Previous guest lectures and seminars

2018

Why are the radical ideologies attractive in the Arab World? What about in Europe?

A seminar with Professor Mohammed Tozy, the University of Hassan II (Casablanca) and Sciences Po Aix (France).

A light lunch and coffee/tea will be served before the seminar from 11.45.

Time and place: Apr. 24, 2018 12:00 PM–1:00 PM, P. A. Munchs hus, seminarrom 1

Prof. Tozy conducted several surveys all around Mediterranean countries on the level of ethics and values the youth are raised in. Based on his conclusions, he investigates the social and religious background of the Arab-Muslim and nowadays European societies that allows an “average” man to transform into a cold blood murderer.

About Prof. Mohammed Tozy

Prof. Mohammed Tozy is one of the most well-known Moroccan intellectuals. He is Professor in Political Sciences and currently teaches at the University Hassan II (Casablanca) and at the Institute of Political Sciences of Aix-en-Provence (France). Prof. Tozy specializes in analyzing the relations between politics and Islam in the Arab World, and his approach intertwines anthrolopogy, sociology and political sciences in the long term. He participated in the Constitutional Reform Group that rewrote of the Moroccan Constitution that was voted in july 2011 during the "Arab Spring". His books include Monarchy and Islam in Morocco, Uses of Amazigh Identity in Morocco and Everyday Islam a Survey on Values and Religious Practices in Morocco.

Professor Tozy will also give a talk at Deichman on Wednesday April 25th, 17:30 at The Deichman Library.

Contact

If you have any questions concerning the seminar, please contact our CIMS coordinator, Alexandra H. Koritzinsky, either by email: a.h.koritzinsky@ikos.uio.no, or at: (+47) 957 21 103.

The seminar is primarily aimed at faculty and graduated students, but admission is open to all.

Organizer

Centre for Islamic and Middle East Studies


Climate Change and Sustainability within the Water, Food and Energy Security Nexus in the Middle East

A seminar with Dr. Nadim Farajalla, American University of Beirut.

Free admission and open to all.

Time and place: June 8, 2018 10:15 AM–12:00 PM, Eilert Sundts hus, Aud. 5

The talk will address in general terms climate change and its impact in the Middle East and the role of the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus mainly from a water-centric perspective. Sustainable development goals will be weaved into the discussion of the various aspects of the WEF nexus.

About Dr. Farajalla

Dr. Farajalla started out his academic studies in irrigation engineering attaining an MS from Utah State University in Logan, Utah, USA and then an MS and a PhD in environmental engineering from the University of Oklahoma, USA.  

Dr. Farajalla has worked extensively in the private sector in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Currently, he is director of the Climate Change and the Environment Program at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. His current research focuses on the impact of climate change on human settlements and activities, through extreme events of flooding and droughts; the nexus of water-energy-food and climate change with focus on adaptation and resilience; and recovery of devastated land due to anthropogenic activities such as wars, farming, quarrying, etc.

Contact

If you have any questions concerning the seminar, please contact our CIMS coordinator, Alexandra H. Koritzinsky, either by email: a.h.koritzinsky@ikos.uio.no, or at: (+47) 957 21 103.

Organizer

Centre for Islamic and Middle East Studies


2017

Politics in Morocco Today through Social Media Lenses

A seminar with Driss Ksikes, CESEM (research center of HEM Business School), Rabat.

Free admission and open to all. We especially encourage our bachelor students to attend this seminar.

Time and place: Oct. 19, 2017 1:00 PM–2:00 PM, Eilert Sundts hus, aud. 6

What does political life mean where the public sphere is rather virtual, and the political society weakly connected to public debate? What do rumors, attacks, quarrels and protests online say in such context ?

Driss Ksikes is a Moroccan playwright, novelist and essay writer, co-author of “Le métier d’intellectuel”, for which he has been awarded Grand Atlas Prize in 2015. Researcher in media and  culture, he is since 2007 managing Director of the CESEM (HEM’s research center) and editor of Economia, its main review journal.

Organizer

Centre for Islamic and Middle East Studies


Book Launch: Philologists in the World: A Festschrift in Honour of Gunvor Mejdell

A book launch seminar in honour of Professor Emeritus Gunvor Mejdell.

