The
American University in Dubai (AUD) and the British Society for Middle Eastern
Studies (BRISMES) invite submissions for paper presentations for a conference
on Re-Locating Middle East Studies: New Geographies of
Discourse to be held on April 16th-18th, 2015 at the
AUD. The conference is being organized by the Middle Eastern Studies
Program of AUD’s School of Arts and Sciences.
The
BRISMES/AUD 2015 joint conference welcomes papers on any aspect incorporating
new approaches to Middle East Studies and will also consider papers on
other related topics. The provisional sessions for the conference, which
will explore a wide array of disciplines and sub-themes, are set out below.
Conference
Sessions with AUD Chairs
·
Negotiating Modernities and the Contemporary in Visual Culture
Contemporary visual culture
and art practices from West Asia and North Africa often challenge notions of national
boundaries, thereby generating new configurations of cultural geography. This
session aims to reframe the evolution and stakes of visual culture by
considering alternative modernities as well as contemporary art practices. By
exploring art practices, museology and heritage conservation, the session
intends to widen our understanding and analysis of contemporary cultural
practices beyond binary discourses of “national” or “imported”
modernities. The session will also
investigate complexities of artistic interactions as a major factor in the
dynamic development of visual culture in this region. Chairs: Dr. Nadia Radwan, and Dr. Woodman
Taylor
·
Re-readings / Re-takes; Narratives in Literature and Media
–
Developments in information
technology and social media have transformed forms and formats of both
literature and traditional media. This session will focus on new forms of
literary narrative and media. This includes, but is not limited to, various
genres such as the novel and short stories. In addition, the session will
address transformations in the realms of film, TV and web content, as new
platforms for media, especially in the wake of the so-called “Arab Spring.”
Chairs: Dr. Fadi Haddad and Dr. Nadia Wardeh
·
Transdisciplinary Studies of Women and Gender in West Asia and
North Africa
Although women and aspects of
gender in West Asian societies have been researched for some time, this session
will focus on new contextual studies that cross disciplines. This includes new
approaches to contemporary constructions of gender as well as the intersection
of gender with other categories of analysis, including identity, religion,
politics, law, media and literature.
Chairs: Dr. Moulouk Berry and Dr. Pamela Chrabieh
·
New Dynamics in the Economies of West Asia
Over the last three decades, West Asia has seen the rise of Islamic capitalism,
which often is considered key to undermining extremism in the region. This new
position of Muslims in neo-liberal market economies will be the main focus of
the session. It will investigate how Muslims integrate themselves into global
markets while maintaining their religious identity.
Chair: Dr. Basak Ozoral
·
Fluctuating Geopolitics of West Asia
In this past decade West Asia
has been the site of extreme geopolitical challenges, from major external
invasions, a global financial meltdown, to internal fissures and revolts. Increasingly it is apparent that the old
‘Middle East’ is being transformed into new geopolities. What new and innovative strategies are
available for us to understand the rapid and varied pace of change in West
Asia?
Chair: Dr. Magdy El-Shamma
·
Social Change, Justice and Transnational Forces in West Asia
From the flows of capital to ideas, conflicts and
refugees moving across borders, the impact of transnational forces on the
states and societies in the West Asia is greater than ever. This session invites
papers dealing with transnational actors, forces and processes responsible for
sweeping changes in the West Asia and their implications for social justice,
economic prosperity and peace in the region.
Chair: Dr. Deniz Gökalp
·
Youth Culture Activating New
Geographies, Art Forms and Social Media
The new and innovative force challenging and
changing both the cultural and political landscape in West Asia is youth
culture. From calligraphity to
hip-hop/rap music and social media, this session will consider how these
artistic forms have been crafted by youth culture to activate new cultural
geographies.
Chair: Dr. Woodman Taylor
These
topics should only be considered as general guidelines and are not exhaustive.
Anonymous
abstracts, not exceeding 300 words, should be sent by email before 14th February 2015 to Dr. Woodman Taylor (wtaylor@aud.edu ), copied to Louise Haysey (a.l.haysey@durham.ac.uk ), with the proposer’s name and affiliation written in the body of
the email. Notification of paper acceptance will be sent via email by early
March 2015. Each presentation will be allowed 15 minutes followed by 5 minutes
for questions and discussion. The language of the conference will be English.
