Shii News – MESA Programme 2015
Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA)
Preliminary Program
49th Annual Meeting
November 21-24
Denver, Colorado
Papers of potential interest to those on this list include those below. Full, on-line programme available at: http://mesana.org/annual-meeting/program.html
(4170) Shiʿi (Trans)nationalism
in Comparative Perspective
Organized by Robert J. Riggs and
Zackery Heern
Chair/Discussant: Juan Cole, U Michigan
Zackery Heern, Idaho State U–Modern
Usuli Shiʿism as a Transnational
Movement
Mina Yazdani, Eastern Kentucky U–
Shiʿi Nationalism in the Twentieth
Century Iran
Najam Haider, Barnard Col/Columbia
U–The Houthi Revolt: The Revival of
Traditional Zaydism in Republican
Yemen (1962-2015)
Robert J. Riggs, U Bridgeport–Al-
Sadr’s Indigenization Strategies and the
Emergence of Iraqi Arab Shiʿism
(4110) Rethinking Muharram:
Shiʼi Muslim Minorities
and the Politics of Ashura
Performances
Organized by Mara Leichtman
Chair: Toby Matthiesen, Cambridge U
Discussant: Chiara Formichi, Cornell U
Samer El-Karanshawy, Qatar Faculty
of Islamic Studies–Texts, Interpretation
and Commemorating Imām Husayn
Babak Rahimi, UC San Diego–The Green
Ashura: Urban Space, Ritual, and Post-
Election Iran
Mara Leichtman, Michigan State U–The
‘Africanization’ of Ashura in Senegal
Kathryn Spellman Poots, Aga Khan
U–Muharram Rituals and the Making of
British Shiʼism
(4231) Understanding the
Iraqi State: Sectarianism and
Authoritarianism
Chair: Timothy Schorn, U South Dakota
Dr. Nassima Neggaz, National U
Singapore–Sunnis, Shiʿa, and the State
in Iraq since 2003: The Construction of a
Sectarian-Authoritarian State
Tim Jacoby, U Manchester–(Mis)
Representing the Sunni Uprising in Iraq:
Culture Talk and the “Islamic State”
Yaniv Voller, U Edinburgh–The
Socio-Political Aspect of the Baʿth
Government-Sponsored Militias in
Northern Iraq: New Archival Findings
(4044) The Shiʿah of Lebanon:
Inter-Confessional Discourse
and Relations
Organized by Lynda Clarke and Farah
Kawtharani
Chair: Max Weiss, Princeton U
Discussant: Sabrina Mervin, CNRS
Farah Kawtharani, U Michigan
Dearborn–Shiʿis Responding to
Lebanon’s Sectarian State: Hizbullah and
Jurist Shams al-Din
Pascal Abidor, McGill U–The Anti-
Sectarian Politics of Ahmad ‘Arif al-Zayn
and His Majallat al-‘Irfan
Linda Sayed, New York U–Asserting
Roots: Muhammad Jabir al-Safa and His
Writing of a Shiʿa History
Lynda Clarke, Concordia U, Montreal–A
Shīʿite Clerical View of the Lebanese
State: Muḥammad Jawād Maghnīyah
(1904-1979)
(4159) Pro- and Anti-Safavid
Propaganda, 1480-1580
Organized by Matthew Melvin-Koushki
Chair/Discussant: Sara Nur Yildiz, St
Andrews U/Orient-Institut Istanbul
Christopher Markiewicz, U Chicago–
The Evolving Rhetorical Response to
Shah Ismail: Idris Bidlisi and Ottoman
Anti-Safavid Sentiment, 1501-1513
Matthew Melvin-Koushki, U South
Carolina–The Unpatriotic Persian: Fazl
Allah Khunji as Pioneer of Anti-Safavid
Propaganda
Colin Mitchell, Dalhousie U–F Is for
Fath: Qazi Mir Husain Maybudi and His
Model Victory Letter
Ayse Baltacioglu-Brammer, Ohio State
U–Turning Kızılbaş, Turning Safavid:
Pro-Safavid Propaganda in Anatolia
during the 15th and 16th Centuries
(4207) Negotiating Authority in
Contemporary Shiʿism
Organized by David Thurfjell
Chair: David Thurfjell, Sodertorn U,
Sweden
Johan Gärde, Ersta Sköndal U
Col, Sweden–Marginalization and
