Associate, Yale University Art Gallery
- Messages in Minerals: Decoding Inscribed Gemstones. Courtney Stewart, Research Associate, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Two Inscribed Ghurid Talismanic Jewels in the al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait. Jochen Sokoly, Associate Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar
- Traceable Origins of Coins, Embroidery & Adornment in Palestinian Headdress, (Late 19th – Early 20th Centuries). Wafa Ghnaim, Founder, Tatreez Institute and Research Scholar, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Moderator: Ayşin Yoltar-Yıldırım, Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Islamic and Asian Art, Harvard Art Museums
Zoom Registration Link: https://bccte.zoom.us/meeting/register/1bqXlaOuQsqvBdd41naHag
- 11:00 – 11:30 am: Coffee break
- 11:30 – 1:00 pm: Panel 2: “Writing, Speaking”
- Flipping the Script of a Historical Whodunnit: An Epigraphical Forgery at the Abbasid Nilometer in Cairo. Heba Mostafa, Associate Professor, University of Toronto, St George
- Playing with Arabic Script: Visual Analogies and the Imagination in Medieval Islamic Aesthetics. Zahra Kazani, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Cambridge
- Cloths of Mourning: Late Safavid Epigraphic Textiles. Sarah Molina, PhD Candidate, Harvard University
Moderator: Matthew Saba, Program Head, Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT
Zoom Link: https://bccte.zoom.us/meeting/register/T9AnIcNhSR6qY91f-1weRQ
- 1:15 – 2:00 pm: lunch break
- Optional lunchtime discussion: AI and Islamic Art History. Led by Nancy Um, Associate Director for Research and Knowledge Creation, Getty Research Institute, and Hossein Nakhaei, PhD Candidate, University of Pittsburgh. Capped at 20.
Location: Riley Seminar Room (room 156); lunch discussion will be in the Druker Classroom (room 160) – discussion participants will pick up their food/drink in room 156.
- 2:00 – 3:30 pm: Collection viewings, limited capacity. Please register.
- “Inscribed Meaning, Memory, and Identity: Dress and Adornments in the MFA Collections”
- “Contemporary Calligraphy – New Acquisitions”
- 3:30 – 5:30 pm: Panel 3: “Architecture Speaks”
- Architecture as Archive: Re-framing Mughal Imperial Lineage. Srinanda Ganguly, PhD Candidate, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
- A Seventeenth-Century T-Shaped Mosque in Anatolia? The Byzantinizing Mosque of Hüsrev Paşa near Eskişehir. Zeynep Oguz, University of Zagreb
- The “Defender of Islam” Defiant: The Mausoleum of Qus and the Virtual Hajj.” Mikael Muehlbauer, Interim Assistant Educator, Office of Academic and Professional Programs, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Forging locality in domes: Muslim architecture of Quanzhou, Chendai, and Baiqi in the 20th and 21st centuries. Sylvia Wu, Assistant Professor, the University of Texas at Austin
Moderator: Emine Fetvacı, Norma Jean Calderwood University Professor of Islamic and Asian Art, Boston College
Zoom Registration Link: https://bccte.zoom.us/meeting/register/z1eNMm5HRUCzrGYGC_ZQ3w
Saturday, April 5, Boston College, Yawkey Center, Murray Room (4th Floor), Boston College, Chestnut Hill, 02467.
- 9:00 – 11:00 am: Panel 4: “The Architecture and Arts of Islamicate Central Asia during Dynastic Ruptures”
- Bihzad’s Ghost: The Timurid—Abu’l-Khayrid transition in Transoxiana, 1480–1510. Jaimee Comstock-Skipp, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, University of Oxford
- Qarakhanid Architecture Re-examined: Portals, Patronage, and Consolidating Turko-Islamic Power in eleventh-century Transoxiana. Dilrabo Tosheva, AKPIA Fellow, Harvard University
- The pre-Mongol City of Balkh as Seen by its Residents: a Report from the Fadaʾil-i Balkh. Said Reza Husaini, Research Fellow, King’s College, Cambridge University
- Historical Madrasas as Spolia: Appropriating Timurid and Abu’l-Khayrid Monuments in Toqay-Timurid Urban Squares. Yue Xie, PhD Candidate, Harvard University
Moderator: Alexander Brey, Assistant Professor, Wellesley College
Zoom Link: https://bccte.zoom.us/meeting/register/CLoDMCiUSgKqRG3t-gmsKQ
11:00 – 11:30 am: coffee break
- 11:30 am – 1:30 pm: Panel 5: “Responding to a Changing World”
- Tool of Craft or Homage to Profession? A Study of a Qajar Architectural Tablet and a Futuwwatnama of Architects. Salimeh Hosseini, PhD Candidate, University of Chicago,
- The meaning of ‘photography’ (fotogerāfi) is light-drawing (nūr-negārī)”: Mystical Metaphors in Technical Manuals of Photography in Nineteenth-Century Iran. Chaeri Lee. PhD Candidate, Indiana University
- “The Gift of the Orient”: Ottoman Cultural Brokers in the US, ca. 1900. Roxanne Goldberg, PhD Candidate, MIT
- The Spatial Realms of Ottoman Imperial Portraiture: Sultan Selim III, Self-Representation, and Topkapı’s Renewal. Hilal Uǧurlu, Associate Professor, MEF University, Istanbul, and Deniz Türker, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University
Moderator: Huma Gupta, Assistant Professor, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, MIT
Zoom Registration Link: https://bccte.zoom.us/meeting/register/Px6Q8Q05SlmqbHW4QQgqUQ
- 1:30 – 2:45 pm: Lunch break
- Optional lunchtime discussion: Teaching Difficult Topics. Led by Zohreh Soltani, Assistant Professor, Ithaca College, and Emily Neumeier, Assistant Professor, Temple University. Capped at 20, please register.
