Politics of Time, Material Culture and Islamic Religiosity
April 24-25, 2015, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
Friday, April 24, 2015
8:45 – 9:00 a.m. Welcoming Remarks
Beshara Doumani, Director, Middle East Studies, Brown University
9:00 – 9:40 a.m. Keynote address
Charles Hirschkind, University of California, Berkeley; Berkeley, CA – USA
9:40 – 11:10 a.m. Historicity, Material Religion and the Making of Space
Chair: Beshara Doumani, Brown University; Providence, RI – USA
Mahiye Seçil Daǧtaș, University of Waterloo; Ontario – CA
“The Temporal Horizons and Aesthetic Formations of Religious Difference in Antakya“
Caroline Williams, Williamsburg, VA – USA
“Cairo as an Artifact of 19th Century Imagery”
Kishwar Rizvi, Yale University; New Haven, CT – USA
“Historicism and Post-modernity: Transnational Mosques in the Contemporary Middle East”
11:10 a.m. – 11:25 a.m.
Coffee Service
11:25 a.m. – 12:55 p.m. The Politics of Historical Narratives and Facts on the Ground
Chair: Faiz Ahmed, Brown University; Providence, RI – USA
Shahzad Bashir, Stanford University; Palo Alto, CA – USA
“On Chroniclers’ Eyes:Frames, Gazes, and Viewpoints in Islamic Historiography”
Kabir Tambar, Stanford University; Palo Alto, CA – USA
“Histories of Violence and the Ethics of Expectation in Turkey”
Jamal Elias, University of Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania, PA – USA
“Martyred Innocence: Children, Sacrifice and the Rationalization of War in Modern Iran
12:55 – 2:00 p.m.
Lunch for Hosts and Invited Participants
2:00 – 3:30 p.m. Heritage and History as Performative Practices
Chair: Ian Straughn, Brown University; Providence, RI – USA
Amal Sachedina, Brown University; Providence, RI – USA
“Shifting Terrain: Destroying While Preserving the Dalla (Coffee Pot) and the Ethos of Neighbourliness in the Sultanate of Oman”
Nathalie Peutz, New York University Abu Dhabi; Abu Dhabi – UAE
“Soqotra’s Musealization of the Present and Mobilization of the Past”
Rosie Bsheer, Yale University; New Haven, CT – USA
“Appropriating the Past: Materiality, Power, and the Politics of History in Arabia”
3:30 – 3:45 p.m.
Coffee Service
3:45 – 5:15 p.m. Approaches to the Temporality of Tradition: Relations between Past, Present and Future
Chair: Vazira Zamindar, Brown University; Providence, RI – USA
Karen Ruffle, University of Toronto; Toronto, CA
“Material Subversions: Somatic Shiʿism and the Development of a Deccani ‘Grammar of Tradition’ during the Qutb Shahi Dynasty”
Syed Akbar Hyder, University of Texas at Austin; Austin, TX-USA
“Escaping the Prison of Prose: Aesthetics of Mourning and the Story of Hind”
Katherine Miller, Reed College; Portland, OR – USA
“Materializing Multiple Histories: The ethics and politics of life amid ongoing cultural heritage management in Hunza, Northern Pakistan.”
7:00 p.m.
Dinner for Hosts and Invited Particicpants at Biltmore Hotel
Saturday, April 25, 2015
9:35 – 10:45 a.m. Time, Space and the Emerging Muslim Subject
Chair: Sarah Tobin, Brown University; Providence, RI – USA
Katherine Pratt Ewing, Columbia University; New York, NY – USA
“Jahiliyya: Mapping Secular Spaces through an Islamic Notion of Time and Place”
Aryo Danusiri, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA -USA
“The Entanglement of Religion and the Urban in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia”
10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Open Forum Discussion
11.45 a.m.
Light Lunch for Hosts and Invited Participants