Disappointment? The Socio-economic
Conditions of Shiʿite Populations in the
Middle East
David Thurfjell, Sodertorn U, Sweden–A
Charismatic Challenge: The Heyyati-
Movement in Contemporary Iran
Dominance: The ‘Otherʼ Islamic
Powers of the Medieval Islamic
World
Organized by Christine Baker and Eric
J. Hanne
Chair: Jere L. Bacharach, U Washington
Christine Baker, Indiana U
Pennsylvania–Remembering the
‘Shiʿi Century’: The Fatimids, Buyids,
ʿAbbasids, and Local Reactions to Tenth-
Century ‘Sectarianism’
Robert Haug, U Cincinnati–I will Give
the Kharaj to al-Mu`tasim, Not `Abdallah
b. Tahir: Local Authority vs. Regional
Authority vs. Imperial Authority in
Tahirid Khurasan
Eric J. Hanne, Florida Atlantic U–The
Contested History of the Early Mazyadid
Amirate and Its Role in the Fourth-Fifth/
Tenth-Eleventh Century Political Arena
(4267) Making and Breaking
Boundaries in the Ottoman,
Safavid, and Mughul Empires
Chair: Amy Singer, Tel Aviv U
Ferenc P. Csirkes, U Chicago–A
“Panther-Like Poet”: Sadiqi Beg’s Fall
from the Persian Literary Canon
Conklin Tyler, Yale U–The Boundaries
of Loyalty: Self-Fashioning and the
Kurds in the Seventeenth-Century
Eastern Anatolian Ottoman Borderlands
Gregory Aldous, U Pittsburgh
Greensburg–Turk and Persian in the
Early Safavid Court: The Case of the
Khurasan Campaign of 1512
Ayelet Zoran-Rosen, New York U–The
Gazi of the Sixteenth-Century: Frontier
Warriors in Bosnia and the Imagined
Past of the Ottoman Empire
(4072) Beyond Orthodoxy
and Confessionalization: New
Perspectives on Ottoman
Sunnism
Organized by Vefa Erginbas
Chair: Jane Hathaway, Ohio State U
Yasir Yilmaz, Purdue U–Contextualizing
Confessionalism: An Historiographical
Inquiry into Confessionalization
Paradigm’s Applicability to Ottoman
Sunnism
Selim Güng.rürler, Georgetown U–
Sunnism, Qizilbashism and Shiʿism
in the Context of Ottoman-Safavid
Confrontation
Vefa Erginbas, Providence Col–Many
Faces of Ottoman Sunnism: Approaches
Toward Yazid b. Muawiyah in Ottoman
Literary and Historical Writing
Aslihan Gurbuzel, Harvard U–How
“Orthodox” Were the Ottoman ʿulamaʾ?:
Approaches to Defining the Islamic
Community in the Early Modern Age
Malissa Taylor, U Louisville–A
Sultanic Sunnism, a Hanifized Kanun:
The Expansion of the Sultan’s Legal
Prerogatives (16th and 17th Centuries)
(4082) Making History: From
Tabari to Tahrir
Organized by Heather N. Keaney
Chair/Discussant: R. Stephen
Humphreys, UC Santa Barbara
Amr Osman, Qatar U–The Lesser of Two
Evils: Sunni Scholars and Egypt’s 2013
Coup
Brian Wright, McGill U–Khawarij vs.
Pharoah: Using Faith to Define Politics
Heather N. Keaney, Westmont Col–
Shiʿism in the Eyes of al-Azhar
Aaron Hagler, Troy U–Sunnifying
ʿAlī: Historiography and Notions of
Legitimacy in Ibn Kathīr’s Kitāb al-
Bidāya wa-l-Nihāya
(4078) Medieval Ismaili Muslim
Thought: Methodology,
Hermeneutics and Cosmology
Organized by Khalil Andani
Chair: Daniel Beben, Nazarbayev U
Aaron Viengkhou, Harvard Divinity
School–The World as Discourse:
Hermeneutics, Cosmology, and Natural
Science in the Jābirian Corpus and Early
Ismāʿīlism
Khalil Andani, Harvard U–The Ismā‘īlī
Influence on al-Ghazālī: A Reassessment
Paul Anderson, Harvard U–Ties of
Blood and Water: The Ritualization of
Knowledge and the Legitimization of the
Dāʿī Muṭlaq in Ṭayyibī Shiʿism
- November 18, 2015
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