Dr. Michelle Hartman's Latest Translation Published
Congratulations to Professor Michelle Hartman on the publication of her newest translation, All the Women Inside Me, Jana Elhassan's compelling first novel. The book is published by Interlink Publishing and is available here.
Congratulations to Đồng Bảo Ngân Hà
Congratulations to incoming MA student, Đồng Bảo Ngân Hà (Joint Honours, WIMES and Political Science, 2018), for their recent article published on Mondoweiss, “Striking Parallels: US Bombings of Vietnam and Israel’s aerial assault on Gaza.”
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Ms. Iyanu Soyege on being selected as one of two Black Graduation Valedictorians. The Black Students Network (BSN) hosted its 2nd Black Graduation event on June 7th. Ms. Soyege will be graduating with a double major in Political Science and African Studies (Faculty of Arts) on June 11th.
Congratulations to Professors Shabani-Jadidi and Keshavmurthy
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Professors Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi and Prashant Keshavmurthy for the first complete English translation of Sohrab Sepehri's Eight Books which should be in print from Brill sometime this year in a bilingual facing-page edition.
The Eight Books: A Complete English Translation is the first complete translation of the collected poems of Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980), a major Iranian modernist poet and painter and yet under-translated into English. The introduction takes up Sepehri's famously difficult if languidly beautiful style to explain it as a series of appropriations of global modernisms in poetry and painting. It offers close readings of how Sepehri's modernism follows and breaks with the jagged rhythms of Nima Yushij (d.1960), Iran's inaugural modernist poet. In keeping with this modernist framing, the translations replicate Sepehri's rhymes where possible, his fluctuations between formal and colloquial registers, his syntactic distortions, and his embeddings of governmental and other jargons. It also includes Sepehri's autobiography.
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Mr. Shahrouz Khanjari on his successful PhD oral defense on May 28, 2021 entitled "Rašīd Waṭwāt’s Innovations in Arabic and Persian Rhetoric in His *Ḥadāʾiq al-Siḥr fī Daqāʾiq al-Šiʿr (Gardens of Magic in the Minutae of Poetry)*, a long-consequential but under-studied 12th century manual of Persian-Arabic rhetoric". Shahrouz's academic supervisor was Professor Prashant Keshavmurthy.
Congratulations to Dr. Fateme Savadi on her dissertation prize
Congratulations to IIS alumna Fateme Savadi (Ph.D. 2019), whose doctoral dissertation on Qutb al-Din Shirazi has been awarded a 2021 Dissertation Prize by the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (Division of History of Science and Technology).
Fateme is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the IIS.
Congratulations to Professor Keshavmurthy
Professor Prashant Keshavmurthy has begun a 4-month fellowship at the "Temporal Communities" research group in Berlin's Freie University. This research group aims "aims to create a new theoretical and methodological take on literature in a global perspective that moves beyond the categories of nation and period and conceives of literature instead as a transcultural and transtemporal phenomenon in deep time." Here is description of his research project: https://www.temporal-communities.de/fellows/keshavmurthy/index.html
Congratulations to incoming MA student Sherine Elbanhawy on her translation of Mohsen Mohamed’s poem, “On the Bursh After Dinner” from his collection No One is Answering.
The Language(s) of Heaven: Persianate Islam in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire
Talk by Aslihan Gurbuzel
Wednesday, April 28
5 PM (Turkish time) | 10 AM EST
Congratulations to Dr. Shabani-Jadidi on the publication of her latest translation
Hafez in Love: A Novel
Iraj Pezeshkzad
Translated from the Persian by Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi & Patricia J. Higgins
Syracuse University Press, Middle East Literature in Translation Series
Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez is in love. He is in love with a girl, with a city, and with Persian poetry. Despite his enmity with the new and dangerous city leader, the jealousy of his fellow court poets, and the competition for his beloved, Iran’s favorite poet remains unbothered. When his wit and charm are not enough to keep him safe in Shiraz, his friends conspire to keep him out of trouble. But their schemes are unsuccessful. Nothing will chase Hafez from this city of wine and roses.
In Pezeshkzad’s fictional account, Hafez’s life in fourteenth-century Shiraz is a mix of peril and humor. Set in a city that is at once beautiful and cutthroat, the novel includes a cast of historical figures to illuminate this elusive poet of the Persian literary tradition. Shabani-Jadidi and Higgins’s translation brings the beloved poetry of Hafez alive for an English audience and reacquaints readers with the comic wit and original storytelling of Pezeshkzad.
Congratulations to IIS alumnus Junaid Quadri (Ph.D. 2014)
Congratulations to IIS alumnus Junaid Quadri (Ph.D. 2014), whose revised doctoral dissertation on Muhammad Bakhit al-Muti‘i has just been published by Oxford University Press.
Junaid is currently Associate Professor of History and Director of Religious Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Walter Edward Young
Congratulations to Walter Edward Young, Research Assistant with the Institute of Islamic Studies, on his publication of his article “Dialectic in the religious sciences” in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Third Edition (advance online update 2021-6; print fascicle coming in November 2021).
Congratulations to Professor Michelle Hartman on the publication of her newest translation of Shahla Ujayli’s Summer with the Enemy.
Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arab Fiction, Summer with the Enemy is an expansive historical novel based in Raqqa, Syria, that travels throughout the region to Germany and beyond. The novel follows the lives of three generations of Syrian women and the people who fill their lives.
