2019 Lectures

Saturday, November 16, 2019 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM EST
Fenwick Library, Main Reading Room (2001)

The Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University cordially invites you to the launch panel and reception for the Turks in America Public History Initiative on November 16, 2019, 2:00 pm- 5:00 pm at GMU's Fairfax Campus. The program will feature an academic panel of three scholars who will discuss multiple aspects of Ottoman-Turkish immigration into the United States, a short multimedia presentation of the project, and a reception.

Thursday, November 7, 2019 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM EST
Johnson Center, 326, Meeting Room B

Abstract: Despite more than three decades of international efforts to immobilize these organizations, African jihadist organizations have proven to be adaptable and resilient, continuing to engage in insurgent campaigns against the state and employing terrorist violence against civilians. As they operate within and across different states and regions, the key to understanding this persistence – as well as the challenges of responding to it – often lies in the interaction between global dynamics and frequently underappreciated local factors. At this event, Dr. Hansen will discuss his new book “Horn, Sahel, and Rift: Fault-lines of the African Jihad”, (Hurst & Co., 2019).

November 1, 2019, 9:00 AM to November 2, 2019, 5:00 PM EDT
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

This conference will bring together scholars from diverse disciplines of social sciences and humanities to discuss empirical, historical, and conceptual issues related to Islamic forms of aid and their potentially far-reaching implications. It will provide an interdisciplinary framework for unpacking the link between Islam and humanitarianism in ways that recognize the significance of geopolitics, policy-making, transnational partnerships, and the lived experiences of giving and receiving help that are articulated in diverse contexts of suffering. Scholars and practitioners are expected to engage in a nuanced examination of Islamic humanitarianism using an intersectional approach, i.e., the multifaceted ways in which categories such as state, race, nationalism, sectarianism, class, gender, space, and age shape the ways in which Islam interacts with humanitarianism. The conference will be organized into panels guided by four major themes; "Defining and Conceptualizing 'Islamic' Humanitarianism", "Historical Cases and Islamic Cosmologies of Aid", "Contextualizing Muslim Humanitarianism in a Globalized World", and "Everyday Politics of Humanitarianism by Muslims".

Monday, October 21, 2019 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM EDT
Enterprise Hall, 318

Nathaniel Greenberg will discuss his new book, "How Information Warfare Shaped the Arab Spring: the Politics of Narrative in Tunisia and Egypt", (EUP 2019). Through detailed analyses of Russian, U.S. and Arab information operations in North Africa, Greenberg argues the preservation of a functional democratic sphere in an age of misinformation will require coequal investment in the algorithms of digital-detection technology and the ‘aesthetics of communication,’ a renewed sense of awareness in the power of art and rhetoric to shape the way we see the world. Nathaniel Greenberg, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor and head of the Arabic Program at George Mason University. In 2011 he wrote about the Arab Spring from Egypt for The Seattle Times and from 2012-2013 he was a postdoctoral fellow in Strategic Communications for a federally-funded project examining public discourse in post-revolutionary North Africa. "How Information Warfare Shaped the Arab Spring" is Dr. Greenberg’s third book. His previous works include "Islamists of the Maghreb" (Routledge 2018) with Jeffry R. Halverson. And "The Aesthetic of Revolution in the Film and Literature of Naguib Mahfouz" (Lexington 2014), winner of the 2014 ACLA Helen Tartar First Book Award.

Thursday, October 10, 2019 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM EDT
Enterprise Hall, 318

Abstract: If there is an unspoken consensus between Edward Said and strands of his critics it seems to be that Germany has never been part of the configuration of power called Orientalism. As is well-known, Said limited his investigation to the British, French, and American tradition while setting aside Germany and its forms as well as terrains of orientalism. In consequence, German Orientalism has come to designate either an entirely different form of orientalism, one that is incompatible with what Said had in mind with his rather genealogical inquiry, or, German Orientalism has been mobilized as something through which Said’s own claims regarding Orientalist’s configuration can be disrupted. In my talk I will suggest that we need to re-orient our attention and focus of inquiry in order to add what has been missing in the scholarship on German Orientalism so far, namely that German Orientalism too can and should be understood as configuration of power in the Saidian sense, albeit operating in relation to yet another Eurocentric construction, namely Africa. Mr. Ahmad is currently a Fellow at Freie Universitat in Berlin Germany at the Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies, Post- Colonial Studies where he is conducting research on the topic of "The History of the Present: A Postcolonial Genealogy of Germany’s Politics of Islam".

