Greeting to all of our Visitors and Subscribers,
The Transcultural Islam Research Network (TIRN) will be following the academic calendar and thus reducing the frequency of our posts over the next few months. We will post occasionally, but encourage all of you to check out our sister site ISLAMiCommentary over the summer months.
Call for Papers
Arabic Literature: Migration, Diaspora, Exile, Estrangement
Columbia University ,New York City
November 1-3, 2013
Arabic literature’s relationship with questions of migration, diaspora and exile date from early Islamic engagements with hijrah or migration, to our own diasporic and exilic present, conveyed in the poetry and prose of migration, war, alienation, estrangement and displacement.
We invite you to consider how Arab experiences of migration, diaspora, exile and estrangement mark and form Arabic literature, with an eye not only to the thematic terms of this encounter, but also its manifestations in debates over genre, publication geography, and literary historiography. Scholars working in all periods of Arabic literary and theoretical production are warmly invited to submit abstracts. Continue reading
by BANU GÖKARIKSEL for ISLAMiCommentary on May 6, 2013:
The veil is a piece of fabric that is politicized like no other. It is the persistent topic of fiery political debates and possibly the most stigmatized, praised, banned, and enforced article of clothing. And it continues to be one of the most misunderstood, stereotyped, and contested aspects of Muslim identities and politics across the world.
The veil is implicated in a wide range of cultural and (geo) political debates on women’s roles, Islam and Muslim cultures, secularism, democracy, terrorism, and war. In many of these debates, political leaders, pundits, and activists treat the veil as a symbol and speak for and about veiled Muslim women. Continue reading
Via MUSLIM TRUST DIALOGUE, MAY 6, 2013
Muslims, Multiculturalism and Trust: New Directions
June 1-2, 2013
SOAS, University of London
Recent high-profile interventions by politicians in the West declaring the ‘failure’ of multiculturalism have had, as their very thinly disguised context, mistrust in those Muslim communities that have been growing in Western Europe and the United States since the end of the colonial era. The sense that multiculturalism has been a flawed experiment, that ‘unintegrated’ Muslims are evidence of this, has become a truism of much journalism and media coverage too. Continue reading
Job Posting
Lecturer in Islam
University of Tennessee, Department of Religious Studies
The University of Tennessee, Department of Religious Studies, invites applications for a one-year, full-time lecturer in Islam to begin August 2013. The position requires teaching a 4-4 course load, including introductory courses in religious studies. PhD and teaching experience are preferred, but ABDs in the final stages of completing their dissertations will be considered. Area of expertise is open to any historical period and geographic location. Continue reading