The expression “the faith of the old women of Nishapur” recurs in many Islamic theological and mystical writings that address questions of knowledge. The expression captures a specific modality of practicing Islam, though scholars vary widely in their interpretations: some dismiss the faith of the old women while others praise it as the ultimate form of religiosity. Through an intellectual exchange between philology, history, anthropology, literary and religious studies, the workshop addresses the limits and possibilities of the “faith of the old women of Nishapur.” We will discuss the relationship between gender and knowledge, the use of gendered tropes, the historical context in which the expression was formulated and the current relevance of the questions it raises, establishing resonances and frictions between eleventh century Nishapur and twenty-first century Montreal. Overcoming the divide between past and present, between textual and contextual readings, between philological exactitude and conceptual concerns, the workshop poses a set of fundamental questions about Islam, gender, embodiment, and tradition.
Panelists:
Rula Abisaab (Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University)
Sara Abdel-Latif (Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University)
Kausar Bukhari (Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University)
Katherine Lemons (Department of Anthropology, McGill University)
Setrag Manoukian (Department of Anthropology and Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University)
It is with regret that the Institute of Islamic Studies informs you of the passing of Mr. Andrew William Staples on March 14, 2021. Andrew was a past Administrative Officer in the Institute of Islamic Studies.
Andrew received his MA in Theology from Concordia University, and worked for the Faculty of Arts for 25 years, including serving in ISID, Interdisciplinary Studies, Institute of Islamic Studies and as the Faculty Affairs Officer for the Dean. We will miss him for his dedication, collegiality and kindness.
The Institute of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Arts extends its condolences to his family: Andras Molnar, his life partner and brothers James and Bruce (Ross) Staples in Ontario.
Congratulations to Professors Michelle Hartman and Malek Abisaab
Congratulations to Michelle Hartman and Malek Abisaab for their recently published book (in Arabic), Memoirs of a Militant: the Years in the Khiam Prison for Women, by Nawal Qasim Baidoun (Mudhakkarat al-Munadila: Nawal Qasim Baidoun fi Mu’taqal al-Khiyam). It was released by Dar Abaad in Beirut last month.
This book is part of their large SSHRC-funded Women’s War Stories: Building an Archive of Women and the Lebanese Civil War. Look out for the announcement of the English translation of this book, forthcoming from Interlink Publishing later in 2021!
Congratulations Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab, her novel Camera Obscura (fī ʿulbat al-ḍawʾ) has been selected to be a finalist for the Khayrallah Prize for Best Artistic Expression of the Lebanese Diaspora. Camera Obscura (fī ʿulbat al-ḍawʾ) appeared from Dar al-Adab in 2017, and is being translated by Maia Tabet.
Arabic Philology in Ottoman Istanbul: Practices of Textual Edition in a Manuscript Culture
Lecture by Prof. Aslıhan Gürbüzel as part of the Inaugural Michael Marmura Lecture in Arabic Studies
January 15, 2021, 3 PM EST
Hosted on Zoom Meeting ID: 8853 8832 3665
Aslıhan Gürbüzel is Assistant Professor of Ottoman History at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University. She is currently working on a monograph entitled “Taming the Messiah: Formation of an Ottoman Political Public Sphere, 1600-1700.” Her research focuses on Ottoman Sufi orders, particularly the Mawlawīs, and their contribution to the formation of early modern knowledge in diverse fields such as politics, philology, and medicine. This talk is a part of her research on the role of Sufi authorities in the circulation and textual criticism of manuscripts.
Online lecture series ReOrienting the Global Study of Religion Event
Dyala Hamzah, Université de Montréal
(De)commissioning Ibn Khaldun? Sufis, Statesmen and Publicists during the Long Nineteenth century
January 7, 2021, 1:30 PM EST (UTC -5)
Hosted on Zoom Meeting ID: 890 3358 7339 Passcode: 1234
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab on her Arabic-language novel “Fi ʿulbat al-ḍawʾ” [A Box of Light] being selected as a Semi-Finalistfor the 2020 Khayrallah Prize for Best Artistic Expression of the Lebanese Diaspora. The winner will be announced in January.
Rhodes Scholarships for Faculty of Arts students
The Institute of Islamics Studies would like to send a warm congratulations to Abdel Dicko, a U3 Joint Honours Political Science and African Studies student, and Ffion Hughes, a U4 Honours in History student, both have been named 2021 Rhodes Scholars. Please see link below by Neale McDevitt, Editor, McGill Reporter for more details.
The launch will begin with a conversation with the editor moderated by Anaïs Salamon, Head, Islamic Studies Library, McGill University, followed by a panel discussion featuring authors of selected chapters:
Persian Linguistics in Cultural Contexts - 1st Edition - Alireza Kora - Routledge & CRC Press
Korangy and Sharifian’s groundbreaking book offers the first in-depth study into cultural linguistics for the Persian language. The book highlights a multitude of angles through which the intricacies of Persian and its many dialects and accents, wherever spoken, can be examined.
WIMES Arabic Minor Student Ian Greer Wins in CMCC Essay Competition
Ian Greer, a double-major in PoliSci and Geography with an Arabic language minor, was one of seven international winners in the undergraduate essay competition held by the Centre for Muslim Contribution to Civilisation (CMCC) at the College of Islamic Studies (CIS) at Hamad Bin Khalif University. The subject of this year’s competition was ‘Muslim Intellectual Life in 2nd Century Hijri/8th Century CE Baghdad.’, and Ian entered his essay with the title “Zindīq Heresy and the Transmission of Hellenism in Barmakid Baghdad”.