Time and place: Dec. 11, 2017 1:00 PM–5:00 PM, Stort Møterom (rom 2531), Georg Sverdrups hus

The anthology is dedicated to Professor of Arabic Language and Culture, Gunvor Mejdell, in acknowledgement of and gratitude for her service through more than four decades in the field of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies.

Coffee, tea and danishes will be served.

Programme

  • Celebratory speech: Bjørn Olav Utvik
  • Key note speech: Fantastic languages and how to learn them, with Kees Versteegh
  • Panel: The legacy of Gunvor Mejdell to the study of Arabic language and literature. A sociolinguistic approach to recent Egyptian literary production, with Teresa Pepe and Eva Marie Håland
  • Reflections on the future of philology, with Gunvor Mejdell
  • General discussion

Organizer

IKOS


2016

"The ISIS Apocalypse": A book launch seminar with Dr. Will McCants

Centre for Islamic and Middle East Studies (University of Oslo) and Consortium for Research on Terrorism and Transnational Crime (FFI, PHS and NUPI) have the pleasure to invite you to a book launch seminar with Dr. Will McCants, who will present his new book: "The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State" (2015).

Time and place: Mar. 16, 2016 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, Eilert Sundts hus, aud. 5. Blindern.

Dr. Will McCants will discuss the Islamic State’s history, tactics, and goals, and the many ways in which it is more ruthless, more apocalyptic, and more devoted to state-building than any of its predecessors or current competitors.

The Islamic State is one of the most lethal and successful jihadist groups in modern history, surpassing even al-Qaida. How has it attracted so many followers and conquered so much land in its relatively brief existence?

McCants's recently-published book is based almost entirely on primary sources in Arabic—including ancient religious texts and secret al-Qaida and Islamic State letters that few have seen—and explores how religious fervor, strategic calculation, and doomsday prophecy shaped the Islamic State's past and foreshadow its dark future. (http://www.amazon.com/The-ISIS-Apocalypse-Strategy-Doomsday/dp/1250080908).

About Dr. William McCants

Dr. William McCants is a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy and director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins University and has served in government and think tank positions related to Islam, the Middle East, and terrorism, including as State Department senior adviser for countering violent extremism. He is the author of "Founding Gods, Inventing Nations: Conquest and Culture Myths from Antiquity to Islam".

Dr.Will McCants’s bio (http://www.brookings.edu/experts/mccantsw).

Free admission. To register, send an email to Birgitte Abrahamsen: birgitab@student.ikos.uio.no, no later than Tuesday March 15 (12.00).

Organizer

Centre for Islamic and Middle East Studies (University of Oslo) and Consortium for Research on Terrorism and Transnational Crime


A lecture with Olivier Roy


Time and place: Mar. 31, 2016 12:15 PM–1:45 PM, Niels Treschows Hus. 12th floor: Conference Room

Organizer

Value Politics (Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages)


Upholding Humanity in a Post-Human World? Arabic Literature after "Arab Spring"

12th bi-annual meeting of the European Association for Modern Arabic Literature (EURAMAL).

Time and place: May 30, 2016–June 4, 2016. The conference will take place in Georg Sverdrups Hus, University of Oslo.


2015

The project "Tunisia in Transition" as a model for joint research projects

A seminar with Anis Ben Amor, Tunis / El-Manar.

Time and place: Feb. 11, 2015 2:00 PM–4:00 PM, NTH: Møte- og konferanserom HF-12

The German-Tunisian working group "Tunisia in Transition" serves as a sample of European engagement towards supporting transformation in Tunisia's higher education landscape. Focus is put on the field of social and political sciences, which may particularly accompany the process of transition in Tunisia. In his lecture Anis Ben Amor will introduce the working group, its aims, and activities. He will demonstrate how the project reflects the will and readiness to innovate and modernise research in the mentioned fields and contributes to the innovation of the academic sector in Tunisia.

The research project “Tunisia in Transition” analyses the transformation processes in Tunisia and the Arab world as well as the German and European policies towards North Africa and the Middle East. The project aims at establishing an interdisciplinary research group of young academics from both shores of the Mediterranean. Cooperation partners are two German Universities and several Tunisian partners. Supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), it provides a platform for collaborative research and offers academic training. It is a major goal of the programme to support the democratic reform process by strengthening research cooperation and scientific exchange through partnerships between German and Tunisian universities.

