UPCOMING CONFERENCES AND CALLS FOR PAPERS (Conferences listed first; scroll down for CFPs)

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CONFERENCES

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Third Annual Sacred Leaves Graduate Symposium; February 19-20, 2009; University of South Florida, FL

Keynote Address: “Mysticism, Longing and the Erotic in the Writings of 13th-century Sufi Master Ibn al-Arabi,” Michael Sells, John Henry Barrows Professor, University of Chicago:

This year’s theme is “Comparative Mysticism of the Middle Ages: Textual Traditions, 600-1600.”

More Information

Across the Threshold: Creativity, Being and Healing Conference; Durham, NC; March 19-22, 2009

This conference is a collaborative project hosted by Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty across disciplines – Dance, Music, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Medicine, Communication Studies, and Religion.

Keynote Lectures: Bradford Keeney, author of Shaking Medicine: THe Healing Power of Ecstatic Movement

Keynote Performance: Vincent Mantsoe, South African dancer and choreographer

The Conference is also supported by The John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation, and the Rhine Research Center: An Integrative Center for the Study of Consciousness.

9th Annual Southwest Graduate Conference in Middle Eastern Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. March 25-27, 2009,

The Middle East and North Africa Graduate Student Association of the
University of Arizona is pleased to announce its 9th annual Southwest
Graduate Conference in Middle Eastern Studies. This
year¹s theme is Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives in Middle Eastern
Studies.

Columbia University Religion Graduate Students Association: "Belief Matters: Reconceptualizing Belief and Its Use"; Columbia University, New York; April 2, 2009

Featured speakers: Michael Taussig (Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University) and Penny Edgell (Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota)

Conference Co-chairs: Patton Burchett and Daniel Vaca

 

"Barefoot across the nation:  Maqbool Fida Husain and the idea of India"

   An International Symposium; Duke University,

   Durham, NC: April 10-11, 2009

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This conference will explore the entanglement of the artistic imagination in the cultural politics of risk in our troubled times by considering the oeuvre of Maqbool Fida Husain, arguably modern India’s most iconic and celebrated painter and also possibly that country’s most embattled artist today. 

This conference has been funded by the North Carolina Center for South Asian Studies, and the following Duke units:, Visual Studies Initiative, Center for International Studies, Provost's Common Fund, Duke Islamic Studies Center, Arts and Sciences Council, the
Vice Provost for International Affairs, Department of History, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, John Hope Franklin Center for International and Interdisciplinary Studies, and the Trent Foundation.

An example of Maqbool Fida Husain's work here is his "Last Supper."

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CALL FOR PAPERS:

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15th Annual International Workshop of the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Literature and History: Middle Eastern Perspectives

Coordinators:  Dr. Yair Huri   &   Dr. Ariel M. Sheetrit

May 31 – June 2, 2010

Those interested in participating in the workshop are asked to send a one-page proposal in English, along with their C.V. by January 1, 2010. The proposal should briefly state the topic, and outline how the paper contributes to the aims of the workshop. Authors will be notified by February 1, 2010 whether their proposal was accepted for presentation at the workshop. Authors whose proposal is accepted will be expected to submit a full-length version of the paper by April 1, 2010. Participants from abroad will be offered round trip airfare and lodging. Proposals should be addressed by e-mail to: Dr. Yair Huri:   yairhuri@bgu.ac.il Dr. Ariel M. Sheetrit:   arielmb@bgu.ac.il

Victoria Press seeks essays on Latino Muslims in the U.S. and abroad

[Deadline for papers has passed]

for inclusion in an anthology to be released during the summer of 2009. In light of the lack of scholarly treatment of this subject, this anthology is an effort to fill a need for scholarship which addresses the experiences, cultural encounters, religious transformations and accompanying issues of the growing Latino Muslim population. Submission Deadline: October 31, 2008 Click here for more details.

Call For Papers: American Literature Association Meeting, "Islam in the American Imagination" sessions; Submission Deadline: December 8, 2008

May 21-24, 2009, Copley Hotel, Boston, MA

American Religion and Literature Society sponsors two panels at the American Literature Association Meeting. They are seeking papers on any aspect of the topic "Islam in the American Imagination." Read the Call for Papers.

