Opportunities

The editors welcome submissions for the tenth anniversary issue of the Oxford Middle East Review (OMER), a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal for discussion and debate on issues relating to the Middle East and North Africa. We are accepting submissions that critically engage with the theme of Reconstruction – understood not only as the rebuilding that follows destruction, but as a process of reimagining futures and renegotiating power across the Middle East and North Africa, with a broad temporal theme (though typically the contemporary MENA world, from the mid-1800s onwards). Papers will be considered for the journal’s two sections: a policy section (shorter pieces up to 2,000 words in length) and a research section (in-depth articles from 7,500-10,000 words). We are also welcoming interest in individuals who would like to review some of the latest books on the MENA region, of which we have a selection.

The NYU Abu Dhabi Humanities Research Fellowship for the Study of the Arab World (HRF) invites early-career scholars who wish to contribute to the vibrant research culture of NYUAD’s Saadiyat campus to apply for a residential postdoctoral fellowship, starting September 2026.

We welcome applications from recent PhD graduates (PhD in hand between September 2021 and September 2026) working in all areas of the Humanities related to the study of the Arab world, its rich literature and history, its cultural and artistic heritage, and its manifold connections with other cultures and regions. We particularly welcome interdisciplinary research applications for projects thematically connected to existing research projects and initiatives at NYUAD’s divisions of Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences (see https://nyuad.nyu.edu/en/research.html).

Special Issue

Fabrizio Leonardo Cuccu (Dublin City University) and Paola Rivetti (Dublin City University) invite colleagues to submit an abstract (minimum 500 words) and a short biographical note for consideration for inclusion in our Special Issue “Rethinking authoritarianism: Transnational praxis between South-West Asia, North Africa, and the world”. Please send your abstract and bio to fabrizioleonardo.cuccu@dcu.ie by 10 January 2026. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the fit of your contribution, please contact us at the same address. We welcome submissions that engage critically and empirically with the themes outlined in the Call for Papers below.

The special issue aims to bring together papers that showcase new approaches and under-researched subjects, and that voice new interpretations, positionalities and methodologies. 

We are considering the following journals for submission: Democratization, Third World Quarterly, European Political Science, Globalizations.

This international conference aims to explore the central role of culture and art in the reconstruction and regeneration of the social fabric, through a reinterpretation of trauma as a driver of creation and preservation of cultural memory (Erll and Nünning, 2008) and as a form of resistance to the politics of erasure. Art, in its many material and immaterial expressions, leads to a reappropriation of space – geographical and symbolic – and time, through a process of “reorganization” of an unspeakable present (Crone and Mollerup, 2024), constantly disrupted by trauma, but which, through its representation, can be “recreated” and pave the way for a different future. 

We encourage papers dealing with the interconnections between trauma, memory and resistance in multiple artistic languages – literature, cinema, theatre, painting, photography, visual arts, sculpture, to name but a few – to highlight the role of art in reinterpreting trauma, making it a source of memory and thus a basis for social change. The focus will be on the artistic production, especially during the 21st century, created by Palestinian artists about Palestine, including those in the diaspora.

Since 2021, a team of researchers based at Oxford along with an international community of historians have been working on questions of mobility, religion, and identity as part of an ERC-funded research project entitled Moving Stories: Sectarianisms in the Global Middle East. Over the past four years, the Moving Stories project has carried out a systematic strategy for the identification, recovery, and analysis of a corpus of documents held in collections of family papers and archives of local, national, and communal organizations. Building from the momentum of these efforts, we now seek to publish a Sourcebook that reflects the capacious range of sources that speak in the widest way to the interplay between processes of Ottoman mobility, migration, and identify formation in a period of Middle Eastern history spanning roughly from 1860 to 1930. 

This call for papers invites expressions of interest from potential contributors to this Sourcebook, who are interested in providing examples of relevant primary sources along with short contextual commentaries. We are especially interested in previously unpublished sources in languages as varied as Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

Workshop, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam, 3-5 June 2026

In this three day workshop, we aim to bring together activists, artists, and scholars to interrogate how the wayward responds to violence, and how visual culture as wayward refuses systems of oppression. The concept of the wayward, understood as that which threatens these systems as a commitment to an emancipated futurity in the present, takes a central position in this workshop in an effort to open possibilities of thinking beyond binary categorization/s towards a more nuanced response to the individual and the communal. Even though the wayward, in its rebellion, is often labeled ‘violent’ in its manifestation/s, we refuse this label and learn from these radical liberatory practices. We will explore the processes through which bodies are dehumanized, ecology is disrupted, states become more militarised, and genocides are live-streamed; collectively understanding our role in bearing witness to our present through our past/s..

The British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS) is excited to announce that the 2026 BRAIS Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World is now open for submissions. This international prize is awarded annually to an outstanding doctoral thesis. English-language submissions on any aspect of the academic study of Islam and the Muslim world, past and present, including Muslim-minority societies are accepted. The award includes a cash prize of £1000 which will be officially presented at the Annual Conference of BRAIS.

Full details about the submission process, including all rules and regulations, can be found via the link below. 

Organisations: Council for Arab British Understanding (Caabu) and Amjad & Suha Bseisu Foundation

Location: London, UK, with some travel to other locations in the UK

Job role:

For Caabu: 

• Making regular presentations and organising workshops at schools throughout the UK on the Arab World, its people, and culture 

• Liaising with schools and education authorities throughout the U.K. 

• Development of teaching materials and other resources. 

• Developing Caabu’s role in schools by implementing other educational projects 

• Website content 

For the Bseisu Foundation: To provide coordination and communications support to the Foundation’s scholarship programme and student network, helping to build community among scholars and enhance the Foundation’s visibility and engagement online.

Send your application by 7 December, at 11:59pm.