Programming – March 29th through April 11th

Monday, March 29th

  • University of Wisconsin: Marwa Shalaby “The Adverse Effects of the Pandemic on MENA Research”
    • 12:00 PM (CST)
    • Professor Shalaby will present the most recent findings of an online survey of international and regional faculty working in the social sciences and humanities. The talk will highlight the adverse effects of the pandemic on scholars’ productivity and ability to conduct fieldwork. Shalaby argues that while the pandemic has interrupted most scholars’ research plans, researchers who study the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are more likely to encounter higher barriers. Given the authoritarian nature of politics in most parts of the region, MENA researchers face security and ethical challenges associated with conducting fieldwork remotely, especially with vulnerable and displaced populations. These effects will have a long-lasting impact on MENA research and scholars.
    • Click here to register for this event.

Tuesday, March 30th

  • University of Illinois: Writing Hard Truths in Uncertain Times
    • 12:00 PM (CST)
    • Click here to register in advance for this webinar.
    • Speaker: Devi S. Laskar

Wednesday, March 31st

  • University of Illinois: Organize Your Digital Files and Learn about African and Middle East Studies Collections
      • 12:00 PM (CST)
      • Click here to register in advance for this webinar.
      • Speaker: Prof. Laila Hussein Moustafa, Middle East and North African Studies Librarian, U of I and Dr. Hoa Luong Assistant Director for Research Data Curation, U of I
  • Rutgers University: Translating Africa – Africa in Translation
      • 10:30 AM (EST)
      • Click here to register for this event.
  • Rutgers University: Why must a good Hindu not believe in God? The Orthodox Answer (Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Lancaster University, UK)
    • 12:00 PM (EST)
    • From the perspective of the comparative philosophy of religion, it is intriguing that there are those who argue that a true commitment to the authority of sacred text requires the rejection of a divine author for it. But such is the position of the Mīmāṃsā thinkers, the Exegetes of the Hindu sacred texts, the Vedas. In this talk, we look at several precise arguments against ‘God’ (īśvara) by Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (7th c), arguments that sometimes prefigure atheist ones in Christian Europe a thousand years later, and sometimes are wholly novel to his context. After laying out these individual arguments, we will leave time to open up discussion about both what the concept of God is that is involved here, and what possible responses there might be for a theist.
    • Click here to register for this event.

Thursday, April 1st

  • Michigan State: 2021 Muslim Studies Program Student Research Showcase
    • 6:30 PM (EST)
    • 2021 Muslim Studies Program Student Research Showcase
    • Click here to register for this event.

Friday, April 2nd

  • University of Illinois: Timbuktu Talks: Northern Mozambique Swahili Ajami Manuscript Culture: An Historical Overview
    • 12:00 PM (CST)
    • Click here to register in advance for this webinar.
    • Speaker: Mr. Chapane Mutiua (University of Hamburg)
  • University of Maryland: Miller Center: A Celebration of Alejandro Cañeque’s new book “Empire of Martyrs: Faith and Power on the Global Frontiers of the Spanish Monarchy”
    • 4:00 PM (EST)
    • The Miller Center presents a celebration of Alejandro Cañeque’s new book, Un imperio de mártires: Religión y poder en las fronteras de la Monarquía Hispánica (Empire of Martyrs: Faith and Power on the Global Frontiers of the Spanish Monarchy). Discussion with Richard Kagan (Johns Hopkins University) and Erin Rowe (Johns Hopkins University). Un imperio de mártires covers the violent conflict between Protestants and Catholics that dominated Europe from the second half of the 16th century and how they served to reactivate the martyrial ideal on which the Christian religion had been founded.
    • See this link to register for the event.
  • University of Michigan: “The Barbarians at the Gate: Early Black Historiographical Attempts to Redefine Nubia’s Place in World History”
    • 3:00 PM (EST)
    • The Museum of Anthropological Archaeology and The Department of Anthropology present: The “From the ‘New Archaeology’ to Equitable Archaeologies: Global Lessons from Black Scholars” Series. This week’s presentation is “The Barbarians at the Gate: Early Black Historiographical Attempts to Redefine Nubia’s Place in World History.”
    • Click here to attend this event.
  • Northwestern: Political Violence and Self-Defense in Turkey: History and Ethnography (Melissa Bilal and Haydar Darıcı)
    • 12:00 PM (CST)
    • This event brings together two scholars working on two self-defense struggles of the peoples of Turkey that took place a century apart. The first is the Chork Marzban/Dört-Yol resistance during the 1909 massacres of Ottoman Armenians in the Adana province, narrated by an Armenian feminist writer of the time, Arshaguhi Teotig. The second is the establishment of self-governance institutions by the people of the Kurdish city of Cizre in 2012. Reflecting on the various common issues between these struggles, such as sovereign power, political violence, local autonomy, spatial control, solidarity, representation, and narratives of self-defense, Melissa Bilal and Haydar Darıcı will engage in a conversation on the past and present of collective self-determination in Turkey. The conversation will be moderated by the two Keyman Postdoctoral Fellows, Anoush Tamar Suni, and Deniz Duruiz.
    • Click here to register for this event.

