Category Archives: Conferences and Talks

Europe and the Challenge of Islam

Conferences and Talks, Islam in Europe, Islamophobia, Literature, Orientalism

by Anouar Majid, Tingitana, March 1, 2014

With the intriguing illustration above, Afternposten, the largest Norwegian newspaper, published my article titled “Europe and the Challenge of Islam.” This is the opening salvo of a three-day event called Saladin Days that starts Monday in Oslo’s House of Literature, when I will give a keynote address by the same title. We will, in the course of the conference, discuss and debate issues related to religion, secularism and reflect critically on the legacy of Edward Said, the great literary and cultural theorist.

MESAAS Graduate Conference 2014

Conferences and Talks

For more information on this upcoming conference at Columbia University, click here.

THURSDAY 27

8.30 – 9.30 am: Registration (Knox Lobby) and Light Breakfast (Knox 207 and 208)

9.30 – 10.30 am: Welcome Remarks (Matan Cohen) and Plenary Address (Sudipta Kaviraj) – Knox 208

SESSION 1: 10.45 am – 12.45 pm

Scanning the Shelves of the African Islamic Library – Knox 207

Wendell Marsh
Reading Sudanic Africa in the Margins: the Perils of Commentary

Kimberly Wortmann
Intellectual Cartographies in the Medieval Western Sahel (c. 1464-1627)

Ariela Marcus-Sells
Spells and Prayers: Discussing Muslim Practice in Saharan Society

Lori De Lucia
On the Edges of Mediterranean History: Finding Evidence for Sub-Saharan African Narratives in the 16th Century Kingdom of Naples

Discussant: Mamadou Diouf
Moderator: Tommaso Manfredini Continue reading MESAAS Graduate Conference 2014 →

“Thinking About Religion, Secularism and Politics” with Talal Asad

Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, Islam: Introduction, Judaism, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Scholars

This video interview with Talal Asad (Professor of Anthropology, Graduate Center of
the City University of New York), recorded in 2008, is well worth watching. Harry Kreisler welcomes Professor Talal Asad who reflects on his life and work as an anthropologist focusing on religion, modernity, and the complex relationships between Islam and the West.

BAGHDAD: CRADLE OF CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION, 1013-2013

Archaeology and Antiquities, Architecture, Conferences and Talks, Iraq, Islamic History, Literature, Scholars

BAGHDAD: CRADLE OF CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION, 1013-2013

On November 15-16, 2013 there will be a conference on Baghdad co-organized by the Iraqi Cultural Center (ICC) and The American Academic Research Institute in Iraq (TAARII). The sessions will be held at the Iraqi Cultural Center, 1630 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, DC 20009

Draft Program

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15

9:00. Welcoming remarks. Mohammad Alturaihi (Iraqi Cultural Center) and McGuire Gibson (TAARII)

POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL LIFE OF MEDIEVAL BAGHDAD

Chase Robinson (CUNY Graduate Center), “Baghdad and Islamic Cosmopolitanism”
Stephen Humphreys (UC-Santa Barbara), “Islam’s First Imperial City: Baghdad from 763 to 945”
Sydney Griffith (Catholic University of America), “The Cultivation of Philosophy and Interreligious Colloquy in Abbasid Baghdad: A Convivencia of Jews, Christians, and Muslims”
Roy Mottahedeh (Harvard University), “The Twilight of Buyid Baghdad”
Richard Bulliet (Columbia University), “The Economic Rise and Fall of Medieval Baghdad”

12:30-2:00. Lunch

THE MAKING OF MODERN BAGHDAD
Abbas Kadhim (Boston University Institute for Iraqi Studies), “Baghdad’s First Encounter with Modernity (1869-1871)”
Sara Pursley (CUNY Graduate Center), “Familiar Futures: Reforming the Iraqi Family in the Age of Development”
Eric Davis (Rutgers University), “Pluralism or Sectarianism? Baghdad and the Production of Political Space in Iraq”

Discussion
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16
9:00
LITERARY AND CULTURAL LIFE IN MEDIEVAL AND MODERN BAGHDAD
Samer Ali (University of Texas at Austin), “When the Night: Having Fun in Medieval Baghdad”
Suzanne Stetkevych (Georgetown University/Indiana University), “Arabic Poetry and the Invention of the Abbasid Golden Age”
Fawzi Kareem (Poet/Writer/Painter), “Witnessing Iraq’s Contemporary Culture”
Fatima Ali (Social Cases Performing Arts Company), “Being a Theatre Maker in Post-2003 Baghdad: Challenges and Realities” Continue reading BAGHDAD: CRADLE OF CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION, 1013-2013 →

Amat al-Alim al-Soswa at Hofstra

"Arab Spring", Conferences and Talks, Ethics, Gender and Sexuality, Journalism and Media, Yemen

The Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies Program of Hofstra University is pleased to announce a public talk by the Yemeni diplomat Amat al-Alim al-Soswa, who will be speaking about her recent work on Yemen’s National Dialogue. Details are provided here. This will take place on campus in 101 Barnard Hall on Thursday, October 24 from 2:20-3:45. For more information, please contact me at daniel.m.varisco@hofstra.edu.

