Shii News – Academic Items
1.The British Institute of Persian Studies: the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology is inviting you to three events for the project ‘Groundbreakers: Women in Archaeology’.
The exhibition ‘Groundbreakers: Women in Archaeology’ was developed in collaboration with the British International Research Institutes (BIRI), of which BIPS (the British Institute of Persian Studies) is one, and the Petrie Museum. The display celebrates the pioneering contributions of British women archaeologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on the rich archives of the BIRI and the Petrie Museum, ‘Groundbreakers’ traces their remarkable work across regions including Rome, Ankara, Cairo, Iran and the Levant.
Visitors can explore an object trail across the museum’s display cases and view ‘Nine Lives’, an animated film highlighting the stories of nine women archaeologists. The exhibition runs from the 5th-14th of November 2026.
The programme also includes talks at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology on the 9th and 11th of November,titled ‘The Joy of Lists, Letters & Wills – Women in the Archives’ and ‘A Reading of A Thousand Miles Up the Nile’, respectively. Advance booking is required.
Location: Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology, UCL’s Institute of Archaeology
These events are part of the BeingHuman Festival2026.
Find out more and book your place here.
2. Saint Louis University hosts an annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SMRS), the next to be held June 14-16, 2027. This year, there are several special sessionsof possible interest to Middle East Medievalists, including the following:
- Interconnected Islamic Worlds
- This session explores the relations and interactions of Muslims with others (Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, etc.) in Islamic societies of the medieval and early modern period, with the aim of opening up discussion about and/or complicating the boundaries between different religious communities—boundaries more often brought about by the divisions of our scholarly disciplines than any historical reality. Topics may include the Muslim treatment of non-Muslims (or vice versa), the intellectual exchanges between Muslims and others, issues of translation or diglossia, the construction or expression of identity and community, or generally on the varied social, economic, and/ or intellectual networks operating within the Islamic world.
- Zoroastrianism in Medieval Worlds
- As part of a series of sessions that employs an interconnected, intercultural concept of the medieval period, this special session on Zoroastrianism aims to bring discussion of Zoroastrians and their history, literature, and culture into dialogue with others working on the medieval or early modern period, particularly in the Middle East. Topics might include aspects of Zoroastrian social, political, cultural, or legal history, or specific Zoroastrians and/or their religious texts, terminology, or concepts as studied in the larger cultural contexts of their compilation, composition, and later transmission.
If you are interested in participating in either of the above sessions, please send abstracts of 250 words to Kayla Dang (Kayla.dang@slu.edu ) by December 1.
Contact Information
Kayla Dang, Saint Louis University
Contact Email
URL
https://www.smrs-slu.org/open-session-cfps.html
3. Hybrid: BETTY ROSEN, Listening to Thirteenth-Century Cairo and Damascus: What’s New in Late Ayyubid Poetry? CSI Majlis/Visiting Speaker Lecture (online and in person) on the 4th of November, 17:00-18:30 (UK time)
Centre for the Study of Islam, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter, Lecture Theatre 2
Refreshments in the IAIS Common Room at 16:30.