- 2:45-3:00 pm In Remembrance, presented by Dr. Marianna Shreve Simpson, Research Associate, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Zoom Registration Link: https://bccte.zoom.us/meeting/register/GfvbKRIiRHW__28pggWWQA
- 3:00 – 5:00pm: Panel 6: “Realms of Response: Javab and Cultural Production in Early Modern Iran and South Asia”
- The Poetics of Pottery and the Aesthetics of Absence: Isfahan’s Music Room. Michael Chagnon, Aga Khan Museum
- Speaking Cities: The City and the Self in Premodern Urban Descriptions. Farshid Emami, Assistant Professor, Rice University
- Mirroring the Cosmos: The Mi‘raj as an Inner Journey Towards God in Hindustani Painting. Murad Khan Mumtaz, Associate Professor, Williams College
- Self/Reflection: Ghiyas/Sherley, or how to talk back in Safavid art and history. Kishwar Rizvi, Professor, Yale University
- Discussant: Paul Losenky, Professor, Indiana University
Moderator: Laura Weinstein, Ananda Coomaraswamy Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Zoom Link: https://bccte.zoom.us/meeting/register/GfvbKRIiRHW__28pggWWQA
- 5:30 – 6:30pm: Wonders of Creation: Art Science and Innovation in the Islamic World, with Dr. Ladan Akbarnia, Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art, San Diego Museum of Art
Location: McMullen Museum, Boston College, 2101 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA
- 6:30 – 8:00pm: Closing reception at the McMullen Museum, Boston College, 2101 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA
Sunday, April 6
- 10am: Walking tour of Boston’s Little Syria with Dr. Lydia Harrington
- Tour meets at the Chinatown Gate (John F Fitzgerald Surface Rd & Beach St, Boston, MA 02111) and ends near Peter’s Park in the South End. The tour will take approximately 1 ½ to 1 ¾ hours. Optional post-tour lunch at Anoush’ella. To sign up, email lharrin@bu.edu. To contact Lydia on the day of the tour, call 857-488-2878.
Contact Information
Emine Fetvaci and Laura Weinstein
Contact Email
URL
https://www.historiansofislamicart.
9. In celebration of the launch of the UNESCO backed Khalili Foundation’s ‘Interfaith Explorers’ initiative, a platform that encourages children to explore cultural diversity and foster interfaith and intercultural understanding:
https://www.khalili.foundation/interfaith-explorers/
The Khalili Collection is pleased to introduce a new children’s card game. It comprises of 30 unique cards, each with a score and a fact-file. This fun game is designed for both children and adults and uncovers hidden stories behind each Islamic Art object:
Available to purchase here:
https://www.khalilicollections.org/news/top-trumps-islamic-art-explore-artworks-through-play/
URL
https://www.khalilicollections.org/news/top-trumps-islamic-art-explore-artworks…
10. IED talk 31/3 by Nasima Selim, “Breathing Hearts in Suffocating Times: Sufi healing practices and anti-Muslim racism in Germany”
We are pleased to invite you to IED‘s next lecture on Monday, March 31st, 3.00 – 4.30 CET, on Teams.
Nasima Selim (Bayreuth University) will deliver a talk to present her book “Breathing Hearts in Suffocating Times: Sufism, Healing, and Anti-Muslim Racism in Germany”, which will be followed by Q&A.
Sufism is known as the mystical dimension of Islam. ‘Breathing Hearts’ explores this definition to find out what it means to ‘breathe well’ along the Sufi path in the context of anti-Muslim racism. ‘Breathing Hearts in Suffocating Times’ is the first book-length ethnographic account of Sufi practices and politics in Berlin and describes how Sufi practices are mobilized in healing secular and religious suffering. The book tracks the Desire Lines of multi-ethnic immigrants of color, and white German interlocutors to show how Sufi practices complicate the post secular imagination of healing in Germany.
Nasima Selim is a Postdoctoral Research Associate of Anthropology at the University of Bayreuth. Nasima’s work intersects medical anthropology, global health, public anthropology, and anthropology of Islam across Western Europe and South Asia. She is a breathworker, educator, researcher, and writer.
11. SOAS Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies
Zoroastrianism Summer School 2025
Deadline for applications: 11.59 pm, Wednesday 12 March 2025
The Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies and UCI Jordan Center for Persian Studies & Culture are pleased to announce that applications for our Summer School are now open. The Institute is hosting the week-long course with the Jordan Center, part of the University of California, Irvine and we welcome Prof. Carlo Careti as he brings his expertise to the school. This year, students will not only learn about how the religion is practiced in Iran but India and the wider diaspora. In addition, students will interview members of the London Zoroastrian community and learn vital research skills.
Posted in: Academic items- March 11, 2025
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