Ben Amor, who is one of the founders of the project, will introduce the work of the research group and share his experiences in international academic cooperation. The lecture will provide excellent network opportunities for any interested colleague.

Anis Ben Amor studied Literary and Cultural Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin and holds a PhD from the same University. During his PhD studies in Germany, he participated in seminars and projects of the Institute of Advanced Studies (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin). He is one of the founders of the German-Tunisian Research Group "Tunisia in Transition". Among his academic interests are Methodology in Humanities, Comparative Literature, German Society and Culture. Currently, he teaches at the University of Tunis-El Manar.

This is an open seminar, but please inform us if you want to attend. Send a mail to h.b.raken@ikos.uio.no . 

Welcome!

Organizer

The Centre for Islamic and Middle East Studies


The Modern Face of Ibadhism in Oman: 2015 and Beyond

A lunch-seminar with Dale F. Eickelman (Dartmouth College, USA)

Time and place: Feb. 26, 2015 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, P.A. Munchs hus, seminarrom 6 (1 etg./ground floor)

In Oman since the 1970s, mass higher education for women and men, the greater ease of travel, and more recently the proliferation of new communications media have profoundly influenced how Ibadhism is popularly understood and practiced. One major transformation has been an accelerated “objectification” of religious expression: Younger Omanis regard it important to articulate questions such as “What is my religion?” “Why is it important to my life?” and “How do my beliefs guide my conduct?” as part of  “taking charge” of their faith. At the same time, school textbooks and public statements treat religion with extreme circumspection. The emerging networks for communication and action produced by mass higher education, contemporary religious activism, and the heightened awareness of events in other countries offer insight into the continuing interplay of religion, politics, and national identity.

Dale F. Eickelman is Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of Anthropology and Human Relations at Dartmouth College. His publications include Knowledge and Power in Morocco (1985); Muslim Politics (co-authored with James Piscatori) (new edition, 2004), The Middle East and Central Asia: An Anthropological Approach (4th edition, 2002), and numerous articles and book chapters. A former President of the Middle East Studies Association, in 2011 he received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association. He is also Relationship Coordinator of the Dartmouth College—American University of Kuwait Program, and President of the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM).

As this is a lunch-seminar, please let us know if you wish to attend! Send an email to h.b.raken@ikos.uio.no

Organizer

The Centre for Islamic and Middle East Studies


Turkish Foreign Policy and the Transformation in the Middle East

On invitation by the Center of Islamic and Middle East Studies, The Ambassador of the Turkish Republic in Norway, H.E. Mr. Şafak Göktürk, is going to give a lecture on the subject

Time and place: May 6, 2015 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, Eilert Sunds hus, aud. 5

In the past twenty-five years, Turkey moved from flank country status to interregional centrality. Global dispersion of power also required Turkey to assume greater responsibilities in its wider neighbourhood and beyond. Sense of regional ownership gained strength.

The transformational process in the Arab world, which began in 2011, presents new horizons for the region and the world. Currently however, the countries of the region and the international community are being faced by a multitude of challenges resulting from the collapse of the century-old regional status quo. The dynamics of this painful process need to be analysed in the most realistic way, so that our short and longer term responses remain relevant to the constantly evolving situation.

The speaker will share his assessment on this process and tell how Turkey is responding.

Mr. Göktürk has been a Turkish ambassador to Norway since March 2014. He was Director General for Policy Planning before assuming his post in Oslo. He has also served as Ambassador in Singapore (2009-2011) and Egypt (2005-2009). Between 2002 and 2005 he was Deputy Director General for the Middle East. Mr. Göktürk has previously served as Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Consul General in Frankfurt, Deputy Chief of Mission in Tehran and also in Lagos and Athens. He is a graduate of Political Sciences from the University of Ankara.

Organizer

Senter for islam og midtøstenstudier


Libya, briefing from the field

This presentation will take stock in the current situation in Libya based on Dr. Virginie Collombier fieldwork conducted in 2015.