Register please on this link: https://tr.ee/Nysc9JcOER
4. Journal of Arabian Studies 16.1
Volume 16 Number 1 June 2026
ARTICLES
From Nomination to Implementation: Saudi Arabia’s Heritage Governance in Comparative Perspective BILEL CHEBBI 1
Assessing Non-Religious International Tourists’ Satisfaction in Jeddah: Implications for Saudi Arabia’s: Emerging Leisure Tourism Market MOHAMMED BASENDWAH, QIWEN ZHENG, and SURAIYATI RAHMAN 24
Sustainable Cruise Tourism and Development in Oman ASHRAF MISHRIF, MAHMOUD ALSAFY, and MAGDALENA KAROLAK 48
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and Strategic Hedging amid China-US Rivalry QIN QINING and SITI ZULIHA RAZALI 79
Forgotten Voices: The Sultanate of Muscat and Oman’s Response to the Palestine Question, 1936–48 HOSSAM ELSAYED Z. SHALABI 96
Mobility, Borrowing, and Identity: A Sociolinguistic Study of Gulf Arabic Influence on Jordanian Returnees’ Arabic AFAKH SAID YOUNES, ABDEL RAHMAN MITIB ALTAKHAINEH, and MARWAN JARRAH 115
Tribal Identity, Prestige, and Arab Women’s Autonomy in Marriage in Pre-Islamic Ḥijāz and Najd MAHDIEH POURSALEH-KACHOMESGHALI and HEDIEH TAGHAVI 135
BOOK REVIEWS
JULIUS EUTING, Diary of a Journey through Inner Arabia, 1883–1884 (2025), reviewed by BENJAMIN REILLY 164
ADAM MESTYAN, Modern Arab Kingship: Remaking the Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East (2023), reviewed by AHMET TALHA COŞKUN 166
NIKLAS A. HALLER, Drawing Boundaries: Oil, Empire, and the Making of the Emirati State (2026), reviewed by VICTORIA HIGHTOWER 168
MD MIZANUR RAHMAN, KALTHAM AL-GHANIM, ZIARAT HOSSAIN, and SHARIQUE UMAR, Handbook of Families in the Arab Gulf States (2025), reviewed by DINA TAHA 170
ROBERTA MORANO, Diachronic Variation in the Omani Arabic Vernacular of the Al-ʿAwābī District: From Carl Reinhardt (1894) to the Present Day (2022), reviewed by FABIO GASPARINI 173
RANA ALMUTAWA, Everyday Life in the Spectacular City: Making Home in Dubai (2024), reviewed by ANDREW GARDNER 177
ESMAT ZAIDAN, EVREN TOK, ASMAA AL-FADALA, and LOGAN COCHRANE (eds), The Future of Education Policy in the State of Qatar (2025), reviewed by NATASHA RIDGE 180
CRYSTAL A. ENNIS, Millennial Dreams in Oil Economies: Job Seeking and the Global Political Economy of Labour in Oman (2025), reviewed by MARION BRETEAU and CORINA LOZOVAN 182
SATORU NAKAMURA and STEVEN WRIGHT (eds), Japan and the Middle East: Foreign Policies and Interdependence (2023), reviewed by YEVA HARUTYUNYAN 185
MICHAEL D. TUSIANI with ANNE-MARIE JOHNSON, From Black Gold to Frozen Gas: How Qatar Became an Energy Superpower (2023), reviewed by SIMON COPPIETERS 187
EMMA SOUBRIER, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates: Diverging Paths to Regional and Global Power (2025), reviewed by COURTNEY FREER 190
NOTICES
AGAPS Biennial Book Award 2025 192
AGAPS Gwenn Okruhlik Dissertation Award 2025 194
AGAPS Gwenn Okruhlik Dissertation Award 2026: Call for Submissions 195
AGAPS Graduate Paper Prize 2026: Call for Submissions 196
AGAPS Student Travel Award 2026: Call for Submissions 197
Website: https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tandfonline.com%2Ftoc%2Frjab20%2F16%2F1&data=05%7C02%7C%7C76e92fa760b3413552ae08df3490dbb2%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C639287468915453345%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=za1e0Vt5zFChx5cikmwNvKXy0wdVRftfGJZf3bcjVd8%3D&reserved=0
5. Hybrid: BIPS – Sovereignty in Iran: Challenges to Eurocentrism from Ancient Iran to the Islamic Republic
With Shabnam Holliday
27 November 2026; 6:45-9PM
The lecture is based on Dr Holliday’s recently published edited book ‘Sovereignty in Iran: Challenges to Eurocentrism from Ancient Iran to the Islamic Republic’.
Sovereignty in Iran is a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary collaborative project examining sovereignties as a plural concept through the case of Iran. In so doing, it challenges Eurocentric assumptions in the Humanities and Social Sciences and covers sovereignty from Ancient Iran to the Islamic Republic.