Wednesday, April 24, 2019 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM EDT
Johnson Center, 239a

Ms. Yurtalan will present her research on Sunni-Ismaili relations during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph, al-Qadir (991-1031). Betul is a Research Assistant at Hitit University in the Faculty of Divinity Department and is currently working on her doctorate at Ankara University in Ankara, Turkey. Her dissertation looks at Fatimid Abbasid relations and its effects on Sunni Islamic thought. Ms. Yurtalan focuses her research on the cultural, religious and sectarian relations between the Fatimid and Abbasid States as an important development in Islamic thought. She is especially interested in examining the various Islamic sects during the fourth and fifth centuries of the Islamic period. Ms. Yurtalan has been in residence as Visiting Scholar at the University of Jordan's Faculty of Theology and was selected for Erasmus scholarships/internships in Germany and the United Kingdom.

Monday, April 22, 2019 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM EDT
Enterprise Hall, 318 (conference room)

This talk will be a discussion of, how and why, non-state actors provide dispute resolution in conflict environments in South Asia. Ahsan Butt, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. His main research interests focus on nationalism and political violence in South Asia. His book, "Secession and Security: Explaining State Strategy Against Separatists," was published by Cornell University Press in 2017. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, such as International Organization, Journal of Global Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, Politics and Religion and Security Studies. Professor Butt has received generous support from the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Mellon Foundation, the Stanton Foundation and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Dr. Butt is a non-resident fellow at the Stimson Center.

Thursday, April 4, 2019 9:30 AM to 5:15 PM EDT
Johnson Center, Gold Room (G19)

Islam in China has a long and intricate history. For centuries, Muslim communities across China have been integral to the development of Chinese civilization in arts, literature, science, and commerce. Muslims in and around China played a crucial role in connecting it to cultures and economies to other regions of the globe ranging from South Asia to the Middle East and Europe. This conference aims to provide general audiences with a broader and nuanced understanding of genuine experiences of Muslim communities in China from medieval to modern times. Leading scholars from various academic disciplines will contribute their recent scholarship in the field and put forth new ideas for future areas of exploration.

Thursday, March 28, 2019 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM EDT
Enterprise Hall, 318 (conference room)

Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2010 and 2014, Dr. Gatling highlights the range of expressive forms- memories, stories, poetry, artifacts, rituals, and other embodied practices- Sufis employ as they try to construct a Sufi life in twenty-first century Central Asia. He argues that Sufis transcend the oppressive religious politics of contemporary Tajikistan by using expressive forms to inhabit multiple times: the paradoxical present, the Persian sacred past, and the Soviet era. This lecture shows the intricate, ground level ways that Muslim expressive culture intersects with authoritarian politics, not as artful forms of resistance but rather as a means to shape experiences of the present. Benjamin Gatling (Ph.D., Ohio State University) is a folklorist specializing in the expressive culture of Central Asia and the Middle East. Prior to coming to Mason, he held a postdoctoral fellowship in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University, where he was a core faculty member of the Duke Islamic Studies Center. His first book, Expressions of Sufi Culture in Tajikstan, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press. His research interests include narrative, performance, the ethnography of communication, Persianate oral traditions, and Islam in Central Asia. He serves as a book review editor for the Journal of American Folklore and lead list editor of H-FOLK, H-Net's network for folklore and ethnology.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019 3:00 PM EDT
Merten Hall, 1203

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.