Ian describes the work on his entry as a long but rewarding process that took months of work, and credits some students at the Institute of Islamic Studies for their contribution: “I really could not have done it without the valuable reading suggestions and academic writing tips of a number of current and former graduate students at the Institute, namely Osama Eshera, Brian Wright, Fariduddin Attar, and Zain Alattar, the last of whom loaned me a huge stack of books sitting on his carrel on the very last day of physical access to the Islamic Studies library before the Coronavirus shut everything down.”
The award Ian received for his work is USD 5,000. Congratulations, Ian, from everybody at the Institute of Islamic Studies!
Congratulations to Sajjad Nikfahm-Khubravan and Dr Fateme Savadi
Congratulations to IIS PhD student Sajjad Nikfahm-Khubravan and IIS Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Fateme Savadi (PhD 2019), on the publication of their critical edition of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s al-Risālah al-Muʿīniyyah, along with Ṭūsī’s supplementary Ḥall-i Mushkilāt-i Muʿīniyyah (Tehran: Miras-e Maktoob, 2020). The volume includes a preface by recently retired IIS professor F. Jamil Ragep.
Zoom Panel: 'Sociological and Pedagogical Aspects of Teaching Persian to Speakers of Other Languages'
The Persian Program at McGill University, represented by Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi, is inviting to a Zoom panel discussion on Sociological and Pedagogical Aspects of Teaching Persian to Speakers of Other Languages. Please consult the document for details and registration: Social and Pedagogical Aspects of Teaching Persian to Speakers of Other Languages
Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi at Webinar on Persian Pedagogy
Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi has been invited to co-organize a webinar and present a paper at a panel on Persian Pedagogy in University of North Carolina (UNC). The virtual panel discussion will take place on Thursday, October 15, 2020, 11 am - 1 pm EST. For information, please see here: Persian Pedagogy UNC.
Congratulations to Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Dr. Shabani-Jadidi on the publication of The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy of Persian. It offers a detailed overview of the field of Persian second language acquisition and pedagogy. The Handbook discusses its development and captures critical accounts of cutting edge research within the major subfields of Persian second language acquisition and pedagogy, as well as current debates and problems, and goes on to suggest productive lines of future research.
Congratulations to our Islamic Studies MA student Caline Nasrallah
McGill University’s Institute of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF) has awarded Institute of Islamic Studies MA student Caline Nasrallah for one of this year’s Friends Best Paper Prizes for her paper “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Shift between Two Worlds". Congratulations Caline on behalf of the IIS community!
Congratulations to Professor Aslihan Gürbüzel
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Prof. Gürbüzel who has received an Insight Development Grant from SSHRC for her new project, entitled “Medical Knowledge and Political Power: Sufism and the Making of Ottoman Medical Knowledge (1500-1800).” The project studies the involvement of Ottoman Sufi orders in the production and circulation of medical knowledge and in everyday provision of medical care. The broad aim of the project is to demonstrate the social significance and political nature of healthcare and medical knowledge in the pre-modern Ottoman context. This project aims to be the first study that underline the importance of healthcare as a source of authority for sub-state social networks in the Ottoman context in particular, and in Islamic societies in general.
Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Sajjad Nikfahm Khubravan
Congratulations to IIS PhD student Sajjad Nikfahm Khubravan, whose article "The Gnomonic Application of Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Linear Astrolabe" has just been published in the Iranian Journal for the History of Science (Tarikh-e Elm). It is available online via this link.
Congratulations to Professor Michelle Hartman
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Michelle Hartman on receiving the College Language Association’s Award for Creative Scholarship for 2020 for her book, Breaking Broken English: Black-Arab Literary Solidarities and the Politics of Language.
College Language Association, founded in 1937 by a group of Black scholars and educators, is an organization of college teachers of English and foreign languages which serves the academic, scholarly and professional interests of its members and the collegiate communities they represent.
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Professor Michelle Hartman
Congratulations to Michelle Hartman on the publication of her newest article, “Zahra’s Uncle, or Where are Men in Women’s War Stories?” which appeared in the winter 2020 edition of the Journal of Arabic Literature in a special issued dedicated to our late IIS colleague and professor, Dr Issa Boullata. It is part of the Women’s War Stories project with Prof. Malek Abisaab, and available open access on the JAL website:
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Dr. Veysel Şimşek on the publication of a volume of collected essays, which he co-edited as a Festschrift for Professor Virginia H. Aksan: Ottoman War and Peace: Studies in Honor of Virginia H. Aksan, edited by Frank Castiglione, Ethan Menchinger and Veysel Şimşek. The book was published by Brill (Leiden).
Quebec City mosque shooting: McGill remembers the victims, three years later
On January 29, members of the McGill and Montreal community gathered in the mezzanine of the Macdonald Engineering Building to honour the victims of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City (CCIQ) shooting. It marked the third anniversary of the tragic incident in which a lone gunman killed six men and injured numerous others following evening prayer at the mosque in the Sainte-Foy neighbourhood of Quebec City.
Full article by Neale McDevitt (Editor, McGill Reporter) please click here.
Congratulations to Mr. Muhammad Ahmad Munir
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Mr. Muhammad Ahmad Munir on his successful PhD oral defense on January 17th, 2020, entitled, “Development of Khul‘ law: Legal, judicial and interpretive trends in Pakistan”. Muhammad's academic supervisor was Professor Pasha M. Khan.
Congratulations to IIS MA student Caline Nasrallah
MA student Caline Nasrallah has been awarded a Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (Master’s) from the SSHRC for her studies at the IIS. Congratulations Caline!
