This year, the Middle East History and Theory (MEHAT) Conference is celebrating its twenty-fifth year as a leading forum for emerging scholars in Middle East Studies. The MEHAT Conference is an opportunity for University of Chicago graduate students to share their research with other students and professors from universities within the U.S. and abroad. Interdisciplinary in nature, MEHAT attracts participants from various departments including: Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Anthropology, History, Political Science, Economics, Linguistics, Philosophy, Comparative Literature and Religion, Art History, and Film Studies. In the past, participants have traveled from Turkey, Pakistan, France, Germany, and other leading universities from across the United States in order to present their work.
MEHAT Conference 2010-Preliminary Program
MAY 13, THURSDAY
Max Palevsky Cinema
7:00 pm – Movie screening: Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul, Max Palevsky Cinema, Ida Noyes Hall
MAY 14, FRIDAY
8:00-8:30 – Registration and Breakfast, Ida Noyes Library
PANEL SESSIONS:
8:30-10:15 Ida Noyes Library:
Identity and Legitimacy in Early Islam
Moderator: Tahera Qutbuddin
Eve, intertextuality and cultural diffusion
Catherine Bronson, University of Chicago
Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, the Question of Legitimacy, and a Failed Attempt at Secularization
Najm al-Din Yousefi. Department of History, Virginia Tech
The Significance of the Successors (al-Tābi‘ūn) as Reflected in Early Hadith Collections
Mustafa Macit Karagözoğlu, Marmara University
Abū Bakra, Mawlā of the Prophet? A Re-examination of Early Islamic Walā’
Elizabeth Urban, University of Chicago
8:30-10:15 Ida Noyes West Lounge:
Society and modernity in film and literature
Discussant: Saeed Ghahremani
The Quintessence of the Natural(ist) Novel: Ahmet Mithat’s Moralism and the Redefinition of Western Literary Terminology
Zeynep Seviner, University of Washington
Fictions of Modernity: A Postcolonial Reading of 20th Century Iranian Novel
Hamid Rezaeiyazdi, University of Toronto
Cinematic Cosmopolitanism: The Iranian Pre-Revolutionary Cinema
Golbarg Rekabtalaei, University of Toronto
From Isolation to Emancipation: The Case of a Palestinian Poet
Alaa’ Milbes, Columbia University
8:30-10:15 Ida Noyes East Lounge:
Marginal Groups in Istanbul
Discussant: Basil Salem
Building Sanity: Mental Institutions in Istanbul, 1870-1927
Burçak Özlüdil Altın, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Turkish Cultural Foundation Fellow
Being of Istanbul: A city with an idealized population and its migrants
Yağmur Nuhrat, Brown University, Department of Anthropology
Representations of the Commonly Neglected: The first Ottoman Newspapers’ Presentation of Beggars, Workers and Peasants during the Days of the Ottoman Financial Crisis
Gül Karagöz-Kızılca, State University of New York, Ankara University
10:15-10:30- COFFEE BREAK
PANEL SESSIONS:
10:30-12:15 Ida Noyes Library:
Love and the supernatural
Discussant: Ferenc Csirkes
Prophethood, Sainthood, and the Miʿrāj: Abū Yazīd in ʿAṭṭār’s Taẕkirat al-awliyāʾ
Austin O’Malley, University of Chicago
Two Aspects of Love in Persian Medieval Romances, Love-Possession & Love-Sublimation
Saeed Honarmand, Ohio State University
Genies as Companions of the Prophet? Supernatural hadith transmitters and post-classical hadith transmission.
Garrett Davidson, University of Chicago
The Reception of the Occult Sciences in the Ottoman Legal Culture: Evaluation of the Fatwa Collections from the 16th-18th centuries
Ahmet Tunç Şen, University of Chicago
10:30-12:15 Ida Noyes West Lounge:
Imaging the City; Cultural Aesthetics and the Middle East
Discussant: Noha Forster
The New American University in Cairo Campus: Virtual Place Making within the Discourse of Knowledge Economy
Karem Said, Stanford University
Acts of Creation and Preservation: The Author and His City in Muhammad Khudayyir’s Baṣrayāthā: Ṣūrat Medīna
Chip Rossetti, University of Pennsylvania
“A Reformer in the Garb of a Singer”: Music in the Discourse of National Identity in Colonial Egypt
Tess Popper, UC Santa Barbara
Bridges of Old Iranian Architecture: Focusing on the Khaju Bridge in Isfahan
Mahboubeh Hosseini Zydabadi, Islamic Azad University Nishabur Branch
Iranian Bazaars (From the Past to the Present)
Sharareh Azari, University of Melbourne
10:30-12:15 Ida Noyes East Lounge:
Provincial urban centers in Turkey and Iran
Discussant: Hakan Karateke
Urban History as a Means of Resistance: Huseyin Husameddin Yasar and his History of Amasya
Hasan Karataş, New York University
Power, Politics and Legitimacy in the Countryside: Alanya Municipal Government 1914-1930
Nurşen Gürboğa, Marmara University
An Ibn al-‘Arabī Scholar in Early Ottoman İznik: Ottoman Sources on the Assignment of the İznik Medrese by Sultan Orhān to Dāvūd-i Kayserī
Gonca Baskıcı, Bilkent University
12:15-2:00 LUNCH BREAK
PANEL SESSIONS:
2:00-4:00 Ida Noyes Library:
Roundtable on China and the Islamic World
2:00-4:00 Ida Noyes West Lounge:
Early Islam and the State
Discussant: Fred Donner
‘It’s the economy, stupid’: al-Tabari’s analysis of the free rider problem in the Abbasid caliphate.