Time and place: May 12, 2015 12:15 PM–1:15 PM, Eilert Sundts hus, aud. 5

Libya entered a new spiral of violence in early 2015, with jihadist attacks claimed by the Islamic State succeeding one another and renewed armed confrontation between the country’s two main political-military coalitions.

The first 30 minutes are set aside for Dr. Virginie Collombier's presentation , and the last 30 minutes are for questions from the audience.

Dr. Virginie Collombier has been a research fellow at the European University Institute of Florence, Italy, since September 2013. She is responsible for DIRECTIONS, a research initiative on social and political change in post-Qaddafi Libya developed in partnership with NOREF. She has been conducting regular fieldwork in western Libya (Tripoli, Misrata and Bani Walid) since late 2012, with her most recent trip being in late January 2015.

Organizer

Centre for Islamic and Middle East Studies and Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF)

Tags: CIMS, IKOS, NOREF, Libya


"Whither the Islamic State (IS)?"

A seminar with two leading scholars on jihadism in the Middle East, Dr Nelly Lahoud and Mr. Kirk H. Sowell who will address the issue of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Time and place: June 10, 2015 1:30 PM–3:00 PM, Eilert Sundts hus, aud. 5

  • Nelly Lahoud: "The Evolution of the 'Islamic State'"
  • Kirk H. Sowell: "The Islamic State’s Eastern Frontier: Ramadi & Fallujah After the Fall"

The presentations will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Professor Brynjar Lia, University of Oslo.

About Dr. Nelly Lahoud

Dr. Nelly Lahoud is an Associate Professor at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, USA. She is the author of numerous articles, books and research reports on contemporary jihadism, including The Jihadis' Path to Self-Destruction. London: Hurst, 2010; Beware of Imitators: al-Qa'ida through the lens of its Confidential Secretary, CTC Report, 2012; and Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined? CTC Report, 2012. Her most recent publication is "The Group that Calls Itself a State: Understanding the Evolution and Challenges of the Islamic State", CTC, West Point, December 2014.

About Mr. Kirk H. Sowell

Mr. Kirk H. Sowell is a renowned expert on Iraq who runs the political risk and research consultancy Uticensis Risk Services and is also Editor-in-Chief of Inside Iraqi Politics. Sowell is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Cornell Law School, and has also studied at the University of Jordan in Amman. His most recent article is "Jordanian Salafism and the Jihad in Syria", Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, March 2015.

The seminar is free and open for all. Coffee and tea will be served. Welcome!

Organizers

Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies & The New Middle East: Emerging Political and Ideological Trends

Not in Oslo? On the New Middle East- blog (https://newmeast.wordpress.com/) you can watch previous seminars. Note, not all seminars will be videotaped!

Organizer

Centre for Islamic and Middle East Studies

Tags: "the Islamic State", Dr Nelly Lahoud, Mr. Kirk H. Sowell, CIMS


2013

The Making of Revolutionary Culture in Egypt

Lecture by Samia Mehrez, Professor at the American University of Cairo. The lecture will address the cultural and literary production during the "Arab spring".

The event is open to all interested!

Time and place: Aug. 29, 2013 12:15 PM, 12. etg. Niels Treschows hus,

Samia Mehrez obtained her BA and MA degrees at the American University in Cairo (AUC) and completed her PH.D. at UCLA where her dissertation focused on the works of the Egyptian writer Gamal al-Ghitani. She taught at Cornell University from 1984-1990 in the Department of Near Eastern Studies before she came to AUC where she currently teaches modern Arabic literature in Arabic and in Translation as well as courses on Translation Studies and Theory in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations.

She is the founding director of the Center for Translation Studies at AUC. She has published numerous articles in the fields of modern Arabic literature, postcolonial literature, translation studies, gender studies, and cultural studies. She is the author of Egyptian Writers between History and Fiction: Essays on Naguib Mahfouz, Sonallah Ibrahim and Gamal al-Ghitani, AUC Press, 1994 and 2005 and Egypt’s Culture Wars: Politics and Practice, Routledge 2008, AUC Press 2010. Her edited anthologies A Literary Atlas of Cairo: One hundred Years in the Life of the City and The Literary Life of Cairo: One Hundred Years in the Heart of the City in which she has translated numerous Egyptian writers are published by AUC Press 2010, 2011 and in Arabic at Dar Al-Shorouk, Cairo.