Please join the Institute of Islamic Studies for a talk commemorating the 2017 Quebec mosque shooting:
ISLAMOPHOBIA AS RACISM A Critical Phenomenology of Muslim Women's Racialization
A talk by Alia Al-Saji, Associate Professor, Philosophy Department
Friday January 31, 2020
15h00
Morrice Hall - Room 017 (TNC Theatre)
3485 McTavish Street
Congratulations to Ms. Anne Farray, Administrative Officer - IIS
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Ms. Anne Farray on receiving her service award pin for 40 years of employment at McGill University. The pin was presented at the Dean of Arts Brunch - December 17, 2019.
Congratulations to Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi on the publication of her new book The Routledge Advanced Persian Course: Farsi Shirin Ast 3.
The Routledge Advanced Persian Course: Farsi Shirin Ast 3 aims to help students of higher-level proficiency continue elevating their proficiency level to achieve near-native level. Key features include:
Authentic texts on a variety of topics related to Iran’s history, geography, arts, literature, culture, religions, society, and people.
Each lesson includes a prominent poet and their most representative poem familiarizing students with the Persian literary canon, while indirectly learning the higher order registers used in the language of poetry.
Lessons end with a Persian proverb and the story behind it, so that students will not only master the language but also the culture of the language and reach a near-native level of linguistic and cultural proficiency. The proverbs and some of the classical poetry are written in the calligraphy form to make students get used to reading handwritten texts resembling calligraphy.
Audio files are provided so that learners who are studying on their own can have access to correct pronunciations.
This textbook continues the series from The Routledge Intermediate Course in Persian and is ideal for Advanced or B2-C1 level students of Persian.
Nathan is currently a postdoctoral researcher in Islamic philosophy at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland.
Congratulations to IIS alumnus Carl Sharif El-Tobgui (Ph.D. 2013)
Congratulations to IIS alumnus Carl Sharif El-Tobgui (Ph.D. 2013), whose revised doctoral dissertation on Ibn Taymiyya has just been published electronically by Brill. For more info: https://brill.com/view/title/55796 . Carl is currently Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, and Director of the Arabic Language Program, at Brandeis University, in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Ministry of Religious Affairs in Indonesia - visit to the Institute
Visitors from the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Indonesia (and graduates of the IIS!) meeting with Professors Malek Abisaab and Khalid Medani (Graduate Program Director) on December 3, 2019.
New Book by Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi and University of Oxford's Associate Professor Dominic Parviz Brookshaw on the publication of their new book The Routledge Introductory Persian Course.
Congratulations to Professor Jamil Ragep on his Turkish Academy of Sciences Prize
The Institute of Islamic Studies extends congratulations to Professor Jamil Rapep on his Turkish Academy of Sciences Prize in Social Sciences and Humanities. For more info on this prize please see here.
Conversations: African Studies, Black Studies, and Islamic Studies present:
A conversation on our shared past, present and future
Please enjoy photos of our recent event from the Islamic Studies 2019-2020 Speakers Series "A conversation on our shared past, present and future". Thank you to everyone who attended.
Congratulations to our PhD students
Congratulations to IIS PhD students Sajjad Nikfahm-Khubravan and Osama Eshera, whose jointly authored article, "The Five Arabic Revisions of Autolycus’ On the Moving Sphere (Proposition VII)" has just been published in the Iranian Journal for the History of Science (Tarikh-e Elm). It is available online via this link.
Congratulations to Mr. Hasan Umut
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Mr. Hasan Umut on his successful PhD oral defense on October 25th, 2019 entitled, "Theoretical Astronomy in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire:
ʿAlī al-Qūshjī’s Al-Risāla al-Fatḥiyya". Hasan's academic supervisor was Professor Jamil Ragep.
Image by Sarah Lessard.
Congratulations to Professor Pasha M. Khan
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Professor Pasha M. Khan, the Chair in Urdu Language & Culture, on his new book, The Broken Spell: Indian Storytellers and the Romance Genre in Persian and Urdu.
The Broken Spell tells the story of the rise and fall in popularity of “romances” (qissahs)—tales of wonder and magic told by storytellers at princely courts and in public spaces in
India from the sixteenth century to the twentieth. It points to the worldviews that lay beneath the popularity of Urdu and Persian qissahs, before Islamicate and Western colonial rationalist epistemologies came to prominence in India.
For more information from Wayne State University Press and to purchase please click here.
Conversations: African Studies, Black Studies, and Islamic Studies present:
Slaves, Generals, and Rulers: East Africans in India
This event is part of a lecture series titled "Conversations: African Studies, Black Studies, and Islamic Studies." The series is sponsored by the Institute of Islamic Studies, the History and Classical Studies, and the African Studies program. The cosponsor are the SSHRC Climate Change association, the Rathlyn Lecture Series on Disability Studies, the Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights at McGill, the Black Students' Network at McGill, and the African Studies Students Association
Join us for Professor Sylviane Diouf's lecture titled "Slaves, Generals, and Rulers: East Africans in India." Sylviane A. Diouf is an award-winning historian of the African Diaspora. She is Visiting Professor at Brown University's Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice and a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience Maison des Esclaves project on Goree Island, Senegal.
A social historian, Dr. Diouf focuses on uncovering essential stories and topics that were overlooked or negated, but which offer new insights into the African Diaspora. She has a special interest in the experience of the Africans deported, through the international slave trade, to the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds, including the particular experience of African Muslims.
