We have been told that there have so far not been many Scandinavian registrations, so we use this occasion to urge you to register for this major event. This is the first ever global conference on Middle Eastern studies, and it is in our own back yard, in nearby Germany. There have already been a large number of papers announced in many diverse fields, from US, European and other scholars, and a number of sub-conferences will also take place at the same time in Mainz. It will no doubt be of great use for everyone, both for academic input from the papers directly, and from 'networking', meeting people you did not know about earlier, or old colleagues, who work in the same field as yourself.
There is no definite theme for the conference, but I suggest to invite Scandinavian papers around these general areas
- Islamic adaptations in the north of Europe
- Religious movements and
democratization
- Mass media and the public sphere in the modern Middle
East
- Marginalities and trans-regional contact
These are just suggestions, however, any theme is welcome. You can consult the
Wocmes website for existing themes. You can register directly on the website,
or contact me for coordination, if you so wish.
The conference dates are
8-13 September, the locale at Mainz, near Frankfurt in Germany.
http://www.wocmes.de
Konferansen i Lund trakk i underkant av hundre deltakarar, og virker å ha vore akademisk vellykka, med god konsentrasjon rundt hovudtemaet, 'bruk av historia'. Rundt ein firedel av deltakarane kom frå land utanfor Norden. Innsendte paper frå konferansen vil bli lagra på vår Web-servar (adresse: http://www.hf.uib.no/smi/pal/, og utvalde paper vil også bli publisert i tidsskriftet Tidskrift för Mellanösternstudiar.
Kristne minoriteter i Syrien og Ægypten
Fællesforedrag ved
mag.art. Lise P. Galal (Minoritetsstudier) og stud.mag. Sune Haugbølle
(Oxford Faculty of Oriental Studies)
DATO: onsdag den 19. december -
KLOKKEN: 16.30 - AFHOLDES: Carsten Niebuhr Instituttet, frokoststuen (5. sal)
*** ORIENTALSK FORUM ***
c/o Carsten Niebuhr Instituttet
Københavns Universitet
Snorresgade 17-19
DK-2300
København S
e-post: orientalsk@forum.dk
netsted:
www.hum.ku.dk/cni
Orientalsk Forum blev stiftet i 1987 og er et selvstændigt akademisk selskab, der er tilknyttet Carsten Niebuhr Instituttet ved Københavns Universitet. Orientalsk Forums interesseområde er Mellemøsten (Den Nære Orient) i bredeste forstand, det vil sige Nordafrika samt Vest- og Centralasien.
Crucial to the social position of women in Pakistan is their access to and control of material resources. A key factor in this respect is the situation of legal pluralism in the country whereby state laws derived form Pakistan's Islamic and colonial heritages are often contradicted by local customary laws and practices. This study is based one extensive fieldwork in four villages in different provinces of Pakistan, and takes both a socio-legal and an anthropological approach. Its focus is not confined to property alone, but includes many other areas of life that have a bearing on women's access to property and enables the reader better to envisage the environment. Arguing that official law is largely ineffective in securing property rights for women, the study offers insights into the interaction of customary and state laws in Pakistan that will be of interest to scholars, lawyers and development specialists. This book also provides background to students and researchers engaged in studies on Pakistani immigrants in Europe.
Knut Krzywinski og Richard Holton Pierce, Deserting the Desert - a Threatened Cultural Landscape between the Nile and the Sea. Bergen: Alvheim & Eide 2001. 179 pp
Boken ser på sentrale problemstillinger når området mellom Nilen og Rødehavet i Egypt og Sudan betraktes som kulturlandskap. En tredjedel av klodens landoverflate, territoriene til halvparten av verdens land og store deler av verdens befolkning befinner seg i golde områder. Mange steder er dette på grunn av menneskers bruk.
Ørken betraktes som regel som et goldt landskap som ikke er attraktiv for beboelse. Men bidragsyterne ønsker å vise det mangfoldet som faktisk lever i dette området. Her bor tusenvis av mennesker, og det finnes trær og beitemarker som er tilstrekkelig til å tilfredsstille behovene til de som vil innrette seg. Tilgang på vann og vegetasjon har lagt grunnlaget for livet til innbyggerne langt tilbake, og det er fra dette fundamentet de har bygget en nomadisk livsstil basert på dyrehold. Boken setter de innfødte i fokus, sammen med de materielle og sosiale faktorer som har vært med å forme deres liv.
Bidragsyterne har bakgrunn fra forskjellige fagfelt som botanikk, geografi, egyptologi, historie og hydrologi, og de enkelte bidrag inneholder også personlig perspektiver på oppdagelsene. [Frå omtale i UiB's internavis På Høyden]
Ashk Dahlén, Deciphering the Meaning of Revealed Law. The Surushian Paradigm in Shi'i Epistemology. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis 2001, 384 pp. ISBN 91-554-5189-6.
Like all great religions, Islam has experienced an impact from the manifold potencies of modern life and responded to this challenge in various ways. Given that the exploratory elaboration of law has been the dominant mode of self-expression in Islam for centuries, one of the key themes of contemporary Islamic thought is the search for a legal identity. This book is a comprehensive analysis of the major intellectual positions in the philosophical debate on Islamic law that is occuring in contemporary Iran. As the characteristic features of traditional epistemic considerations have a direct bearing on the modern development of Islamic legal thought, the contemporary positions are initially set against the established normative repertory of Islamic tradition. It is within this broad examination of a living legacy of interpretation that the context for the concretisations of traditional as well as modern Islamic learning are enclosed. After the 1979 revolution, the question of the renewal of Islamic law acquired great urgency and there is an ongoing debate as to the best legal solutions to many problems facing contemporary society given that there is no clear position under many areas of traditional jurisprudence. Among the pivotal figures who are considered in this respect are primarily 'Abdullah Jawadi-Amuli (traditionalism), Muhammad Mujtahid-Shabistari (modernism) and 'Abd al-Karim Surush (postmodernism), but other individuals who belong to the intellectual elite of Iran are also included. In light of the relationship between global modernity and the religion of Islam, the purpose of this book is to analyse to what extent these positions and their understanding of questions of epistemology, methodology and hermeneutics are engendered by the cognitive and ontological structures of modernity. The major argument presented is that modernity no longer is categorically conceptualised as an external phenomenon among many religious intellectuals, but that there is instead an effort on their part to develop indigenous expressions of its driving principles. In an attempt to define some of the contents of a supposed Islamic modernity, this book suggests that Islamic postmodernism has paradigmatic relevance and reflects a thoroughly transitional phenomenon within Shi'i speculation on divine law.
