27th Annual Middle East History and Theory Conference
May 4-5, 2012
Ida Noyes Hall, The University of Chicago
The MEHAT (http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/mehat/) Conference is celebrating its twenty-seventh year as a leading forum for emerging scholars in Middle East studies. The conference welcomes a broad range of graduate students and faculty in the humanities and social sciences. Participants represent a truly interdisciplinary array of disciplines (including, but not limited to, anthropology, art history, cinema and media studies, history, literature, sociology, and religion). The conference has grown into one of the nation’s premier forums for academic research on the Middle East from the 7th century onwards.
Conference Program
Friday, May 4
Breakfast (8:15-9:00 AM)
Session 1 (9:00-10:30):
Print Culture and Nationalism
Moderator: Ekin Enacar, University of Chicago
Andrea Brown, University of Chicago: Saʿdī’s Gülistān in 19th Century Ottoman Educational Institutions: Tradition and Innovation
Nathaniel Heisler, University of Toronto:
‘Fiery Orator’ meets Modernist: publics, affect, and popularism in the journalistic work of ‘Abd Allah al‐Nadim
Esra Taşdelen, University of Chicago:
Nationalism in fiction: The uses of history in Ahmet Hikmet Müftüoğlu’s “Gönül Hanım” and Jurji Zaydan’s “Fath al-Andalus”
Transmission of Knowledge
Moderator: Ahmed El Shamsy, University of Chicago
Shatha Almutawa, University of Chicago:
Isma’ili, Sufi or Sunni? Ikhwan Al-Safa and the Debates over their Affiliation
Fachrizal Halim, McGill University:
The Canonization of the Shāfiʿī School of law: Legacy and Contribution of al-Nawawī (d. 631-76/1233-77)
Timothy Gutmann, University of Chicago:
Ibn Taymiya and Orthodoxy
Elizabeth Sartell, University of Chicago:
Theological discussions surrounding the concept of al-aslah
Issues in Urban Space and Architectural Form
Moderator: Laura Holzweg, University of Chicago
Mae H. Al-Ansari, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:
Direct Esthetic Experiences of the Real’: Explorations into the Kuwaiti narrative
Caitlin McKenna, Brooklyn Museum:
Rethinking Austerity and ‘Plane’ Almohad Architecture
Session 2 (10:45-12:15 PM):
Politics, Rhetoric, and the Arab Spring
Moderator: Lori Allen, University of Cambridge
Tom Maguire, University of Chicago:
Salafi Cafe: Charting An Islamist Public Sphere in Revolutionary Egypt
James Rumsey-Merlan, Princeton University:
Dissimulation in Doubt: The Rhetoric of Syria’s Civil Unrest
Jessica Winegar, Northwestern University: Sitting on Rusty Old Chairs or Filling in Excel Spreadsheets: Boredom, Cynicism, and the Political Re-enchantment of Egypt’s Culture Workers
Aaron Y. Zelin, Brandeis University:
Hizb ut-Tahrir and Ansar al-Shari‘ah: New Forms of Islamist Activism in Tunisia
Islamic State and Empire After 1500
Moderator: John Woods, University of Chicago
Tahir Abdullah, University of Chicago:
Cosmic Order and Islamic State formation within the Sokoto Caliphate
Hani Khafipour, University of Chicago:
Political Patronage and Clientelism in the Early Safavid State
Maja Petrović, Princeton University:
Distance, Boorishness and Supremacy: Ottoman and Mughal Hegemonic Narratives
Lunch (12:15-1:30)
Session 3 (1:30-3:00):
Language and Modernity
Moderator: Jessica Winegar, Northwestern University
Anthony Edwards, University of Texas at Austin:
Emergence of MSA: Language Performance and Critique during the Nahḍah
Candace B. Lukasik, Columbia University:
National Unity and Persecution Discourse: ‘Sectarianism’ in Egypt and Iraq as a Practice of Modernity?