Dr. Diouf is the author of Slavery’s Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons (NYU Press, 2014); and Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas
Tuesday October 22, 2019 at 4:30 p.m.
3485 McTavish Street
Morrice Hall - Room 017
Conversations: African Studies, Black Studies, and Islamic Studies
Black Madness :: Mad Blackness, The Lost Chapter
This event is the first in a series titled "Conversations: African Studies, Black Studies, and Islamic Studies." The series is sponsored by the Institute of Islamic Studies, the History and Classical Studies, and the African Studies program. The cosponsor are the SSHRC Climate Change association, the Rathlyn Lecture Series on Disability Studies, the Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights at McGill, the Black Students' Network at McGill, and the African Studies Students Association.
Join us for Professor Therí Picken's discussion of her latest book Black Madness :: Mad Blackness, The Lost Chapter wherein she rethinks the relationship between Blackness and disability, unsettling the common theorization that they are mutually constitutive. Pickens shows how Black speculative and science fiction authors such as Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, and Tananarive Due craft new worlds that reimagine the intersection of Blackness and madness. These creative writer-theorists formulate new parameters for thinking through Blackness and madness. Pickens considers Butler's Fledgling as an archive of Black madness that demonstrates how race and ability shape subjectivity while constructing the building blocks for antiracist and anti-ableist futures. She examines how Hopkinson's Midnight Robber theorizes mad Blackness and how Due's African Immortals series contests dominant definitions of the human. The theorizations of race and disability that emerge from these works, Pickens demonstrates, challenge the paradigms of subjectivity that white supremacy and ableism enforce, thereby pointing to the potential for new forms of radical politics.
** Professor Pickens' latest book will be available for sale at the event
Tuesday October 15, 2019 at 4:30 p.m.
3485 McTavish Street
Morrice Hall - Room 017
For more details click on Facebook event page here.
Photos from the Black Madness :: Mad Blackness, The Lost Chapter lecture on Oct. 15, 2019.
Congratulations to Professor Robert Wisnovsky on being awarded a grant by the John Templeton Foundation
Congratulations to Professor Robert Wisnovsky on being awarded a grant by the John Templeton Foundation. The three-year grant, totaling $307,510 (USD$233,159), will fund two postdoctoral researchers to assist Prof. Wisnovsky in preparing a new edition, English translation, and source-critical analysis of a major work of late post-classical Islamic philosophical theology: Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s Supercommentary on al-Dawānī’s Commentary on al-Ījī’s Creed.
Congratulations to Professor Michelle Hartman on her 2019 Honorable Mention - Teaching Modern Arabic Literature in Translation - Teaching Literature Book Award
Professor Michelle Hartman awarded an Insight Development Grant
Congratulations to Michelle Hartman on being awarded an Insight Development Grant as co-applicant with colleague and Principle Investigator, Professor Rosalind Hampton of OISE, University of Toronto. Their project is titled, “Coalition Building by and with Black Students at Canadian Universities from 1960-2000."
Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab second issue of Mitra
Congratulations to Professor Rula Jurdi (Abisaab) on the publication of the second issue of Mïtra. Rula Jurdi is a co-founder and co-editor of this multilingual literary and artistic electronic magazine, issued once a year. She is joined by Nadie Ltaif, George Bou-Hsab, Yasmine Hajj, and Yasmine Nachabe. Alia’ Kawalit was a main inspiration behind its formation. Here, please find the link to the first and second issues:
Congratulations to Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi, our Senior Lecturer of Persian Language and Linguistics, co-organized and gave a talk in the first American Association of Teachers of Persian (AATP) Professional Development Workshop at the University of Maryland and Georgetown University in August 5-7, 2019. Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi, who is the current President of the AATP (2018-2020) gave a talk on "Peer Correction and Learner Metacognitive Awareness Raising in Teaching Persian as a Second/Heritage Language."
Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab shortlisted for the Magpie Poetry Award
Congratulations to Rula Jurdi on her poem, “Oral,” being shortlisted for the Magpie Poetry Award, Pulp Literature Magazine
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Ms. Peiyu Yang on her successful PhD oral defense on August 8, 2019 entitled “Triangular translation: Interpreting Nahdawi literary production on China”. Her academic Supervisor was Professor Michelle Hartman.
Congratulations to Professor Michelle Hartman on her recent co-authored article (with Rosalind Hampton, University of Toronto) published in the Journal of Critical Race Inquiry, “Whose Values: Who’s Valued?: Race and Racialization in Quebec."
Demonstration against Quebec's Bill 21 on religious symbols - Monday, June 17, 2019 in front the Montreal office of Premier Francois Legault (McGill College Avenue & Sherbrooke Street)
Image by Demonstration against Bill 21.
Congratulations to our newest graduates!
We celebrated convocation 2019 with a lunch reception for staff, students, and their families at IIS following the ceremony on Monday, June 3.
A special congratulations to Arts Valedictorian Ommu-Kulsoom Abdul Rahman, who delivered a powerful and inspiring speech.
Congratulations to Professor Pasha M. Khan
The Institute of Islamic Studies extends its warmest congratulations to Professor Pasha M. Khan on his attainment of tenure and his promotion to the rank of Associate Professor.
Congratulations to our PhD student Sabeena Shaikh for winning a 2019 Graduate Student Teaching award! An excerpt from her citation from the Faculty of Arts:
Sabeena Shaikh has taught and is currently teaching two full-year levels of the Urdu-Hindi language course at the Institute of Islamic Studies. She has breathed life into the Urdu-Hindi language program through her learned, effective, and passionate teaching. The innovations she has introduced into these courses have made the learning of the language a cultural experience. She communicates her infectious enthusiasm for South Asian culture through her teaching methods.
