Author Archives: Janaki

Call for Applications: Four Junior Fellowships

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Call for Applications – Four Junior Fellowships
Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies – Jewish Scepticism, University of Hamburg
The application deadline for the fall 2015 semester fellowship is June 30, 2015.
The application deadline for the spring 2016 semester fellowship is December 31, 2015.

The Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies – Jewish Scepticism (MCAS-JS) offers four Junior Fellowships, i.e. two for PhD candidates and two for Post-Docs, in each case for a period of six months, either during the fall or spring semester 2015-16. In well-founded cases according to an evaluation of the fellow’s results achieved so far an extension of the period of six months up to one year is negotiable. The award supports original research on (Jewish) scepticism in Ancient Times at the MCAS-JS. In this context, scepticism is understood as enquiry into (secular and sacred) belief and knowledge, the expression of doubts toward any kind of authority – raising the question of the criterion of truth (including implicit and explicit sceptical paradoxes) – and the purposefully evoked suspension of judgement to avoid dogmatism. Applications are welcome from young scholars in any field who are in the final stage of their thesis or Post-Doc research project. Fellowships carry a stipend of €1,400 for PhD candidates respectively €1,700 for Post-Docs.

Responsibilities of Junior Fellows
o    Conduct original research at the MCAS-JS on a full-time basis; Fellows are required to spend a minimum of three days per week in residence.
o    Deliver at least one workshop at the MCAS-JS based on the research conducted.
o    Participate actively in the scholarly community at the MCAS-JS.
o    Acknowledge MCAS-JS in all publications resulting from the fellowship.
o    Submit a detailed report upon completion of the fellowship describing the experience as a MCAS-JS Fellow.

Eligibility
o    Open to all scholars who are in the final stage of their PhD or Post-Doc project.
o    It is the responsibility of the applicant to have the appropriate visa for acceptance of the stipend for the duration of the award.

Applications should include
1.    Cover letter stating area of interest, knowledge of relevant languages, and how the project relates to the agenda of MCAS-JS, and preferred fellowship start date.
2.    Curriculum Vitae, including contact information, education, publications, scholarly activities, teaching experience, and any other relevant work experience, as well as a transcript of records (PhD candidates) respectively PhD diploma (Post-Docs).
3.    Research proposal of no more than three double-spaced pages, including clearly stated goals for research during the period of the fellowship.
4.    A one-page bibliography of important secondary sources for the project.
5.    Two letters of recommendation, which address the significance of the candidate’s work for his or her field as well as the candidate’s ability to fulfill the proposed research project. Letters of recommendation should be submitted directly by the referees to the address below; please list the names and email addresses of the referees in your CV. Applicants are responsible for ensuring that letters of recommendation are submitted by the deadline.
6.    Please submit application, point 1-4, by email as one continuous PDF file.

Application schedule
o    Applications for the fall 2015 semester are due June 30, 2015; applications for the spring 2016 fellowship are due December 31, 2015.  For consideration all application materials, including the letter of recommendation, must be received by the deadline.
o    Announcement of grant recipients: August 2015 for the fall semester; February 2015 for the spring semester.
o    Commencement of grant period: October for the fall semester; April for the spring semester.

Applications are to be submitted to:
Dr. Bill Rebiger
Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies
– Jewish Scepticism
University of Hamburg
Rothenbaumchaussee 34
20148 Hamburg
Germany
Phone: +49 40 428 38 8997
Email: bill.rebiger@uni-hamburg.de

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PhD scholarship in sociology of religion at University of Agder, Norway

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Attached you will find an announcement of a three years’ PhD scholarship
in sociology of religion at our department at University of Agder,
Kristiansand. Note that this time knowledge of Scandinavian language is
required. Note also the deadline, June 20.

http://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/114745/doktorgradsstipendiat-i-religionssosiologi

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Call for Contributions – Liminal Spaces from Sacred to Urban: The Friday Mosque and the City

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Targeted contributions are sought for an edited volume exploring the dynamic relationship between the Friday Mosque and the city, specifically the liminality between sacred and urban spaces.

Islamic law requires believers to congregate on Fridays as a social code. The Prophet himself was instrumental in establishing the first congregational space in Medina. Whatever the original terminology was to define this space, it is usually accepted as the prototype of the “mosque” by the architectural historians. The English term “mosque” derives from the Arabic masjid, a term designating a place of prostration, whereas the term jāmi‘ which is translated variously as
Friday mosque, great mosque or congregational mosque, originates from the Arabic term jama‘ –that is, to gather. The distinctions in terminology are important because, according to Islamic legal tradition, the presence of a Friday mosque was an important parameter in defining a “city” (madina).

