Join us for this Adab colloquium with Dr. Cyrus Ali Zargar, Distinguished Professor in Islamic Studies at the University of Central Florida, and discussant Dr. Ali Altaf Mian, Assistant Professor of Religion and Izzat Hasan Sheikh Fellow in Islamic Studies at the University of Florida, on "Sober in Mecca, Drunk in Byzantium: Antinomian Space in the Poetry of ʿAṭṭār.”
Tuesday, September 28, 2021, 12:00 PM-2:00 PM
This panel explores fruitful connections between Persianate studies, largely a land-based endeavor, with scholarship on relevant port cities. The question of to what extent Persianate studies relates to the domain and lens of Indian Ocean studies (and vice versa) was opened decades ago, yet remains underdeveloped today. Pathbreaking scholarship has brought merchants, shipowners, and various types of people circulating through South Asian port cities from Iranian lands and also Persian speakers from the broader Persianate West, Central, and South Asia lands into view. More recent scholarship on Indian Ocean circulation through port cities has emphasized the plural nature of these spaces, against the longue durée understanding of transformations of the Indian Ocean from a Muslim Sea to a British Lake from medieval to early modern to modern times. This panel’s focus is on early modern port cities, connected to West and South Asian empires, at both the height of Persianate culture’s spread and the Indian Ocean’s increasingly globalized connections. How do port cities such as Surat and Hormuz diverge or reflect the social and cultural constitutions of the Persianate empires of Timurid Hindustan or Safavid Iran? Is there such a thing as a littoral or maritime Persianate? What can we learn from viewing prevalent understandings of early modern Persianate cultures and societies from ports (rather than courts)?
Organized by the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS)
Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Muslim Societies; the Middle East Institute; and the South Asia Institute
The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities (SOF/Heyman) and the Center for Palestine Studies (CPS) invite applications from graduate students at Columbia University for a Public Humanities Fellowship in support of the NO PLACE | LA MAKAN | لا مكان Radio Play Project.
The NO PLACE | LA MAKAN | لا مكان program will commission, develop, translate, produce, and distribute four new radio plays by Palestinian playwrights in 2021-2022, culminating in two fully-realized radio productions of each play (one in Arabic and one in English).
The fellowship term will run during the 2021-2022 academic year and the fellow will receive a stipend of $4000. All applications must be submitted by September 1 2021.
Click here for more information about eligibility and how to apply.