The Institute of Islamic Studies is pleased to announce the 2019 Annual International Workers Day Lecture, hosted by Le Centre Culturel Lebanais, given by our Professor Khalid Medani and introduced by Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab.
This lecture was held on May 4, 2019. For more details on the lecture, please see poster here.
It is with regret that the Institute of Islamic Studies informs you of the passing of Professor Emeritus of Arabic Literature, Issa J Boullata Mark, on Wednesday May 1 2019, at the age of 90.
Professor Issa J Boullata was a quiet, hardworking professor whose dedication has educated generations of students in Arabic language and literature at McGill University. His prolific research and literary output has helped to put McGill on the map in the field of Islamic Studies. Throughout his career, Professor Boullata remained an inspiration to students and colleagues in the classroom and in his published work. We have lost a colleague who greatly enriched the life of our institution for many years.
The Institute of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Arts extends its condolences to his family, including his daughter Barbara, his three sons, Joseph, David, and Peter, his brother Kamal, sister Souad and sisters-in-law Therèse and Annette.
Thank you all to those who attended Michelle Hartman's book launch of Breaking Broken English: Black-Arab Literary Solidarities and the Politics of Language on Friday April 26, 2019 at Librarairie Eugélionne, it was a great success! For those of you who were unable to attend and would like to purchase the book, please click here.
Please join IIS Professor Michelle Hartman in a conversation about her new book, Breaking Broken English: Black-Arab Solidarities and the Politics of Language at its Montreal Launch. It is on Friday, April 26 from 18h00-20h00 at the Librarairie Eugélionne (across from Beaudry Metro station). Click here for more information.
Katherine Lemons - Book Launch
Please join IIS Associate Member, Professor Katherine Lemons at the launch of her new book:
Divorcing Traditions: Islamic Marriage Law and the Making of Indian Secularism
on April 30, 2019 at Paragraphe Bookstore, 16h30. For more details click here
Congratulations to Ms.Fateme Savadi
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Ms. Fateme Savadi on her successful PhD oral defense on April 9, 2019, entitled “The historical and cosmographical context of Hay'at al-ard with a focus on Qutb al-Din Shirazi's Nihayat al-Idrak". Photo of Dr. Savadi and Professor Rula Abisaab.
Congratulations Professor Michelle Hartman
Congratulations Professor Michelle Hartman, whose edited book Teaching Modern Arabic Literature in Translation, has been nominated for the 2019 Teaching Literature Book Award, a prize for outstanding scholarship on teaching literature at the undergraduate or graduate level. This nationally juried award, the only one of its kind, is overseen and conferred every other year by the faculty in the graduate programs in English and the Teaching of English at Idaho State University. Congratulations also to Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab who has a chapter in the book.
For information about the award, please click here.
Congratulations to Mr. Brian Wright
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Mr. Brian Wright on his successful PhD oral defense on April 2, 2019, entitled “Homicide and Islamic criminal law in 19th century Muslim jurisdictions”. His academic supervisor was Professor Pasha M. Khan.
Australianama: Narrating South Asian and Muslim Presence in Australasia in the Wake of the Christchurch Attacks
Please join us for an event comprising two talks by Dr. Samia Khatun, Associate Professor at the University Liberal Arts Bangladesh and author of the new book Australianama: The South Asian Odyssey in Australia; and Dr. Uzma Jamil, Visiting Scholar at the McGill Institute of Islamic Studies, and Fellow in Muslim Studies at the Chicago Theological Seminary. Drs Khatun and Jamil will speak about the long history of South Asians and Muslims in Australia and their relations with Aboriginal people, and about whiteness and violence in the nation.
These talks come in the aftermath of the attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which a white supremacist gunman from Australia murdered 50 Muslims and injured as many others. The Institute of Islamic Studies condemns these murderous attacks. We would like to express our sadness and offer our sincere condolences to the families and friends of the victims, and all others affected by it. We continue to stand in solidarity with Muslim communities worldwide and reaffirm our ongoing condemnation of Islamophobia in all of its forms.
Tuesday April 16, 2019
Morrice Hall - Room 017
3485 McTavish Street
2:45pm
Angelical Conjunctions: Crossroads of Medicine and Religion, 1200-1800
Angelical Conjunctions: The Intersection of Religion and Medicine 1200-1800 brings together twenty-five scholars who focus on the late medieval and early modern periods. The conference invites us to see the connection between religion and medicine not as an inconvenient deviance of past societies, let alone as a necessarily adversarial relationship, but as a key phenomenon that enlightens a given society’s conceptions of the mind and the body, and how the society negotiates these competing conceptions. The connection between medical and spiritual practices took many forms over the centuries, from the pious provision of health care (in person or through endowed charity), to the archetypal figure of the healing prophet. Yet despite decades of specialized research, a coherent and analytical history of the "angelical conjunction" itself remains elusive.
Taking an inter-cultural and long-term perspective, Angelical Conjunctions investigates how Islamic, Christian, and Jewish traditions interpreted, produced, and shaped medical knowledge. We aim to develop methodological and theoretical perspectives on the "angelical conjunction(s)" of these two spheres.