Ulrika Mårtensson, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Ruler or Rebel? The Portrayal of ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr in Classical and Contemporary Scholarship
Rahaf Kalaaji, University of Chicago
“Andalusi Crete: An Islamic Frontier State in the Ninth and Tenth Century Mediterranean”
Mohamad Ballan, University of Chicago
The Egyptian Polity of ‘Abd al-‘Azīz b. Marwān
Josh Mabra, University of Chicago
Upholding God’s rule: ‘Umar and some Christian functionaries in Kufa
Luke Yarbrough, Princeton University
2:00-4:00 Ida Noyes East Lounge:
Intellectual encounters with Europe and America
Discussant: Orit Bashkin
Rudolf Belling (1886 – 1972) and the Role of Visual Arts in the Construction of Modern Turkish National Identity
Pelin Kadercan – University of Rochester
‘Paris as a boot camp for intellectuals from the Muslim World, 1826-1930’
Olivia Luce, University of Oxford
Assimilation and Positive Discrimination Bismarck’s advice to the Ottoman Special Mission in 1881
Naci Yorulmaz, University of Birmingham
4:30-6:00 – PLENARY SPEECH:
“Early Eleventh-Century Isfahan on My Mind”, Ida Noyes West Lounge
Everett K Rowson, New York University
6:00-8:00 – RECEPTION
8:00-10:00 – Middle East Music Ensemble Concert and Theatre Evening, Assembly Hall, International House
MAY 15, SATURDAY
8:30-9:00 Breakfast
PANEL SESSIONS:
9:00-10:15 Ida Noyes Library:
“Translation between languages, translation of cultures: a panel discussion on the art and industry of translation to and from Middle Eastern languages”
Discussant: Cameron Cross
Farouk Mustafa, Ibn Rushd Professorial Lect. in Modern Arabic Lang. Near Eastern Lang. & Civ. and the College
Na’ama Rokem, Asst. Prof, Near Eastern Lang. & Civ. and the College
Franklin Lewis, Assoc. Prof, Near Eastern Lang. & Civ. and the College
Orit Bashkin, Asst. Prof, Near Eastern Lang. & Civ. and the College
Fred Donner, Prof, Near Eastern Lang. & Civ., Oriental Inst., and the College
9:00-10:15 Ida Noyes West Lounge:
Political Contestation in 16th century Ottoman Empıre
Discussant: Nikolay Antov
Gossip, Rumor and Slander: Political Uses of Hearsay and Accusation in the Court of Murad III
Elif Özgen, Istanbul Bilgi University
Narrating the City: Istanbul as Embodiment of Geographic Good in Viaje de Turquía
Jessica Ribble Boll, University of Wisconsin
9:00-10:15 Ida Noyes East Lounge:
Society and Development in the Middle East
Discussant: Nell Gabiam
Development Narratives of HIV/AIDS in Yemen
Cassandra Filer, Georgetown University
Sufi ritual and the sacred spaces of sohbet in Istanbul
Hannah Highfill, Washington University
The Material Culture of a Colonial Cotton Enterprise
Suzanne Schneider Reich, Columbia University
10:15-10:30- COFFEE BREAK
PANEL SESSIONS
10:30-12:30 Ida Noyes Library:
God and Government in Modern Islam
Discussant: Laith Saud
Generation of Qur’an, Empire of Democracy: Contesting Democratic Theory in Contemporary Turkey
Dünya Deniz Çakır, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“After the Sepoy Revolt: South Asian Sufism and the Reassertion of Indo-Muslim Identity”
Daanish Faruqi, Washington University in St Louis
God and Government in Tunisia: The Historical Method of Mohamed Talbi
Kelly Al-Dakkak, University of Oxford
10:30-12:30 Ida Noyes West Lounge:
Projects of modernity in the late Ottoman Empire
Discussant: Ekin Enacar
Navigating Modernization: Developing İstanbul’s 19th Century Mass Transit Network
Robert Ehrmann, University of Chicago
Local Politics and Its Impact on the Formation of Modern States: The Use of Forced Labor in the Construction of the Trabzon-Erzurum Road, 1860-1861