Beyond the
Colloquium
Participants
will be asked to develop their papers further for inclusion in peer-reviewed
conference proceedings. It is hoped that selected high-quality papers may
also be published by BRISMES in a special issue of the British Journal of
Middle Eastern Studies under the title of the conference.
Venue
The
conference will be hosted by the American University in
Dubai. Participants must register in order to take part in the conference.
Registration will commence on 1st February, 2015. Early bird
registration fee will be $100; registration on the first day of the
conference will be $125. This includes refreshments and lunch during the
conference, a conference dinner on 16th April, conference
reception on 17th April, and a cultural excursion at the end of
the conference on 18th April.
Further
details, including details of available accommodation, will be provided on the
conference website during the course of January 2015.
Please
direct any inquiries to Dr. Woodman Taylor (wtaylor@aud.edu ), or (for BRISMES members) to Louise Haysey (a.l.haysey@durham.ac.uk ).
Re-Locating Middle East
Studies: New Geographies of Discourse
(full conference
description)
Underpinning new approaches to Middle East
Studies (MES) is a shared conviction that the label “Middle East Studies,” following
Edward Said’s critique, is problematic. In
academic domains, MES departments are expected to incorporate the vast scope of
Western scholarship on the cultures, religions, political systems, economies,
ethniticies, literatures, arts and languages of countries ranging from Morocco
in North Africa to the borders of India in South Asia – without any unifying
logic for doing so.
As part of the same problem, MES is
traditionally divided along geographical lines, with positions in MES departments
based on specific regional boundaries. While
useful at the level of departmental organization, this places the generalist at
a disadvantage while often obscuring the historical interactions between the
areas under study. Perhaps the main
problem is that many of the region’s geographical borders are recent and, to
varying degrees, arbitrary. The
histories of the inhabitants residing within these borders include countless
interactions – borrowings, alliances, clashes – with other peoples and
civilizations, whose histories have been severed from theirs.
A growing number of scholars within MES circles
strive to subvert this static presentation of North Africa and West Asia by
focusing on the flow of ideas, people, and products across regional boundaries. Exploring networks that expand well beyond national
borders, these scholars demonstrate impressive sensitivity to the geographical
visions of the peoples they study. They
realize that concepts and languages traverse national borders thereby creating
new and transnational communities. Similarly,
new studies of Middle Eastern economies show their integration into a wide
variety of global markets. A growing
body of literature, given added impetus by the Arab Spring, studies the
movement of religio-political ideas across the region. The nature of such inter-regional flows is
often determined by modern social media (internet, blogs, Facebook, Twitter,
and so forth). There now is a strong interest
in analyzing the impact of these media on cultural, political, educational and
artistic circles.
While many scholars explore the flow of ideas
across regions, others continue to focus on geographically defined setttings,
yet explore the creation of new spaces within these settings. Gaining momentum in the aftermath of the Arab
Spring and adapting approaches from post-colonial scholarship, this kind of approach
explores how the recent, often violent jostling of established structures and
hierarchies has created new spaces, or interstices, within the
religio-political, and cultural fabrics of many societies in North Africa and
West Asia. One characteristic of these
spaces is the emphasis placed within them on the language and symbols of
tradition, orthodoxy and authenticity.
At the same time these spaces provide room for fresh modes and syntheses
of thought and expression.
The crossing of geographic and institutional
boundaries, external and internal, provides the focus for many of the new approaches
adopted within MES. Cross-fertilization
within the academy is evident in the growing number of interdisciplinary
studies in this field. For instance, the
work of political analysts is now enriched by the applications of diverse methodologies
and data drawn from the fields of anthropology, history, and economics; while the
research of classical textual scholars reflect ideas borrowed from modern literary
criticism; and experts on religion are increasingly situate their scholarship
within an anthropological and/or comparative religions’ framework. In terms of creativity and results, this
recognition of the importance of scholarly interdependence and co-operation
signals a paradigm shift for studies of these regions.
With much of contemporary North Africa and West
Asia in a state of flux, the theme of “Re-locating Middle East Studies” is
clearly topical. Given that, to date,
MES scholars have dedicated most time and attention to traditional cultural and
political centres in the region – Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey – hosting a conference on this subject in the United Arab
Emirates, where comparatively little research has been carried out, suggests a
pleasing symmetry: if Middle East
Studies is changing, so too are the location of – and forums for – its discussion.