Saturday, April 3rd

  • University of Michigan: CSAS | 10th U-M Pakistan Conference – Religious Landscapes
    • 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM (EST)
    • Religious identity in South Asia has been shaped within the context of a fraught and contentious history, ranging from issues of “communalism” in colonial India to the question of “radicalization” and political Islam in post 9/11 Pakistan. Yet, religious practice has developed in relation to longstanding sacred geographies and networks in South Asia, intersecting with modern identity formations in unusual and unexpected ways. In this conference, we will explore the relationship between religion, identity, historical networks, and sacred landscapes to understand the formation of religious thought and practice in Pakistan. Through a multidisciplinary approach, this conference aims to cultivate a discussion of transnationalism, sectarianism, marginality, inter and intra-religious dynamics. We will engage with the work of scholars and artists from Pakistan, Europe, and the United States concerned with a variety of religious groups in Pakistan, and the complex ways that religious practice has been shaped through interactions between distinct identities, not only along the lines of religion but also gendered and social difference. While focusing on Pakistan, we hope to challenge prevalent assumptions about the current configuration of borders and explore deeper and continually relevant connections between distinct religious spaces and practices in South Asia.
    • More full conference details click here.
    • Click here to attend this event.

Monday, April 5th

  • Northwestern: The Colloquium for Global Iran Studies (CoGIS) Launch Event
    • 9:00 AM (CST)
    • You are cordially invited to the launch of The Colloquium for Global Iran Studies (CoGIS) at Northwestern. CoGIS aims to create the first dedicated space at Northwestern for developing critical research on, and cultural inquiry about, modern Iran and its diasporas. With this launch, we hope to build an interdisciplinary, collective, and collaborative forum where faculty, staff and graduate students come together to deepen our understanding of Iran in its historical, regional, and global contexts. The Colloquium will invite the broader Northwestern community to participate in various panels and events on multiple themes. The Colloquium is committed to imaginative, rigorous, and comparative approaches that engage and expand the strengths of area studies in conversation with such fields as American studies, ethnic studies and critical studies of education.
    • Click here to register for this event.

Tuesday, April 6th

  • Indiana University: Area Studies Pathways
    • 12:30 PM (EST)
    • Please join the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center for the Center for the next event in the Area Studies Pathways Professionalization series This discussion features three graduates who work in the non-profit sector, which fits the series’ goal of highlighting career paths in different fields.
    • Click here to register for this webinar.
  • University of Wisconsin: Tracing the History of a Toxic Present: Resurgent Antisemitism & White Nationalism in the U.S.
    • 4:00 PM (CST)
    • Antisemitism sits at the core of the 21st-century resurgence of white nationalism in the US. This lecture explores the recent history of the far-right, showing how antisemitism is inextricably linked to xenophobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, and transphobia.
    • Click here to register for this event.

Wednesday, April 7th

  • University of Illinois: Covid-19 Exposes the Social-Economic Divide in Learning: An observation case in Kenya
    • 12:00 PM (CST)
    • Click here to register in advance for this webinar.
    • Speaker: Margaret Njeru
  • University of Illinois: 2021 Marjorie Hall Thulin Lecture on Religion and Contemporary Society: Islam, Human Rights, and Contemporary World Politics
    • 4:00 PM (CST)
    • Featuring Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl, Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Professor of Law, UCLA
    • Since the rise of ISIS, the image of Shariah law has been grossly tarnished. Is Shariah necessary for Islam as a world religion? What is the role of Shariah in the modern Muslim world? And what are the implications of Shariah for contemporary human rights standards? Since the Arab Spring, democracy and human rights remain the foremost challenges that confront the Muslim world. Going forward, is it possible to reconcile the normative traditions of Shariah with democracy and human rights?
    • Register at: https://illinois.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BzomucjJQQSH69AbSFZxvQ
  • University of Iowa: Renewing a Human Rights Agenda: The Climate Crisis
    • 12:00 PM (CST)
    • Dr. Louise Seamster is an Assistant Professor in Sociology and Criminology and African American Studies at the University of Iowa. She writes about racial EBS Settingspolitics and urban development, emergency financial management, debt, and the myth of racial progress. Her current book project investigates the financial and political causes of the Flint Water Crisis. Stratis Giannakouros is the Director of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment. Prior to his work at Iowa, he served as project manager and program manager for the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University. Dr. Maureen McCue has worked globally as a researcher, teacher, & physician since the late 1990’s. She helped found and worked within the University of Iowa Global Health Studies Program and the Center for Human Rights.  For over 20 years she worked as a clinician and medical director for a women’s clinic and coordinated Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility Iowa Chapter. All her endeavors, personal and professional, focus on the human right to health within a life-supporting sustainable planet – including addressing concerns about the health impacts of militarism, energy/climate change, food policy, women’s & disability rights.
    • Click here to join this event (no registration required).
  • Penn State: Humanities Institute: Lethal Provocation: The Constantine Murders and the Politics of French Algeria
    • 12:00 PM (EST)
    • Come listen to Joshua Cole from the University of Michigan discuss his book, Lethal Provocation: The Constantine Murders and the Politics of French Algeria.
    • Click here to register for this event.