Fulya Özkan, State University of New York, Binghamton
Fires and Firefighters of Istanbul, 1826-1923: The Struggle of a Wooden City Against Frequent Flames
Barış Taşyakan, Boğaziçi University
The Lay of the City: Singer Sewing Machines in the Late Nineteenth Century Istanbul, Cairo and Alexandria
Ceyda Karamürsel, University of Pennsylvania
Rush Hour in Downtown Ottoman Istanbul: Mechanized Transportation and the Emergence of Modern Temporal Patterns
Avner Wishnitzer,University of Washington
10:30-12:30 Ida Noyes East Lounge:
Seeking ‘Order and Progress’: Press in the Late Ottoman Empire
Discussant: Holly Shissler
A Forgotten Intellectual: Khalil Ghanim’s Contributions to the Ottoman Opposition Press in Paris (1878-1903)
Basil Salem, University of Chicago
Ahmed Rıza’s Mechveret: A Young Turk’s Quest to Answer the Eastern Question
Madeleine Elfenbeinm, University of Chicago
Constitutionalism and Opposition after the ‘Declaration of Liberty’: The Case of Lütfi Fikri Bey and Tanzimat (1911-1913)
Toygun Altıntaş, University of Chicago
The “Sırat-i Mustakim” Ottoman Journal (1908-1911): Controversies Between the Followers of The “Straight Path” and “Secular Mujtahids”
Ayşe Polat, University of Chicago
12:45-2:00 – Lunch
PANEL SESSIONS
2:00-4:00 Ida Noyes Library:
Panel in Honor of Professor Heshmat Moayyad
Discussant: Austin O’Malley
‘But joy comes in the morning’: The Semiotics of Dawn in the Ghazals of Hafiz
Professor Franklin Lewis, University of Chicago
The Persian Sources of Sheyh Ghalib’s Husn u Ask
Professor Judith Wilkes, Northwestern University
Arzu as a ‘Docile Agent’: the Paradox of the Obedient Daughter in Pre-Islamic Iran
Professor Alyssa Gabbay, Washington University
The Master’s Slap: Bodies, Books, and Variations on an Image by Sā’eb
Professor Paul Losensky, Indiana University
2:00-4:00 Ida Noyes West Lounge:
Meaning in the landscape: the city and the country from the early period
Discussant:Donald Whitcomb
Graves in Damascus: Non-Textual Sources of Sacrality in Independent Fadâ’il al-Shâm Treatises
Raha Rafii, The University of Texas at Austin
The Social Landscape of the Islamic Dhamar Basin in the Central Highlands of Yemen
Daniel Mahoney, University of Chicago
The Islamization of the Landscape: The Transformation of Beirut into a Ribāṭ
Rana Mikati, University of Chicago
The place of Islamic law in Córdoba: Configuration of legal attitudes toward domestic space in Muslim Córdoba through textual and archaeological data
Sabahat Adil, University of Chicago
The rise and fall of Samarra: A history of Shi’a Urban Heritage in Iraq
Sajad Jiyad, Center for Islamic Shia Studies
2:00-4:00 Ida Noyes East Lounge:
Gender, Education and Ideology
Discussant: Shayna Silverstein
Constructing the “Mother Citizens” of the Ottoman Empire: Education, Nationalism and Gender in the Young Turk Era (1909-1918)
Ekin Enacar, University of Chicago
The Diary of Khalil al-Sakakini: Social change, conflicting ideologies, and the individual self
Nadim Bawalsa, Georgetown University
Mandatory Body-Building: Physical Activity, Masculinities, Class, and Nationalism in Syria, 1933-1945
Sam Dolbee, Georgetown University
Urban Encounters in Arabic: Language Ideologies and Imaginaries of Social and Physical Space in Amman
Yazan Doughan, University of Chicago
4:30-6:00 Keynote Address, Ida Noyes West Lounge: “Revolutionary Subjectivity and Cultural Engineering in Contemporary Iran”
Professor Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, University of Toronto
6:00-8:00 Lamb Roast and Reception