She is the editor of Translating Egypt’s Revolution: The Language of Tahrir, AUC Press 2012 and has recently completed the translation into English of Mona Prince’s memoir of Egypt’s January 2011 uprising entitled Ismi Thawra (Revolution is my name). She is currently working on a book-length manuscript tentatively entitled The Making of Revolutionary Culture in Egypt.


The Struggle for authority: Jihadi-Salafism in Saudi Arabia

A seminar with Saud al-Sahran, Senior Research Fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyad.

Time and place: May 3, 2013 10:15 AM–11:30 AM, Eilert Sundts hus Aud. 6

How are the Jihadi-Salafism's shaykhs trying to prove their legitimacy, and how does their attempts to challenge other "religious" authorities such as the King, the official 'ulama and the Sahwah leaders, play out?


Images of Resistance in the New Middle East

Center for Islamic and Middle East Studies at the University of Oslo, in cooperation with Arabian Film Days, invite you to a full-day seminar!

Time and place: Apr. 19, 2013 9:00 AM–3:00 PM, Eilert Sundts hus Aud. 6

The last two years, a lot of popular and scholarly attention has been directed at street protests in the Middle East. The goal has been to understand reasons and consequences of the uprisings.

In this seminar, we zoom out from Tahrir square and take a different approach to resistance in the Middle East. Street protest is but one of many ways the citizens of the region express their grievances.

The speakers at this conference will highlight other ways in which peoples of the Middle East are doing protest, not only to dictators, but to local politicians, social structures and even the west. We will hear about violent Islamism after the Arab Spring, gender struggles in the UAE, resistance in the Egyptian countryside after the revolution and the wish to restore the image of the Egyptian monarchy.

 
Program

  • 09:00 Registration and welcome
  • 09:15 Mahmoud Sabit, Egyptian historian and second cousin of King Farouq “Could the Egyptian Monarchy have Survived?”
  • 10:15 Coffee break
  • 10:30 Beverly Milton-Edwards, Professor of Politics at Queens University, Belfast
    “Wither Violent Islamism in the Wake of the Arab Spring?“
  • 11:30 Lunch break  
  • 12:30 Özge Calafato, documentarist and lecturer at Zeid University, UAE In search of Oil and Film: Social Change in the UAE
    The lecture will include screening of the two short films: The Gamboo3a Revolution (UAE 15min) and Forbidden Fruit (UAE, 9min)
  • 13:30 Coffee break
  • 13:45 Dr. Samuli Schielke, Research Fellow Zentrum Moderner Orient Berlin
    Mukhtar Saad Shehata, Novelist and filmmaker, Alexandria
    “The Secret Capitals: The Egyptian Countryside after the Revolution”
  • 14:30 Comment by Dr. Sindre Bangstad, post-doc. at Institute for Social Anthropology, University of Oslo (UiO)
  • 15:00 Closure

Organizer

Center for Islamic and Middle Est Studies at the University of Oslo and Arabian Film Days


"Zionist", "anti-Zionist", "Semitic", and "anti-Semitic" in Middle Eastern and Western discourse

A seminar with Prof. Lutz E. Edzard, University of Oslo.

Time and place: Mar. 15, 2013 11:30 AM–1:00 PM, Eilert Sundts hus Aud. 6

Just as political and cultural discourse in general, modern Middle Eastern discourse and Western discourse relating to the Middle East is at times characterized by a great deal of hostility, not only between different states or religious denominations, but also state-internally among various ethnic, political, or religious groups.

This paper focuses on the use of the attributes “Semitic” and “Zionist”, as well as their negative counterparts “anti-Semitic” and “anti-Zionist”, respectively, in examples of Arab and Israeli, and Western critical to hostile discourse. The focus of the discussion will lie on how the original meanings of these terms, especially in their negated forms, tend to be distorted in engaged political and cultural discourse.

Organizer

The New Middle East; Emerging Political and Ideological Trends and The Gulf Research Unit in cooperation with The Center for Islamic and Middle East Studies


The Middle East: Crimes in abundance — but no indigenous crime fiction? A new approach to an old question

Open seminar with professor Stephan Guth, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental languages.