Since March 2013 , Amat Al-Alim Alsoswa has been a member of the Yemen National Dialogue Conference and a member of its State Building Team. She also chaired a subcommittee to prepare and suggest the criteria and term of reference for the constitutional drafting committee.

She was appointed in December 2005 by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan as Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Director of its Regional Bureau for Arab States. In this post, Alsoswa has led UNDP’s 18 programme offices in the Arab region in their efforts to develop national capacities for poverty reduction, democratic governance, sustainable development, crisis prevention and recovery, and women’s empowerment. She has also provided regional thought leadership through the launching of two editions of the Arab Human Development Report, in 2006 and 2009, and in the preparation of the for the 2012 edition. Continue reading Amat al-Alim al-Soswa at Hofstra →

Farid Esack in New York

Conferences and Talks, Islam and Christianity, Islamophobia, Scholars, Terrorism Issue


Farid Esack

The Academic Study of Islam and/in/for the Wounded Empire
A Lecture by Dr. Farid Esack
Fri, 5 Apr, 2013 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Union Theological Seminary
3041 Broadway at 121st Street
New York, NY 10027

The September 11, 2001 attacks in the USA significantly impacted Islamicists (scholars in the Study of Islam). These events contributed immensely to the growth of irenic scholarship, in which Islamicists increasingly dove into the trenches in order to help save Muslims and the image of Islam from the attacks of different quarters—primarily Western governments and armies and the mass media. This defensive engagement of the Islamicist, described as ‘bunker scholarship’, raises significant questions about fidelity to the post-Enlightenment foundations of critical scholarship. What is more, such scholarship often plays a significantly accommodationist role in co-creating compliant Muslim subjects in a larger hegemonic project.
About Dr. Farid Esack

Professor Farid Esack is a South African Muslim theologian who cut his teeth in the South African struggle for liberation. He studied in Pakistan, the UK and Germany and is the author of Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism, On Being a Muslim, An Introduction to the Qur’an, and Islam, HIV & AIDS –Between Scorn, Pity & Justice. He has published on Islam, Gender, Liberation Theology, Interfaith Relations, and Qur’anic Hermeneutics. Professor Esack served as a Commissioner for Gender Equality in South Africa and has taught at the University of Western Cape, University of Hamburg, the College of William & Mary, Union Theological Seminary, and Xavier University in Cincinnati. More recently he served as the Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Professor of Contemporary Islam at Harvard University. Farid Esack is now Professor in the Study of Islam and Head of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Johannesburg.

Registration is required. RSVP online.

Keeping track of camels

Animals, Anthropology/Sociology, Archaeology and Antiquities, Books You Should Read, camels, Conferences and Talks, Folklore and Proverbs


In 2010 I had the privilege of participating in an international conference in Vienna on camels (not on camelback, of course). A book from this conference has now appeared. This is: Eva-Maria KNOLL – Pamela BURGER, editors, Camels in Asia and North Africa. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on their Past and Present Significance. 2012, 290 p., with 26 articles, 33 graphs/maps, 111 pictures, and an index. My article is on what camels eat, for which I have created a website.

Here is how the editors describe the book:

Humanity’s history is closely linked to those of camels. Without these remarkable animals we could not have inhabited the arid zones of Asia and North Africa, nor could we cope with today’s challenges of increasing desertification. Researching interactions between humans and camels therefore has been established at the Austrian Academy of Sciences ever since its foundation more than 160 years ago. The present publication is committed to this research tradition. This book assembles insights upon current and historical interactions between humans and camels. Thereby it is international and interdisciplinary from the outset and aims at intensifying a camel-related knowledge exchange between the natural sciences and the humanities. The here presented discussions of Old World camels (dromedary, Bactrian, wild camel) include such diverse topics as camel origin, domestication, breeding, raising and commerce. Moreover, camels’ significance is also discussed regarding socio-cultural and economic factors, music, folk medicine and veterinary medicine, as well as saving the last remaining wild camels. With an afterword by Richard W. Bulliet (New York), one of the world’s leading authorities on the camels’ history.