Keynote Event April 12th, 2019 - Prof. Lauren Kassell
‘Universal Medicine’: Lessons from Seventeenth Century England
McGill Department of Rare Books & Special Collections
McLennan Library Building 4th Floor - 3459 McTavish Street
Event Time: 5:00pm to 7:00pm
Congratulations to Professor Katherine Lemons
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates associate member Professor Katherine Lemons on her new book Divorcing Traditions: Islamic Marriage Law and the Making of Indian Secularism.
Divorcing Traditions:Islamic Marriage Law and the Making of Indian Secularism is an ethnography of Islamic legal expertise and practices in India, a secular state in which Muslims are a significant minority and where Islamic judgments are not legally binding. Katherine Lemons argues that an analysis of divorce in accordance with Islamic strictures is critical to the understand of Indian secularism.
"Katherine Lemons has written a powerful and compelling book that reshapes our understanding of secularism, Muslim law, and divorce in contemporary India." - RACHEL STUMAN, Bowdoin College
For more information from Cornell University Press and to purchase please click here.
Congratulations to Ms.Salua Fawzi
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Ms. Salua Fawzi on her successful PhD oral defense on March 13, 2019, entitled “Experiencing Islam in America: Muslim Students Associations". Her academic supervisor was Professor Setrag Manoukian.
Congratulations to Professor Michelle Hartman on the publication of her newest translation, All the Women Inside Me, Jana Elhassan's compelling first novel. The book is published by Interlink Publishing and is available here.
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Ms. Iyanu Soyege on being selected as one of two Black Graduation Valedictorians. The Black Students Network (BSN) hosted its 2nd Black Graduation event on June 7th. Ms. Soyege will be graduating with a double major in Political Science and African Studies (Faculty of Arts) on June 11th.
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Professors Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi and Prashant Keshavmurthy for the first complete English translation of Sohrab Sepehri's Eight Books which should be in print from Brill sometime this year in a bilingual facing-page edition. 
Congratulations to incoming MA student Sherine Elbanhawy on her translation of Mohsen Mohamed’s poem, “On the Bursh After Dinner” from his collection No One is Answering.
Congratulations to incoming MA student Sherine Elbanhawy on her translation of Mohsen Mohamed’s poem, “On the Bursh After Dinner” from his collection No One is Answering.
Hafez in Love: A Novel
Hafez in Love: A Novel
Congratulations to Professor Michelle Hartman on the publication of her newest translation of Shahla Ujayli’s Summer with the Enemy.
It is with regret that the Institute of Islamic Studies informs you of the passing of Mr. Andrew William Staples on March 14, 2021. Andrew was a past Administrative Officer in the Institute of Islamic Studies.
Congratulations to Michelle Hartman and Malek Abisaab for their recently published book (in Arabic), Memoirs of a Militant: the Years in the Khiam Prison for Women, by Nawal Qasim Baidoun (Mudhakkarat al-Munadila: Nawal Qasim Baidoun fi Mu’taqal al-Khiyam). It was released by Dar Abaad in Beirut last month.
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab, her novel Camera Obscura (fī ʿulbat al-ḍawʾ) has been selected to be a finalist for the Khayrallah Prize for Best Artistic Expression of the Lebanese Diaspora. Camera Obscura (fī ʿulbat al-ḍawʾ) appeared from Dar al-Adab in 2017, and is being translated by Maia Tabet. 
Aslıhan Gürbüzel is Assistant Professor of Ottoman History at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University. She is currently working on a monograph entitled “Taming the Messiah: Formation of an Ottoman Political Public Sphere, 1600-1700.” Her research focuses on Ottoman Sufi orders, particularly the Mawlawīs, and their contribution to the formation of early modern knowledge in diverse fields such as politics, philology, and medicine. This talk is a part of her research on the role of Sufi authorities in the circulation and textual criticism of manuscripts.
Please join us for the book launch of The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy of Persian (2020) edited by Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi, Senior Lecturer of Persian Language and Linguistics, McGill University.
Ian Greer, a double-major in PoliSci and Geography with an Arabic language minor, was one of seven international winners in the undergraduate essay competition held by the Centre for Muslim Contribution to Civilisation (CMCC) at the College of Islamic Studies (CIS) at Hamad Bin Khalif University. The subject of this year’s competition was ‘Muslim Intellectual Life in 2nd Century Hijri/8th Century CE Baghdad.’, and Ian entered his essay with the title “Zindīq Heresy and the Transmission of Hellenism in Barmakid Baghdad”.
Please see the 
GLOW Workshop Program for details and Zoom links for each session.
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Dr. Shabani-Jadidi on the publication of The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy of Persian. It offers a detailed overview of the field of Persian second language acquisition and pedagogy. The Handbook discusses its development and captures critical accounts of cutting edge research within the major subfields of Persian second language acquisition and pedagogy, as well as current debates and problems, and goes on to suggest productive lines of future research.
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Michelle Hartman on receiving the College Language Association’s Award for Creative Scholarship for 2020 for her book, Breaking Broken English: Black-Arab Literary Solidarities and the Politics of Language.
Congratulations to Michelle Hartman on the publication of her newest article, “Zahra’s Uncle, or Where are Men in Women’s War Stories?” which appeared in the winter 2020 edition of the Journal of Arabic Literature in a special issued dedicated to our late IIS colleague and professor, Dr Issa Boullata. It is part of the Women’s War Stories project with Prof. Malek Abisaab, and available open access on the JAL website:
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Dr. Veysel Şimşek on the publication of a volume of collected essays, which he co-edited as a Festschrift for Professor Virginia H. Aksan: Ottoman War and Peace: Studies in Honor of Virginia H. Aksan, edited by Frank Castiglione, Ethan Menchinger and Veysel Şimşek. The book was published by Brill (Leiden).