Alon Tam, University of Pennsylvania:
Between French Culture and Judeo-Arabic Culture: Navigating (Linguistic) Identity among the Jews of Tangier, Morocco
Literature in the Medieval Mediterranean
Moderator: Sabahat Adil, University of Chicago
Mustafa Binmayaba, Indiana University at Bloomington:
The Anxiety of Guilt in Abraham ibn Ezra’s Elegy on Islamic Spain
Danilo Marino, University of Naples “L’Orientale”, INALCO of Paris :
Humor and Comic literature in Mamlūk Egypt: Ḥashīsh and luxury food in Ibn Sūdūn al-Bašbuġāwī’s (d. 868/1464) Nuzhat al-nufūs
Nathaniel Miller, University of Chicago:
Waters of Abundant Kawtharian Springs: Arabic Poetry in Roger II’s Court
Minorities and Ottoman Identity
Moderator: Harry Bastermajian
Melahat Fındık, Sabancı University:
Local Reactions to Central Practices: The Barzan Case
Emma Harper, University of Chicago:
An examination of the Greek-language newspaper ‘The Light’ (Το Φως): The Istanbul Greek community’s perspective on the Turkish state experiment in 1926
Ohannes Kılıçdağı, Istanbul Bilgi University:
Ottomanism Among the Anatolian Armenians After the 1908 Revolution
Session 4 (3:15-4:45):
Shifting Identities, Shifting Power Structures, Shifting Paradigms: Four Approaches to Modern Middle East Studies
Moderator: Iza Hussin, University of Chicago
Douglas H. Garrison, University of Denver:
Ibn Khaldun, Political Theory, and the ‘Arab Spring’: a Comparative Exploration of Modern Revolution
Kara Kingma, University of Denver:
Analyzing Theories of Democratic Transition in Iraq
Clifton Martin, University of Denver:
State and Society Dynamics in the Social Movements of Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen
Catherine Orsborn, University of Denver:
The Politics of Religious Identity: Egypt’s Religious Groups in Historical Perspective
Writing Early Islam
Moderator: Tahera Qutbuddin, University of Chicago
Kevin Blankinship, University of Chicago:
No Sympathy For the Devil: Righteous Indignation against Iblīs in the Works of al-Farazdaq, Abū Nuwās, and Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī
Süleyman Dost, University of Chicago:
Nāmūs: Law or Gabriel? or What Early Muslim Scholars Forgot
Ulrika Mårtensson, NTNU-The Norwegian University of Science and Technology:
How can al-Tabari’s History be used for a historical understanding of the ‘origins’ of the Qur’an?
Maher Abu-Munshar, Qatar University:
The Christians of Jerusalem between the ‘ahd and ‘uhda of Caliph ‘Umar
Russo-Ottoman Encounters
Moderator: Toygun Altıntaş
İbrahim Köremezli, Bilkent University:
Russian Prisoners of War in the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War (1853-56)
Valeriy Morkva, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University:
The Alliance of the Cross and the Crescent
Oğuzhan Mutluer, Bilkent University:
Historical Discourse of the Contemporary Russian Cinema: Turetskii Gambit and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78
Mustafa Sarı, Sakarya University:
The Russo-Ottoman Rivalry on Batum
Berat Yıldız, Bilkent University :
From Caucasus to Syrian Deserts: The Settlement of the Circassians in Syria
Coffee Break (4:45-5:00)
Conference Convocation: Roundtable Discussion (5:00-6:30):
Picturing Prophecy: The Falnama (Book of Omens) in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Iran and Turkey
Professor Kathryn Babayan Department of History, University of Michigan
Professor Serpil Bağcı
Department of Art History, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey
Dr. Massumeh Farhad
Chief Curator and Curator of Islamic Art, Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution
Professor Cornell Fleischer
Kanuni Suleyman Professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies, University of Chicago
Middle East Music Ensemble Performance (6:45-7:15)
Light Reception (7:15-8:00)
Saturday, May 5
Breakfast: 8:15-9:00 AM
Session 1 (9:00-10:30)
Constructing Iraq in the Mandate Period
Moderator: Yasar Tolga Cora, University of Chicago
Andrew Alger, University of Chicago:
Sending the Nation to School: The Plans and Ideals of Iraqi Education, 1927 – 1941
Güldem Baykal Büyüksaraç, George Washington University:
Revisiting the Mosul Dispute: The Question of Self-Determination in the Iraqi Mandate
Carl Shook, University of Chicago:
The Constructive Role of Treason Law in Mandate Iraq
Anny Gaul, Georgetown University:
Murder and Mandate in Mesopotamia: Public British Policies and Private British Lives
Historical Perceptions of Architecture
Moderator: Mick Bechtel, University of Chicago
Gül Cephanecigil, Istanbul Technical University:
Between Inventory and Story: The Emergence of Architectural History in the Late Ottoman/Early Republican Turkey
Till Grallert, Freie Universität Berlin:
Late imaginations of an ancien régime? The social space of Damascus as perceived by late nineteenth and early twentieth century newspapers
Wollina Torsten, Freie Universität Berlin:
What is the city? Perceptions of architectural and social order in 15th-century Damascus
Moain Sadeq, Qatar University:
History of Human Settlement in Qatar in Light of Archaeological Evidence
The Poetry and Politics of Mysticism in the Late Middle Period
Moderator: Ed Hayes, University of Chicago
Izzet Coban, University of Chicago:
A Mystic Poet in Grief: Love, Transformation, and Death
Carlos Grenier, University of Chicago:
Qasim-i Anvar: Caliph of the Unseen World
Mustafa Kaya, University of Chicago:
The Scholars and Sufis in Bursa in the Fifteenth Century
Maryam Sabbaghi, University of Chicago:
Introducing the Mystical Poetry of Shaykh Bahai
Session 2 (10:45-12:15 PM)
Building the New Society: The Republic of Turkey, Past and Present Moderator: Holly Shissler, University of Chicago
Begum Adalet, University of Pennsylvania:
Questions of Modernization: Survey Research and Turkish-American Encounters, 1950-1968
Hayrunnisa Goksel, Northwestern University:
Negotiated and Contested Identities: Women’s Narratives of Peace and Violence in Turkey
James Ryan, University of Pennsylvania: Turkey’s ‘Lost Generation’: Western Educated Thinkers, Popular Culture and the Press in the Early Republic
Evren Savci, Northwestern University:
Subjects of Rights and Subjects of Cruelty
Defining Minorities in Persia, Italy, and the Levant
Moderator: Carlos Grenier, University of Chicago
Michel Andraos, Catholic Theological Union (Chicago):
Christian communities in the Near East: the formation of sectarian identities during the European colonial period
Ayse Baltacioglu-Brammer, Ohio State University:
“Mi Faccio Turco:” An Examination of Muslims in the Roman Inquisition and the Ottoman Reaction
Alberto Tiburcio Urquiola, McGill University:
Between the Letter of the Law and the Spirit of Reality: conflicting images of Zoroastrians in Late Safavid Iran
Arabs and Muslims in Transit: Islam, Belonging and Exile in Arab-Anglophone and Modern Arabic Literature
Moderator: Farouk Mustafa, University of Chicago
Reem Hilal, University of Wisconsin at Madison:
Between Constructions: Tracing a Narrative of Self in Muslim American Writing
Ammar Naji, University of Wisconsin at Madison:
Exile, Dignity and the Revolution of Diasporic Imagination in the Arab World
Ziad Suidan, University of Wisconsin at Madison:
In, through, and Across Darwish’s Palestinian-Arab Diasporatic Rhythms: Rereading “Here, We Are Near There”
Lunch (12:15-1:30)
Session 3 (1:30-3:00)
Interpreting the Qur’an
Moderator: Süleyman Dost, University of Chicago
Cathy Bronson, University of Chicago:
Locating the shari’a in Surat al-nūr 24:31 “wa lā yubdīna zīnatahunna illā mā zahara minhā”
Hamza Mahmood, Cornell University:
God’s Dye: Metaphor and Mediation in Qurʾānic Polemics
Feryal Salem, University of Chicago:
Qadar, Freewill and Kasb in the Qur’an
Jeremy Vecchi, University of Chicago:
Method and Masjid: a Critical Reflection on Q 9:107, Asbāb al-Nuzūl and Historiography
Politics and Rhetoric in the Islamic Republic of Iran
Moderator: Cameron Cross, University of Chicago
Soroush Aslani, Northwestern University:
Framing, Resonance, and Micro-Mobilization: Shall We Say What We Are For, or What We Are Against?
Navid Hassanzadeh, Georgetown University:
Abandoning the Political: A Critique of Post-Revolutionary Theoretical Trajectories in Iran
Mahnia Nematollahi Mahani, Leiden University:
Legitimization of Political Violence, Iran’s Twentieth Century War (1980-88) Poetry
Saba Sulaiman, University of Chicago: Reading Parsipur Through the Eyes of Hedayat’s Blind Owl: Tracing the Origins of Magical Realism in Modern Persian Prose
Fashioning the Polity in the Middle Periods
Moderator: Christopher Markiewicz, University of Chicago
Mohamad Ballan, University of Chicago:
Re-Imagining “al-Ghālib bi-llāh”: Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Khaṭīb and the Construction of Naṣrid Dynastic Legitimacy in Fourteenth-Century Granada
Niko Banac, University of California, Los Angeles:
Poetry and the Historical Imagination in Post-‘Abbasid Historiography: A Close Reading of Two marthiyyas on the Fall of Baghdad
Theo Beers, University of Chicago:
Political Versus Personal Agency in the Shahnameh
Malika Dekkiche, University of Chicago:
New Source, New Debate: Reevaluation of the Mamluk-Timurid Relationships (Paris, BnF ms. ar. 4440)
Session 4 (3:15-4:45):
Social Mobility in the Ottoman Empire, 1700 to 1850
Moderator: Ahmet Tunç Şen, University of Chicago
Aykut Mustak, Sabancı University:
In Through the Out Door: Muhsinzade Abdullah Pasha’s Provincial Career
Efe Balikcioglu, Harvard University:
A Travel Guide to India for Ottoman Merchants: On Mehmed Emin Efendi’s Takrîr
Basil Salem, University of Chicago:
The Mufti of Damascus: Social and Political Realities of the Post of Hanafi Mufti in Eighteenth Century Ottoman Damascus
Secil Uluisik, University of Arizona:
Sarrafs as Intermediaries in the Ottoman Empire: The Case of Mıgırdıç Cezayirliyan
Continuing the Tradition: Transmission and Dissemination of Religious Knowledge
Moderator: Rahaf Kalaaji, University of Chicago
Garrett Davidson, University of Chicago:
Children Should Hear and Be Heard: Hadith Attendance Registers and the Role of Children in Medieval Hadith Transmission
Farhad Dokhani, University of Chicago:
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani: The Shi’i Founder of Enlightened Salafism?
Matthew Gillman, University of Chicago: Hating Yusuf?: Subversive and Subservient Rewriting in Nazım Hikmet’s Yusuf ile Menofis
Lauren Osborne, University of Chicago: Textual and Paratextual Meaning in the Recited Qur’an: Analysis of a Performance of Surat al-Furqan by Sheikh Mishary bin Rashid al-Afasy
Coffee Break (4:45-5:00)
Keynote Address (5:00-6:30):
Cultures of Literacy and Social Practice in Early Modern Isfahan
Professor Kathryn Babayan
Deptartment of History, University of Michigan
Lamb Roast Dinner (6:30-8:30)