Thursday, April 8th

  • Indiana University: Department of Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures Annual Victor Danner Memorial Lecture
    • 7:00 PM (EST)
    • Please join Professor Alan Godlas from the University of Georgia presents “The Beauty of the Ottoman Levha and its Calligraphic Vision of Islam.”
    • Click here to register for this webinar.
  • Michigan State: Muslim Studies Program 14th Annual Conference
      • 8:00 AM – 2:30 PM (EST)
      • Michigan State University is hosting an international conference on Global Islamophobia and the News Media, Entertainment Media, and Social Media. This conference will present work related to Muslim portrayals in the media (e.g., news, entertainment, social media) and evaluate how Islamophobia manifests on these platforms. Significance of theme: The media is an important conduit for conveying messages to the public, shaping public attitudes, influencing the national discourse, and generating stereotypes. Past research suggests the ways in which outgroups are represented in the media impacts the public’s perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward them, as well as shaping support for policies that harm members of these outgroups. Scholarship is only now beginning to extend this line of research to Muslims, and to specifically explore how the media is shaping discrimination against Muslims globally. . For instance, Muslims are increasingly occupying a more prominent role in the American cable news media. For instance, they were mentioned in 28.46% of all CNN broadcasts, 31.53% of FOX broadcasts, and 41.65% of MSNBC broadcasts in 2016. This conference will invite panelists to present work related to Muslim portrayals in the media (e.g., news, entertainment, social media) and evaluate its effects either on publics or on Muslims themselves.
      • Click here to register for this event.

Friday, April 9th

  • Indiana University: Muslim Voices Presents “Fadia Thabet: Yemeni Peace Activist and Child Protection Officer”
    • 4:00 PM (EST)
    • The IU Muslim Voices Project presents “Fadia Thabet: Yemeni Peace Activist and Child Protection Officer” as part of the Spring 2021 Voices of Muslim Women: Global Perspectives speaker series Fadia Najib Thabet was awarded an International Women of Courage Award in 2017 for six years of work she did as a child protection officer in Yemen. She was caring for traumatized children and prevented boys from being recruited and radicalized. She helped prevent them from joining terrorist groups like the Houthis and Al-Qaeda and its local branch Ansar al-Sharia and becoming child soldiers in the Yemeni civil war. She provided evidence to the United Nations of cases of human rights violations by various groups. She is currently a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow and a graduate student at the School for International Training. This event is part of the Voices of Muslim Women in Global Perspective series.
    • Click here to register for this webinar.
  • Michigan State: Muslim Studies Program 14th Annual Conference
    • 8:00 AM – 2:30 PM (EST)
    • Michigan State University is hosting an international conference on Global Islamophobia and the News Media, Entertainment Media, and Social Media. This conference will present work related to Muslim portrayals in the media (e.g., news, entertainment, social media) and evaluate how Islamophobia manifests on these platforms. Significance of theme: The media is an important conduit for conveying messages to the public, shaping public attitudes, influencing the national discourse, and generating stereotypes. Past research suggests the ways in which outgroups are represented in the media impacts the public’s perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward them, as well as shaping support for policies that harm members of these outgroups. Scholarship is only now beginning to extend this line of research to Muslims, and to specifically explore how the media is shaping discrimination against Muslims globally. . For instance, Muslims are increasingly occupying a more prominent role in the American cable news media. For instance, they were mentioned in 28.46% of all CNN broadcasts, 31.53% of FOX broadcasts, and 41.65% of MSNBC broadcasts in 2016. This conference will invite panelists to present work related to Muslim portrayals in the media (e.g., news, entertainment, social media) and evaluate its effects either on publics or on Muslims themselves.
    • Click here to register for this event
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