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January 07, 2008
CALL FOR PAPERS for the 5th Annual Duke-UNC Graduate Islamic Studies
Call for Papers
5th Annual Duke-UNC Graduate Islamic Studies Conference
The Departments of Religion at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are now accepting papers for inclusion in their Fifth Annual Graduate Islamic Studies Conference:
Embodying Islam: Religious Practice and Muslim Constructions of Self
April 5-6 2008
Duke University
Keynote Speaker
Shahzad Bashir, Department of Religious Studies, Stanford University
Respondents
Lorraine Aragon , Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Anna Bigelow, Department of Philosophy and Religion, North Carolina State University
Carl W. Ernst , Department of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Katherine Ewing, Department of Anthropology, Duke University
Embodiment
Embodiment has played a pivotal role throughout the history of Islam and Muslim societies. Islamic discourses not only shape how Muslims perform Islam, but also structure practices and rituals. In many
instances, such a religious enterprise not only shapes the understanding of the body and subject-formation, but also of agency and autonomy.
We see "embodiment" as encompassing issues of:
-bodies as sites of the performance of local Islam(s)
-performativity of gender and otherness
-practices of ritual in sacred space and time
-(de)constructions of agency
-communal or individual praxis in Islamicate texts
The 5th Annual Duke-UNC Graduate Islamic Studies Conference aims to discuss embodiment in conjunction with the study of Islamicate texts and contexts. We welcome a variety of approaches—theoretical,
methodological, ethnographic and historical, among others. We invite graduate student papers from multiple disciplines—including, but not limited to, Islamic studies, literature, anthropology, philosophy, history, area and cultural studies—that deal with the following suggested topics:
-Sociological and/or political analysis of gender in Islam
-Regulating bodily purity and pollution
-Embodiment of class and race in Muslim networks of power
-Textual analysis of pertinent passages from Islamic literary and legal canons
-Subject formation, formation of Muslim self
-Muslim cultures, societies and histories in postcoloniality
-Imagined personifications of the other
-Performance/Performativity in literature, film, and media
-Transformations of Muslim bodies in a bio-technological age
The conference will proceed in an interactive, workshop format. We expect that those invited to present papers will remain for the duration of the conference in order to engage the work of fellow participants. This two-day conference will take place at Duke University.
To apply, please send the following to Ali Mian (ali.mian@duke.edu):
-proposal of no more than five hundred (500) words
-paper title
-CV
The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2008.
Posted by fisherhe at January 7, 2008 03:30 PM