A non-Eurocentric framework requires the reader to think about co-existing and competing sovereignties with an ‘Area Studies’ lens. This approach moves beyond periodised understandings of history, and not only contributes to better understanding Eurocentrism but also enables a greater appreciation of contexts, complexities and agencies as a means of challenging Eurocentrism. https://www.bips.ac.uk/event/2026-bips-agm-lecture-sovereignty-in-iran/
6. Empires in Friction
Egypt in the Sixteenth Century
Nelly Hanna
Syracuse University Press.
https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/6632/empires-in-friction/
7. ‘Ali Akbar Khatayi, The Book of China: A Persian Merchant’s Description of the Ming State for the Ottoman Court
Edited and Translated by Kaveh Hemmat, John Curry, and Hyunhee Park
With Assistance from Lanshin Chang and Fan Rong
Columbia University Press, 2026
ISBN: 9780231224307
https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcup.columbia.edu%2Fbook%2Fthe-book-of-china%2F9780231224307%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7Cba0f8a6b1ff7456f488408df351b32b1%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C639288063133509656%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=XqwDv9oXajD1nZKG3w%2BUHgxsKUlA0k61%2BWeOhz5SHag%3D&reserved=0
Save 20% with code CUP20 when you order directly from the publisher
8. Power and Anxiety in the Kingdom: The Saudi Clergy Across One Century
N Samin
OUP, 2026
ISBN: 978019766581 https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Nadav_Samin_Power_and_Anxiety_in_the_Kingdom?id=slUWEgAAQBAJ
9. The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the next lecture in our 2026–2027 lecture series.
November 18, 2026 | Zoom | 12:00–1:30 pm (Eastern Standard Time, UTC -5)
Inheritors of Christ: Christian Pilgrimage in Early Islamic Palestine, c.750–c.1099
Daniel Reynolds, University of Birmingham
At the opening of the seventh century, historic Palestine and Transjordan were among the most densely occupied ritual landscapes of the Late Roman world. Over the course of the early Islamic period, that landscape transformed as local Christian communities adapted to the shifting political and social realities of Muslim rule. While pilgrimage to the region from Byzantium and the post-Roman Latin kingdoms continued throughout this period, it was far exceeded by the vibrant, diverse practices of the region’s locally-rooted Christian population. Drawing together evidence from archaeology, epigraphy, graffiti, and texts, this lecture examines how Christians living within the Caliphate experienced the spaces and stories of the Biblical and early Christian past, and how their practices intersected with the visits of pilgrims from beyond the region.
Daniel Reynolds is Senior Lecturer in Byzantine History at the University of Birmingham
Advance registration required. Register: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/inheritors-of-christ
Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu ), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.
10. Call for Applications to SoFCB’s Junior Research Fellowship
On behalf of the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (SoFCB) at the Rare Book School, University of Virginia.
We are inviting applications for the 2027 cohort of Junior Fellows. The SoFCB is a community of scholars working across disciplines to advance the study of texts, images, and artifacts as material objects. Ten Junior Fellows will be selected to join the SoFCB in 2027; they may become Senior Fellows after completing two years of the fellowship’s required activities in good standing. The application deadline for the SoFCB Junior Fellows Program is 20 November 2026, at 11:50 pm ET. To learn more about the fellowship program and application, please visit. For any questions about the SoFCB Junior Fellows Program, please email sofcb_staff@virginia.edu.
11. Greetings from the Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Studies Student Association (OPSA) at the University of Toronto!
Our reading group, “Graduate Forum on Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Studies,” aims to offer graduate students a space to collectively discuss recent publications in the field. For our upcoming session, we will be reading Honor and Belonging: Post-Harem Lives of Ottoman Palace Women by Özlem Başarır.
The event is open exclusively to graduate students, particularly those interested in Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Studies. We will meet on Monday, 9 November 2026, from 15:00 to 16:00 (EDT) at University College, UC 248, as well as online via Zoom.
Zoom Registration: Please register in advance at https://utoronto.zoom.us/meeting/register/HVtDwwI6R5iPpHrZhhlXaQ
Preparation: To facilitate an engaging discussion, participants are kindly expected to read at least the Introduction, Conclusion, and one chapter of their choice prior to the session.