ISLAMOPHOBIA AS RACISM
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi and University of Oxford's Associate Professor Dominic Parviz Brookshaw on the publication of their new book The Routledge Introductory Persian Course.
Please enjoy photos of our recent event from the Islamic Studies 2019-2020 Speakers Series "A conversation on our shared past, present and future". Thank you to everyone who attended.
The Institute of Islamic Studies congratulates Professor Pasha M. Khan, the Chair in Urdu Language & Culture, on his new book, The Broken Spell: Indian Storytellers and the Romance Genre in Persian and Urdu.
This event is part of a lecture series titled "Conversations: African Studies, Black Studies, and Islamic Studies." The series is sponsored by the Institute of Islamic Studies, the History and Classical Studies, and the African Studies program. The cosponsor are the SSHRC Climate Change association, the Rathlyn Lecture Series on Disability Studies, the Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights at McGill, the Black Students' Network at McGill, and the African Studies Students Association
This event is the first in a series titled "Conversations: African Studies, Black Studies, and Islamic Studies." The series is sponsored by the Institute of Islamic Studies, the History and Classical Studies, and the African Studies program. The cosponsor are the SSHRC Climate Change association, the Rathlyn Lecture Series on Disability Studies, the Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights at McGill, the Black Students' Network at McGill, and the African Studies Students Association.
Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab second issue of Mitra
Congratulations to Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi, our Senior Lecturer of Persian Language and Linguistics, co-organized and gave a talk in the first American Association of Teachers of Persian (AATP) Professional Development Workshop at the University of Maryland and Georgetown University in August 5-7, 2019. Dr. Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi, who is the current President of the AATP (2018-2020) gave a talk on "Peer Correction and Learner Metacognitive Awareness Raising in Teaching Persian as a Second/Heritage Language."
Congratulations to Rula Jurdi on her poem, “Oral,” being shortlisted for the Magpie Poetry Award, Pulp Literature Magazine
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Ms. Peiyu Yang on her successful PhD oral defense on August 8, 2019 entitled “Triangular translation: Interpreting Nahdawi literary production on China”. Her academic Supervisor was Professor Michelle Hartman.
It is with regret that the Institute of Islamic Studies informs you of the passing of Professor Emeritus of Arabic Literature, Issa J Boullata Mark, on Wednesday May 1 2019, at the age of 90.
Please join IIS Professor Michelle Hartman in a conversation about her new book, Breaking Broken English: Black-Arab Solidarities and the Politics of Language at its Montreal Launch. It is on Friday, April 26 from 18h00-20h00 at the Librarairie Eugélionne (across from Beaudry Metro station). Click here for more information. 
Please join IIS Associate Member, Professor Katherine Lemons at the launch of her new book:
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Ms. Fateme Savadi on her successful PhD oral defense on April 9, 2019, entitled “The historical and cosmographical context of Hay'at al-ard with a focus on Qutb al-Din Shirazi's Nihayat al-Idrak". Photo of Dr. Savadi and Professor Rula Abisaab.
Congratulations Professor Michelle Hartman, whose edited book Teaching Modern Arabic Literature in Translation, has been nominated for the 2019 Teaching Literature Book Award, a prize for outstanding scholarship on teaching literature at the undergraduate or graduate level. This nationally juried award, the only one of its kind, is overseen and conferred every other year by the faculty in the graduate programs in English and the Teaching of English at Idaho State University. Congratulations also to Professor Rula Jurdi Abisaab who has a chapter in the book.
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Mr. Brian Wright on his successful PhD oral defense on April 2, 2019, entitled “Homicide and Islamic criminal law in 19th century Muslim jurisdictions”. His academic supervisor was Professor Pasha M. Khan.
Please join us for an event comprising two talks by Dr. Samia Khatun, Associate Professor at the University Liberal Arts Bangladesh and author of the new book Australianama: The South Asian Odyssey in Australia; and Dr. Uzma Jamil, Visiting Scholar at the McGill Institute of Islamic Studies, and Fellow in Muslim Studies at the Chicago Theological Seminary. Drs Khatun and Jamil will speak about the long history of South Asians and Muslims in Australia and their relations with Aboriginal people, and about whiteness and violence in the nation.
Angelical Conjunctions: The Intersection of Religion and Medicine 1200-1800 brings together twenty-five scholars who focus on the late medieval and early modern periods. The conference invites us to see the connection between religion and medicine not as an inconvenient deviance of past societies, let alone as a necessarily adversarial relationship, but as a key phenomenon that enlightens a given society’s conceptions of the mind and the body, and how the society negotiates these competing conceptions. The connection between medical and spiritual practices took many forms over the centuries, from the pious provision of health care (in person or through endowed charity), to the archetypal figure of the healing prophet. Yet despite decades of specialized research, a coherent and analytical history of the "angelical conjunction" itself remains elusive.
Divorcing Traditions: Islamic Marriage Law and the Making of Indian Secularism is an ethnography of Islamic legal expertise and practices in India, a secular state in which Muslims are a significant minority and where Islamic judgments are not legally binding. Katherine Lemons argues that an analysis of divorce in accordance with Islamic strictures is critical to the understand of Indian secularism.
The Institute of Islamic Studies would like to congratulate Ms. Salua Fawzi on her successful PhD oral defense on March 13, 2019, entitled “Experiencing Islam in America: Muslim Students Associations". Her academic supervisor was Professor Setrag Manoukian.