As the dominion of Islam (dar al-Islam) spread across continents, they gradually embraced local socio-cultural traditions, which became reflected in the overall designs of these buildings and their dependencies. Thanks to the symbolic importance of the Friday sermon (khutba), mosques also became the loci for displays of power and declarations of independence that became increasingly important with the proliferation of Islamic states. As embodiments of the inter-state rivalry, Friday mosques were instrumental in the urban development and
identity of new Islamic capital cities. The concepts of the Friday mosque and the “Islamic City” have been independently discussed at great length and widely studied by historians of Islamic architecture and urbanism and are therefore not the focus of our attention. Instead, we are particularly interested in the functional and spatial ambiguity of the transition between the city and the Friday mosque.

In understanding the relationship between the Friday mosque and the city, what constitutes the boundaries of one versus the other is often difficult to define. Moreover, those “urban thresholds”, which changed over time and geography, act as liminal spaces between the sacred and urban. So, where does liminality or sacredness begin? And in the context of Friday mosques, is the sanctuary defined by the interior of the mosque? Or does sacredness extend to ambiguous spaces as well? For example when one enters the ziyada of the Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo, do the rules of the sacred precinct apply? Similar questions can be asked in relation to courtyards or portico entrances (son cemaat yeri) in Ottoman mosques.

The development of the complex complicates this discussion further as the different social and historical contexts gave various meanings to such spaces. What happens when a mosque is combined with dependencies and is thereby transformed into a complex, such as the Khuand Khatun Complex in Kayseri? Or even when the buildings are conceptualized together, as in the case of many Ottoman mosque complexes in Istanbul, at what point does one enter the sacred zone?

Outlined above are some of the issues that we hope to address in this volume. We welcome works from all periods and geographies where Friday mosques were built.

Possible themes may include (but not limited to):

  • the role of the Friday mosque in urban development
  • the mosque as a complex
  • the ambiguity of interior / exterior zones
  • everyday life in and around the mosques
  • Friday mosques as urban public spaces
  • the intended versus actual usage of “urban thresholds”
  • cross-cultural interactions in mosque architecture
  • converted mosques and urban implications

Interested colleagues should send an abstract of 800-1000 words and a CV to the editors Drs. A. Hilâl Uğurlu and Suzan Yalman (liminalspaces2016@gmail.com) by 21 August 2015. Potential contributors should plan on submitting their papers (min.7000 – max. 10000 words) for
peer review by 29 February 2016. For the final publication, we are currently in the process of discussion with university and academic publishers.

For further questions and comments please contact the editors at liminalspaces2016@gmail.com.

Deadlines & Dates

Abstract submission deadline (800-1000 words) 21 August 2015
Notification of abstract acceptance 02 October 2015
Full paper submission for peer review deadline 29 February 2016
Return of peer reviewed papers 01 June 2016
Final Submission 01 August 2016

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CFP – Mapping Shia Muslim Communities in Europe: Local and Transnational Dimensions

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Call for articles for a special issue of the Journal of Muslims in Europe on:

Mapping Shia Muslim Communities in Europe: Local and Transnational
Dimensions

The current political situation in the Middle East influences and shapes
the perception of Islam and of Muslims in Europe. The ambitions of Iran
and its use of Shia Islam to mobilise Shia minority communities in the
region, not least since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, have been, a
major focus of academic research. In Europe, however, although Islam and
Muslims more generally have received extensive attention by the media,
the wider public and in academic research in recent decades, Shia
Muslims have only very lately attracted the attention of some scholars
working on Shia communities in Europe and their transnational links.

This planned special issue intends to fill this gap in academic research
and aims at mapping Shia communities in various European countries. Shia
Muslims in Europe constitute a minority within a minority and are
characterised by being highly diverse in terms of their ethnic
background, ideological orientation and socio-political and migratory
status. The purpose of this issue is to bring articles together that
discuss the presence of Shia Muslims in Europe and to cover a broad
range of topics which include mapping the historical development of Shia
Muslim communities and changing demographics as well as investigating
their local- and trans-local communal and organisational connectivities
and religious ritual practices within a European context.