Contact Information
Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Studies Student Association
University of Toronto
opsa.uoft2025@gmail.com ; onur.cezik@mail.utoronto.ca ; san.soyer@mail.utoronto.ca
Contact Email onur.cezik@mail.utoronto.ca
URL
https://sop.utoronto.ca/group/ottoman-and-post-ottoman-studies-association-at-t…
| 12. Volume 1 of Navā/Voice is Here! | |||
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13. Gerlach Press have just completed cataloguing of four outstanding, highly specialized book collections covering a variety of topical fields of research:
- HISTORY OF SCIENCE & MEDICINE IN ISLAM: 150 volumes from the Library Professor Hans-Hinrich Biesterfeldt (University of Bochum) >> Details: https://gerlachbooks.com/COL_189
- ARABIC POETRY OF THE NAJD: 146 volumes (mainly in Arabic) form the Library of Dr Marcel Kurpershoek. >> Details: https://gerlachbooks.com/COL_190
- ISLAMIC DENOMINATIONS & HERESIOGRAPHY: 411 volumes from the Library of Professor Heinz Halm (University of Tübingen). >> Details: https://gerlachbooks.com/COL_188
- OTTOMAN HISTORY: 365 volumes from the Library of the late Professor Petra K. Kappert (1945-2004). >> Details: https://gerlachbooks.com/COL_182
Each collection is catalogued in Zotero which enables us to supply you with bibliographic data in a variety of standard formats.
14. Oliver Overwien and Rüdiger Arnzen, “The Arabic Translation of Hippocrates’ Aphorismsand Galen’s Commentary on the Aphorisms. Prolegomena to Two Editions,” GoHA Working Papers4, https://zenodo.org/records/21952352, Published September 15, 2026 | Version v1.
15. ONLINE Webinar: “Crisis and Creativity: Practices of Freedom in Constraint in Contemporary Iranian Cinema” by Shohini Chaudhuri, Center for Middle East Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI, 6 November 2026, 18:00 – 19:00 CET
This talk is based on Professor Chaudhuri’s book “Crisis Cinema in the Middle East: Creativity and Constraint in Iran and the Arab World” (2022), which explores how crises and constraints inspire imag-inative and resistant filmmaking. In the book, she charts a shift from allegorical cinema to more direct creative methods in the 2009-2020 timeframe. Her presentation will examine how this framework ap-plies to more recent films – specifically, Farahnaz Sharifi’s “My Stolen Planet” (2024),
Information and registration: https://tinyurl.com/2tvcv3x7
16. International Workshop: “Civilizational Renewal and the Reordering of Knowledge: Concepts, Traditions, and Institutions (Focus Turkey and Wider Muslim World)”, Leibniz-Zentrum Mo-derner Orient, Berlin, 9-10 November 2026
This workshop examines civilizationism as a contemporary political phenomenon while situating its recent resurgence within longer intellectual genealogies. Bringing together leading scholars from a range of regional and disciplinary backgrounds, it explores how civilizational ideas are mobilized to reshape knowledge, identity, political authority, historical imagination, and global order.
Programme: https://tinyurl.com/m9dekrum
17. HYBRID Lecture: “Jewish Scholars of Islam: A German Story”, by Susannah Heschel, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, 15 December 2026, 17:00 – 18:30 CET
“It was Islam that saved the Jewish people!” so declared the distinguished Jewish medievalist S.D. Goitein in a 1958 lecture to British Jews. His declaration culminated a long century of Jewish scholarship on Islam that not only proclaimed theological affinities between the two religions and viewed Islam as Judaism’s medieval protector in contrast to Christianity. Starting in the 1830s, Jews in Europe became prominent scholars of the Qur’an and early Islam.
Information and registration: https://tinyurl.com/rh35353t
18. Workshop: “Wine in the Middle East and North Africa: Images, Places, Markets, and Brands of a Contested Commodity”, Freie Universität Berlin, 15-17 March 2027
The workshop aims to better address the still insufficient state of research by studying the Middle East-ern world of wines and vines, both past and present, and examining the many issues arising from its manifold developments. A decisive, cross-cutting common theme of the workshop is to consider the region and country-specific socio-cultural and political contexts and conditions that are usually given little consideration in wine studies of other parts of the world. These contexts and conditions can impede the cultivation, trade, and consumption of wine, resulting in practices of dissimulation and invisibilisation.
Registration as soon as possible. Information: https://tinyurl.com/3xb4mafx
19. “13th Annual International Conference on Geography & Regional Studies (Focus MENA)”, Athens, Greece, 31 May – 5 June 2027
The aim of the conference is to bring together academics and researchers from all areas of physical geography, human geography and other related disciplines. Areas of interest include (but are not limited to): Bio-geography, Cartography, Climatology, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Geomorphology, Historical geography, Pedology, Transportation geography, Regional Studies and Urban geography. You may participate as a stream leader, paper presenter, session chair or observer.