Thursday, February 28, 2019 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM EST
Enterprise Hall, 318

Professor Sachedina will discuss his current research on juridical ethics in Islam. He argues that In the field of Islamic Studies thus far, the reference to Islamic ethics have been in the area of virtue ethics as inherited from Aristotelian ethics. The general perception among Western scholars is that Muslim scholarship is too legalistic and it has ignored ethics. Since the Muslim scriptures regard moral behavior and character ethics to be an essential part of faith in God, we need to search for the ethical foundations of Interpretive Jurisprudence (al-fiqh), to underscore the fact that no legal decisions could have been made without due regard to the moral philosophy of the Qur’an and Hadith in Islam. Abdulaziz Sachedina, Ph.D., is Chair and Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and IIIT Chair in Islamic Studies at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Dr. Sachedina has studied in India, Iraq, Iran, and Canada and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. He has been conducting research and writing in the field of Islamic Law, Ethics, and Theology (Sunni and Shiite) for more than two decades. In the last ten years he has concentrated on social and political ethics, including Interfaith and Intrafaith Relations, Islamic Biomedical Ethics and Islam and Human Rights. Dr. Sachedina’s publications include: Islamic Messianism (State University of New York, 1980); Human Rights and the Conflicts of Culture, co-authored (University of South Carolina, 1988) The Just Ruler in Shiite Islam (Oxford University Press, 1988); The Prolegomena to the Qur’an (Oxford University Press, 1998), The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism (Oxford University Press, 2002), Islamic Biomedical Ethics: Theory and Application(Oxford University Press, February 2009), Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights (Oxford University Press, September 2009), in addition to numerous articles in academic journals. He is an American citizen born in Tanzania.

Wednesday, February 20, 2019 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM EST
Merten Hall, 1202

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.

Wednesday, February 13, 2019 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM EST
Johnson Center, Room F

With the emergence of Muslim consumers as a new powerful segment and the shaping of a new niche market, multinational companies have begun to sell products and services that reflect the taste of Muslim consumers. South Korea is not exempt from these trends. Since March 2015, when former President Park of S. Korea signed an MOU with the UAE government for cooperation in the new emerging halal market; South Korean companies began to participate in the new Islamic markets. The more the government supported these policies within South Korea, however the stronger the anti-Islamic responses were from the public. This talk presents an analysis of deep-seated Islamophobia among the Koreans and suggest a way out of Islamophobia. Dr. Ikran Eum received a Ph.D. in Middle East Studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, UK in 2004 under the supervision of Dr. Nadje Al-Ali. Eum is currently working as a researcher at the GCC institute, Dankook University in Korea, conducting a project funded by the Ministry of Education entitled “Gulf Vision 2030 and Partnership Building Strategy: Focused on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran”. As an area specialist, she gives lectures related to Middle Eastern cultural and social studies both for students in academia and for the public, including office workers and civil servants. Her current research interests are consumerism and Islam, and family and gender issues in the Gulf countries.

Thursday, January 31, 2019 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM EST
Enterprise Hall, 318

Medical literature has shown that the phrase “actively dying” is frequently used by clinicians to describe patients who are nearing the end of life. Most often it is used to either refer to those who are within days or hours of death or it is used when particular signs and symptoms associated with death begin to occur, such as “the death rattle.” Even though there is not one standardized definition of “actively dying,” it usually references the beginning of an end. In her talk, Dr. Hughes-Rinker will seek to complicate the notion of the “actively dying” patient, and in particular to examine its relationship to religiosity and Muslim identity. Drawing on ethnographic research she conducted mainly in the Washington, D.C. metro area with primarily Sunni Muslim patients, families, and providers, she will use “actively dying” as a theoretical concept and analytical framework to explore how end-of-life care impacts their faith and religious identities. Using data from observations at a hospital and from semi-structured interviews, as well as from textual analysis and attendance at conferences and seminars, she will examine how the deteriorating body, the process of dying, the patient/provider encounter, and death informed the ways that patients, their loved ones, and even providers understood Islam and viewed themselves as Muslims. In conceptualizing the dying body as a site through which religiosity and Muslim identities are created, (trans)formed, or contested, she will argue that death and dying should be viewed as an opening or beginning and something that transcends the physical human body, rather than an end to the body itself.