Submission guidelines and procedure

The articles should be between 5000-7000 words (including notes and
references). Article proposals may engage with the overall topic of Shia
Islam and Shia Muslims in Europe from any discipline on the following
topics (not exhaustive):

  • Shia communities in different European contexts

  • Shia ritual practices in Europe

  • Shia Islam and gender in Europe

  • Demotic processes in the articulation and performance of Shia identities
    in Europe

  • Shia Muslims of diverse backgrounds (Iranian, Iraqis, Pakistanis,
    Indians, Khojas, Lebanese, Saudi-Arabian, Bahraini, Kuwaiti etc.) and
    their relationship to each other in European minority contexts

  • Generational dynamics within European Shia communities

Articles can discuss Shia communities in a broader European context
across different nation-states or focus on case studies within a
particular European country. We also welcome abstract submissions that
explore various transnational links between European and other Shia
Muslim communities across the world.

Individuals who are interested in submitting an article for
consideration should submit an abstract between 300-500 words in a
Microsoft Word or pdf document together with a short bio (not more than
300 words) to

y.shanneik@chester.ac.uk

We encourage PhD students and early-career researcher to submit
proposals as well.

Important dates:

Abstract deadline: 1 July 2015
Notification of abstract acceptance: 17 July 2015
Submission deadline of full articles: 1 February 2016
Planned publication: Spring 2017

The editors are seeking original research only. Articles submitted must
therefore not have been published, accepted for publication or currently
be under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Article guidelines will be sent upon acceptance notification.

The editors are seeking to publish a special edition in the Journal of
Muslims in Europe published by Brill: www.brill.com/jome.

We are looking forwards to receiving your abstracts.

Guest-Editors:

Dr Yafa Shanneik
Dr Sufyan Abid
Chris Heinhold

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Conference: The Governance of Religious Diversity – More or Less Secularism?

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CONFERENCE: THE GOVERNANCE OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY – MORE OR LESS SECULARISM?
Sala Europa, Villa Schifanoia – Via Boccaccio, 121 – Florence
Wednesday 10, Thursday 11 and Friday 12 June,2015

The Roundtable with Tariq Ramadan, Tariq Modood, Gurpreet Mahajan, Joseph H.H. Weiler and Bhikhu Parekh on 10 June from 16.15 to 19.00 will be available in live web streaming.

For further information on the event please visit the following link: http://globalgovernanceprogramme.eui.eu/the-governance-of-religious-diversity-more-or-less-secularism/

To attend the event, please register online.

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CFP: “In Search of a New International Order” Uludağ Conference on International Relations

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The 7th Uludağ Conference on International Relations will be held by Uludağ University, Department of International Relations between 21-22 October, 2015, with the main theme of “In Search of a New Order in International Relations” in Bursa, TURKEY.

The Conference aims to include research and analyses which will provide different dimensions
of political, economic and social contemporary developments in the international system.
Even though the main themes which will be discussed during the Conference are listed below,
other papers related to the general outline of the Conference will also be evaluated.

 
Main Themes

  • Regional Studies (Europe, Balkans / Eastern Europe / Central Asia / Caucasia / Balkans / Asia
    Pacific / Middle East / North Africa / America)
  • Regional Conflicts and Crisis Management
  • Effects of Non-governmental Actors on International System
  • Energy, Environment and Climate Change
  • Ethnic and Sectarian Conflicts
  • Humanitarian Intervention and Sovereignty
  • Global Armament / Disarmament and Stability of International System
  • Islamic Thoughts in Middle East and Islamic Movements
  • Radicalism and Extremism
  • Social Movements and International System
  • Political – Economic Competition in International System
  • Contemporary Discussions in International Security Studies
  • Pursuit of Strategic Balance in International System
  • Solution Methods for Legal and Commercial Incompatibilities in International System
  • In Search of a New Order and Changing Geopolitical Conditions
  • In Search of a New Order and Diplomacy / Historiography of Diplomacy
  • In Search of a New Order and Energy Security
  • In Search of a New Order and Illegal Migration (International Migration Studies) Refugee
    Problem, etc.
  • In Search of a New Order and Cyber Security
  • In Search of a New Order and Social Media
  • Contemporary Discussions in the Theories of International Relations and Changing Geopolitical Conditions
  • In Search of a New Order and International Organizations (UN / EU / NATO)
For more information on the conference, check out the website: http://ucir.uludag.edu.tr
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to send an e-mail to ucirconference@gmail.com

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