Shii News – Academic Items

1. The Department of Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Chicago is honored to have Dr. Arezou Azad as the speaker in the Heshmat Moayyad Lecture Series for the Spring 2026 session. The lecture will be in person and on zoom on Wednesday, April 8 at 5:30 PM US Central Time in The Tea Room in the Social Science Research Building Room 201.

Please use this link to access the zoom:

https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/96374020687?pwd=7M9uPEsmcrMrmrq7fiYhpBhAsgX9Hr.1

Title: “Restore Her Rights!” Sketches from Forgotten Persian Manuscripts

Abstract: From a medieval woman farmer taking a stand, to a shopkeeper navigating the familiar challenges of work–life balance, to one of the earliest surviving Persian narrative poems on the biblical Joseph…

In this lecture, Arezou Azad shares unexpected insights that emerge from under-explored Persian sources, studied through the Invisible East programme in Oxford. Drawing on three medieval corpora of documents from Afghanistan, alongside the Bodleian Libraries’ Akhbār-i Barmakīyān produced in the Delhi Sultanate, she will bring to life a series of overlooked stories.

These materials not only illuminate everyday life in a formative period of the region’s history but also speak to enduring human experiences—from negotiating authority and identity to pursuing economic wellbeing. The paper also acknowledges the challenges that researchers face when working with displaced heritage and in areas of conflict.

By engaging with these manuscripts, the lecture invites us to rethink familiar narratives and to explore how new sources can connect past and present in meaningful ways.

2. The Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo (Tobunken), is pleased to host a lecture in the Tobunken Seminar series by Professor Christian Lange (Utrecht University) entitled “Scouts of the Soul: Theories of the Senses in Arabic Literature.”

This hybrid event will be held both in person and online. Please note that advance registration is required for online participation.

Lecture Title:

Scouts of the Soul: Theories of the Senses in Arabic Literature.

Speaker:

Professor Christian Lange (Professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies, Utrecht University).

Chair:

Professor Kazuo Morimoto (Professor in Islamic and Iranian History, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo).

Date and Time:

8 May (Fri) 2026, at 18:00-19:30 (JST).

Venue:

Room 304, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, Hongo Campus, University of Tokyo (東京大学東洋文化研究所3階、第一会議室304), and online via Zoom.

Abstract:

Recent years have seen a proliferation of work on the senses in the Humanities disciplines. Historians, philosophers and anthropologists alike have come to devote increased attention to how cultural formations produce and control characteristic ways of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. Also in Islamic studies, a ‘sensory turn’ is underway. Sensory questions intersect with key challenges that shape broader perceptions of Islam and of the Islamic world. For example, clashes over the presence of Islam in the public sphere often unfold along sensory lines, both real and imagined, as is demonstrated by contested phenomena such as touching in the form of handshaking, the call to prayer in modern urban soundscapes, or the rules and conventions regarding what may or may not be exposed to sight. This talk analyzes theories of the human sensorium in a number of encyclopedic works of Arabic literature, from Avicenna (11th c.) to Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī (17th c.), with the aim of defining some basic modes of thinking about the senses in the cultural history of Islam.

Speaker’s Bio:

Christian Lange (PhD Harvard, 2006) is Professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. His publications include Justice, Punishment and the Medieval Muslim Imagination (2008), Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions (2016), and most recently (as general editor), Islamic Sensory History, 3 vols. (2024–). Since 2017, he’s been the Principal Investigator of the Utrecht-based research group “SENSIS: The senses of Islam” (https://sensis.wp.hum.uu.nl/), funded by research grants of the European Research Council (ERC) and the Dutch Science Organisation (NWO). From 2024 to 2028, he is serving as President of the European Union of Arabists and Islamicists (UEAI).

How to Participate:

Pre-registration is required for online participation. Please fill in the format https://forms.gle/eh6UgzJJGs1bdcaY8 by 5 May, at 24:00 JST. You will receive the Zoom details before long.

In-person attendance does not require advance registration.

Contact Person: Kazuo Morimoto (morikazu@ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp)

3. UCLA:

One Divan and Multiple Poets: The Strange Case of Makhfi

Sunil Sharma

Boston University

English Lecture

Monday, May 4, 2026 at 11:00 am Pacific Time

Online via Zoom

Registration Required:

https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6QTp311ZThKErILePfrBEQ

4. The Homeland’s Uprising Spirit