MENA-related Events Calendar

Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series

Speaker: Sabine Schmidtke (Institute of Advanced Study)

Palestinian author Adania Shibli, reflecting on 'the principle of unhampered transmission of thought' will deliver the keynote address for the Opening Ceremony of 'Writers in a World at War' - PEN International's 90th Annual Congress.

Join us at the Blackwell Hall, Weston Library, part of the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, on Tuesday 24th September, in partnership with English PEN.

Guests will also hear from Margaret Busby, President of English PEN, and Burhan Sonmez, President of PEN International.

Organiser: SWANA Forum for Social Justice, UCL

This webinar hosts Dr. Ruba Al-Hassani who will discuss “Social and Scholarly Mobilisation in Iraq” through a feminist perspective, and Dr. Mustafa Wyshar who will discuss “Narrative learning, Minority Representation in KRI’s early childhood education”.

For more information, email: SWANA.FSJ@gmail.com or visit the forum’s website. 

Organiser: BISA Working Group - International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia

The Iraqi Baʿth state’s Anfāl operations (1987-1991) is one of the twentieth century’s ultimate acts of destruction of the possibility of being human. It remains the first and only crime of state in the Middle East to be tried under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, the 1950 Nuremberg Principles, and the 1969 Iraqi Penal Code and to be recognized as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Baghdad between 2006 and 2007. In his new book, Dr Fazil Moradi offers an unprecedented pathway to the study of political violence.

Organiser: BSA Theory Study Group

Speaker: Jana Bacevic (Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Durham University)

Discussant: Naomi Waltham-Smith (Professor, University of Oxford and Douglas Algar Tutorial Fellow, Merton College)

Within the current context of the media framing of a ‘free speech crisis’, the restructuring of the higher education sector, and changes of legislation, our immediate and collective attention is required to examine the meanings, manifestations of, and relationship between academic freedom and free speech. To this end, the BSA Theory Study Group is excited to welcome Jana Bacevic, who will present insights from her recently published and ongoing scholarship on academic freedom and the politics of ‘free’ speech. In particular, Jana will engage with theories of performativity of speech to reflect on the performative nature of societal and institutional speech-acts. The presentation will also highlight the role that free speech legislation (as performative utterance) and state power play in the lives of education workers, students, and wider communities, as well as in the reproduction of universities and student unions. Following Jana’s talk, we are pleased to welcome Naomi Waltham-Smith as a discussant who approaches the issues of deliberation and disagreement on campus from the perspective of listening. Audience members will also be encouraged to participate in a Q&A session. 

The New Area Studies Research Centre, in collaboration with the East Centre and the School of Global Development at the University of East Anglia (UEA), presents the first in a series of international symposiums on the theme of Imagined Geographies, taking place on October 2nd and 3rd 2024 at UEA, Norwich, UK.

Papers and presentations will address Imagined Geographies from many inter/disciplinary perspectives including: New Area Studies, attachment to place, space, identity, geography, gender, place-making, area, region, translation, research methods, maps, narratives and memory. Panels and papers range across matters like colonisation/decolonisation, knowledge-making and production, the geographies of marginalisation, narratives and local voice, indigeneity, agency and epistemology.

Attendance is free, but all attendees need to register for a place by September 15, either in person or online.

Online short course, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, 7-8 October 2024

This course introduces students to the study of manuscripts (codicology). It will allow participants to apply the technical terminology of codicology and understand how writing materials were prepared. We also explore the institutional contexts in which manuscripts were produced and discuss how codicological methods can inform research in history and art history.

Edward W. Said London Lecture 2024, The Mosaic Rooms

Speaker: Raji Sourani (Human rights lawyer and Director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights) 

Esteemed human rights lawyer and Director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Raji Sourani, will deliver the Edward W. Said London Lecture 2024 examining the current war on Gaza and its implication on International Humanitarian Law (IHL). By unpacking the legal principles of IHL, Sourani confronts the ramifications of Israel’s action on the integrity of this legal framework.

AKU-ISMC’s new Centre for the Languages of the Muslim World is delighted to offer this new short course as part of its Professional Development series. Introduction to Arabic Translation is a 10-hour online course designed to introduce participants to key issues inherent in translation from Arabic to English and to provide a foundation for further study and professional practice in Arabic > English translation.

This stimulating course is taught in 2-hour sessions across 5 weeks and is highly interactive. The course is taught mostly via English, with extensive use made of Arabic, and is open to non-native speakers of either/ both languages with advanced proficiency.

AKU-ISMC’s new Centre for the Languages of the Muslim World is delighted to offer this short course as part of its Professional Development series. Arabic Transliteration for Academics, Publishers and Librarians is aimed at professionals, scholars and students who work with Arabic text and would like to acquire knowledge of transliteration systems and gain or improve their practical transliteration skills under the guidance of experienced tutors.

The course is a 5-hour practical workshop-style course taught in two highly interactive sessions. Both sessions incorporate tailored feedback from the tutors.