Call for Papers: "Rethinking Jihad: Ideas, Politics and Conflicts in the Arab World and Beyond"; September 7-9, 2009, University of Edinburgh; Please send proposals by 12 January 2009 to events@casaw.ac.uk.

The Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW) is convening a major international conference on the subject of jihad in its multiple dimensions. Paper proposals for panels are invited from scholars and graduate students in all fields of the humanities and social sciences, including area studies, history, religious studies, political science, law, international relations, anthropology, cultural studies, comparative literature, and sociology . See the website for topics and details.

Proposals should consist of a 300-word abstract and indication of current affiliation, title and position (e.g. student, lecturer, etc.) Abstracts will be judged by a panel on the basis of theoretical or empirical originality, coherence of argument and relevance.

Please send proposals by 12 January 2009 to events@casaw.ac.uk. The results of the selection process will be communicated by 1 April 2009.

For further information, please contact: Dr. Ewan Stein Postdoctoral Fellow Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW) estein@staffmail.ed.ac.uk

Call for Papers: Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory"Shattered Ceilings: Women Perform Global Politics"

This special issue of Women and Performance calls for interdisciplinary feminist analyses that interrogate the relationship of women in global politics to the performance of power. The past century has witnessed the emergence of women onto the stage of global politics unmatched by previous eras. As empowered political actors, women have become foremost among politicians shaping world policy and history. The meteoric rise  and fall of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the revival of British conservativism under Margaret Thatcher, Jiang Qing's central position in China's gang of four, the controversial tenure and assassination of Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto, and the short and tragic career of Rwandan prime minister Agathe Uwulingiyamana on the eve of the 1994 genocide are all examples of women as heads of state at important times in recent history. Additionally, figures like Eva Peron, Nancy Reagan, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Imelda Marcos have complicated the traditional role of women as the wives and daughters of men in power to become political icons in their own right. As women have become powerful interlocutors inthe drama of international power, performance has been a central component in the consolidation and exercise of their power.
What kinds of performances do women leaders deploy and how do they utilize performance as a technique for transforming or reifying the existing, gendered conditions of power? This issue is interested in topics that include, but are not limited to the following: If performance has always been a central component to the exercise of state power, most explicit in state rituals and performances of iconic and charismatic leadership that performatively transform the body of the leader into the body of the nation, how have women politicians (for example, Pakistan's late Benazir Bhutto, Argentina's charismatic premier Christina Fernández de Kirchner, or Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin's 2008 Vice/Presidential campaigns) performed gender difference as part of their political roles? What are the various feminist implications for these performances? How do performances by women in power (e.g., Dalit Indian politician Mayawati Kumari) challenge, reify, or alter gendered conceptions of class, caste, and race? How have gendered political figures explicitly used performance genres as a means of articulating their relationship to power (as in Queen Sirikit's production of the historical Thai epic film The Legend ofSuriyothai to bolster royalist power and nationalist sentiment or Qing's development of the "Eight Model Plays")? How have the women of global power been represented in performances (as in the musical adaptation of Eva Peron's life in Evita, the South-Korean musical The Last Empress about the reign of Empress Myeongseong, the dramatization of Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in the play Golda's Balcony, the imagined encounter of four "dictator's wives" in Anne Washburn's play The Ladies, or leftist imaginings of Laura Bush like Tony Kushner's Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy or Karen Finley's The Dreams of Laura Bush)? What do we learn from performances by women who negotiate traditional gender roles and their position as potentially empowered figures on a global stage (e.g., Masako Owada's marriage to Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan or the roles of the First Lady, Queen Consort, etc.)? How have women utilized political performance as a means of staging insurgencies against repressive acts of state power (eg. The Madres of the Plaza de Mayo). How are charges of "performance" used to undermine the legitimacy and authority of women in politically powerful positions?

Women and Performance invites critical essays or short performance texts that examine these or other questions relevant to the topic of performances of power by women in the global arena for a special issue guest-edited by Joshua T. Chambers-Letson. Essays should be no more than 10,000 words in length and adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition. Abstracts are welcome for review before the final deadline. Complete essays for consideration must be submitted by February 15th, 2009. Please send all work to Joshua T. Chambers-Letson via email (MSWord attachment). Further submission guidelines may be found here.
Women and Performance is a peer reviewed journal published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis.