2018 Lectures

Memory, Migration and Resistance: Narratives of Syrian Refugee Women in Turkey and Syria

Memory, Migration and Resistance: Narratives of Syrian Refugee Women in Turkey and Syria

Lecture by Dr. Senay Ozden

Thursday, December 6, 2018 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM EST
Johnson Center, Bistro

Syrian refugees are often portrayed simply as either victims of a war or victims of host states' refugee policies. Dr. Ozden's research, however focuses on Syrian refugee womens' life stories in the pre and post uprising periods with the purpose of understanding the social and political contexts that led to the Syrian uprising in 2011. Therefore, instead of treating refugee life in isolation from pre-2011 contexts, she restores Syrian women's political and social agencies in the refugee narratives. Şenay Özden is a cultural anthroplogist from Turkey. Her research areas include international migration, refugees, Turkish state’s refugee policies, and politics of humanitarian aid. She has numerous articles, reports published on Syrian refugees in Turkey, and hosts a weekly radio program in Turkey about Syrian refugees. She has taught at various universities in Damascus and Istanbul. She is one of the founders of the Syrian Cultural House in Istanbul, Hamisch, which aims to bring together researchers and writers from Syria and Turkey.

 

CANCELLED- Unpacking Sectarianism in Contemporary Lebanon: A Critical Ethnographic Study

Lecture by Dr. Yasemin Ipek

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM EST

Dr. Yasemin Ipek will discuss how different communities in Lebanon talk about and problematize sectarianism, based on ethnographic research she conducted between 2012 and 2015. She will unpack competing local discourses on sectarianism and nationalism by examining how rival political communities and individuals blame each other for the sectarianism of the “Lebanese.” Attending to how discourses on sectarianism and nationalism are deployed in order to make competing ethical claims to citizenship, identity, belonging, and social change, Ipek will show how public debates around sectarianism could inform us on broader negotiations of social difference structured around class, urbanity, religiosity, gender, and generation. Dr. Ipek is Assistant Professor in the Global Affairs Program at George Mason University. She received her Ph.D. degree in Anthropology from Stanford University, California. She received a second doctoral degree from Bilkent University in the Department of Political Science in Turkey. Dr. Ipek teaches courses on globalization, anthropology of the Middle East, refugees and humanitarianism, youth activism, social movements and qualitative research methods. Her work has appeared in several peer-reviewed journals.

 

Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab

Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab

Lecture by Dr. Kristian Petersen

Thursday, November 1, 2018 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM EDT
Johnson Center, Room G

A distinctive Chinese Islamic intellectual tradition emerged during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Chinese Muslims established an educational system, scripture hall education (jingtang jiaoyu 經堂教育), which utilized an Islamic curriculum made up of Arabic, Persian, and Chinese works. The Han Kitab, a corpus of Chinese language Islamic texts developed within this system, reinterpreted Islam through the religiophilosophical lens of Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian terminology. Several Han Kitab texts were produced by a group of self-identified “Confucian Muslim” scholars (Huiru 回儒). This presentation traces the contours of the Sino-Islamic intellectual tradition and serves as an introduction to Kristian Petersen’s book, Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). Dr. Kristian Petersen is Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University in the Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies. In addition to his featured book, he is currently working on a monograph entitled, "The Cinematic Lives of Muslims". He is also host of the New Books in Religion series and New Books in Islamic Studies podcasts.

 

Compatibility or Incompatibility of Islam and Democracy: Case Study of Iran

AVACGIS Visiting Scholar Brown Bag Series

Presented by Dr. Ali Yousofi, Ferdowsi University, Mashad, Iran

Wednesday, August 29, 2018 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM EDT
Johnson Center, Room F

Dr. Yousofi presents his research findings about Islam and democracy. He maintains that both the concepts of Islam and democracy are interpretable and will in practice lead to a variety of religiosities and democratic attitudes. The religion of Islam plays a central role in the social life of Muslim societies and each type of religiosity offers a different interpretation of democracy. The main hypothesis of his research is that only some perceptions of Islam (religiosity) are compatible with some perceptions of democracy (democratic attitudes), but that some perceptions of each of them are incompatible with one another. The results of this research will be published as a book with the support of the Center. Refreshments will be served.