Deadline for abstracts: 3 November 2026. Information: https://www.atiner.gr/geography
20. Articles on “New Perspectives on Social Movements in the Middle East: Mobilization, Citizenship and Political Change” for Special Issue of the Journal “Society”
Proposals may address, among other themes, youth movements and generational politics, women and feminist mobilization, labour movements and workers’ struggle, Islamist and post-Islamist movements, identity-based movements, citizenship, political belonging and recognition, minority rights and political inclusion, digital activism and social media, civil society and contentious politics. The papers must be relevant to the thematic and (inter-)disciplinary scope of the journal and offer an original contribution to scholarly debate.
Extended deadline for abstracts: 30 November 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/4yd9zw89
21. New Volume: “The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Reform” Edited by Emad Hamdeh & Natana J. DeLong-Bas, Oxford Academic, 2 September 2026, 1136 Pages
Drawing on the expertise of leading scholars from around the world, it offers a rigorous and nuanced analysis of the conceptual underpinnings of reform and renewal in Islam, tracing the intellectual tradi-tions and historical currents that have shaped Muslim thought from the premodern era to the present day. Organized into five thematic parts, the volume addresses contemporary issues in Islamic reform, including the reinterpretation of scripture, hadith, and jurisprudence, as well as the complexities of ijti-hād in an increasingly interconnected world.
Information: https://tinyurl.com/bdeubjpa
22. New Book: “Biography of an Ottoman Provincial Town: Place-Making in Mezre” by Ali Sipahi, Edinburgh University Press. October 2026, 208 Pages
This book presents a 150-year biography of a provincial town. It details the emergence of Mezre as a frontier garrison town next to ancient Harput in the Ottoman East; Mezre-Harput’s subsequent dual-city life until the end of the nineteenth century; and the eventual transformation of Mezre and Harput into the unified Elazığ in Republican Turkey. The book investigates periods of negligence as well as those of state intervention. In doing so, it scrutinises the concept of a ‘provincial town’ as a distinct zone where the imperial and the rural intersect, clash and coalesce.
Information: https://tinyurl.com/mp8fucwz
23. New Book: “Abdallah Laroui and the Location of History. A Postfoundationalist Critique of Time, Islam, and Modernity” by Nils Riecken, Routledge, 25 September 2026, 250 Pages
This is the first major study in English that considers Laroui’s unique theoretical interventions, revealing how his work provides insights into local, regional, and global debates on history, historiography, and time; modernity and Islam; and critique and tradition. The book is structured around four concepts – modernity, history, temporality, and Islam – and demonstrates how Laroui historicizes each of these concepts, thereby denaturalizing them and giving them a new form and content.
Information: https://tinyurl.com/2k7vts2n
24. New Volume: “Economies of the Male Body: Productivity, Pathology, and Pleasure in Urban Egypt”, Edited by Carl Rommel & Karin Ahlberg, AUC Press, 29 September 2026, 204 Pages
An intimate portrayal of masculinity in Egypt from lively, grounded, and fresh perspectives. This volume shows how the health of Egyptian men, many of whom are overweight and overworked, and Egypt’s grim health statistics of high premature male mortality among men of lower socioeconomic classes should be read not as a result of substandard awareness among the population, but as a record of visceral inequalities generated by late capitalism and a global economic system that disproportionately burdens underprivileged bodies.
Information: https://tinyurl.com/7d5w43pn
25. ONLINE Article: “From #ExpelUngratefulAfghans to #ExpellingAfghansIsANationalDemand; A Comparative Analysis of Digital Xenophobia and Anti-Migrant Hate Campaigns in Iran and Pakistan” by Arash Beidollahkhani, International Migration, 64, 6, 26 October 2026, 18 Pages
This paper examines the rise and function of anti-Afghans immigrant digital movements in Iran and Pakistan, focusing on their development and impact from 2023 to 2025. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach that includes discourse analysis, social network mapping and policy review, the study traces how coordinated hashtag campaigns have constructed Afghan migrants as existential threats to national identity, security and economy. This research offers a rare cross-national perspective from the Global South on how online xenophobia reshapes migration politics in authoritarian contexts.
View: https://tinyurl.com/mpnyh82f
Posted in: Academic items- October 31, 2026
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