Time and place: Feb. 15, 2013 11:15 AM–1:00 PM, A 6, Eilert Sundts hus

Until recently, there were almost no indigenous detective stories or thrillers in the Middle East (in spite of a large number of translations from Western languages). This lack — which is all the more striking as crimes certainly are not missing from the region — has often been explained as the result of an allegedly belated, if not completely missed, Enlightenment (‘no Enlightenment → no investigative spirit → no detectives’) or of widespread despotism (‘lack of freedom → fear of investigating the truth → no detectives’).

Focusing on the case of Arabic, the lecture will adjust some current misperceptions and approach the phenomenon from a different ankle. After a short historical introduction and an essay at sketching the contemporary crime fiction market, the paper proceeds to the analysis of a collection of fictionalized true criminal cases from Assad’s Syria, in order to suggest an alternative explanation that stresses the impact of the traditional concept of “literature” (adab) on the notion of Arabic crime fiction.

Organizer

Centre for Islamic and Middle East Studies


2012

Art of the Astrolabe

Open guest lecture by Heather Campbell, MA, The American University of Cairo.

Time and place: Nov. 9, 2012 11:15 AM–1:00 PM, 454 PAM

Comment by Amund Bjørsnøs, PhD fellow, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages.

Coffee/tea and snack will be served from 12.30.

Heather Campbell received her MA from The American University of Cairo in 2004. She is currently employed at the University of Oslo International Summer School.

Organizer

Center for Islamic and Middle East Studies


Realism and the Real: paradoxes of Islamic pluralist soteriology

Guest lecture by Tim Winter (Abdal Hakim Murad), Dean of the Cambridge Muslim College, UK

Time and place: Aug. 31, 2012 11:15 AM–1:00 PM, 454 PAM

The Cambridge Muslim College trains imams for British mosques, and Tim Winter has been teaching Islamic Studies at Cambridge University since 1997. He has published and contributed to numerous academic works on Islamic theology, as well as translated several classical Arabic texts. Additionally, he is a leading figure in inter-faith activity, notably as one of the signatories to the Common Word Statement.

The lecture will be an assessment, based on historical patterns and the logic of Islamic ways of naming God, of contemporary claims that Islamic theology is hospitable to religious pluralism, understood as the belief that other religions are valid expressions of the Ineffable, and are salvifically effective.

Organizer

Center for Islamic and Middle East Studies and Religion in Pluralist Societies (PluRel).


Hebrew, Arabic, and wider Semitic: past and present

A workshop presenting two scholars from University of Texas, Austin, doing research at IKOS, Karen Grumberg and Na'ama Pat-El.

Time and place: Aug. 24, 2012 2:00 PM–5:30 PM, 389 PAM

This workshop has three main goals:

  1. To present one Fulbright scholar (Karen Grumberg, UT Austin) and one Leif Eiriksson scholar (Na’ama Pat-El, UT Austin), who are currently doing research at IKOS, to a wider public.
  2. To underscore the importance of the ongoing scholarly cooperation between the University of Texas, Austin, and Oslo University.
  3. To underscore the fruitfulness of both a historical and a comparative perspective for the study of language and literature in Hebrew, Arabic, and other Semitic context.

Programme

  • 14:00 – 14:15: Introduction (Lutz Edzard)
  • 14:15 – 15:00: Karen Grumberg, UT Austin: “Modern Hebrew Literature in Comparative Context: the Case of Hebrew Gothic”
  • 15:00 – 15:45: Stephan Guth, Oslo: Authenticity as Counter-Strategy: “Gamāl al-Ghīṭānī's recourse to the Classical Arabic literary heritage”
  • 15:45 – 16:00: break and refreshments
  • 16:00 – 16:45: Na'ama Pat-El, UT Austin: “Digging up archaic features: Neo-Arabic and comparative Semitic in the quest for proto-Arabic”
  • 16:45 – 17:30: Lutz Edzard, Oslo: “mā 'aqra'u ? why is a comparative Semiticist perspective useful for understanding Arabic”

The Arab Spring and the Individual: Literary aspects from before and after the Revolution

Open seminar with Teresa Pepe & Stephan Guth, IKOS

Time and place: May 4, 2012 11:15 AM–1:00 PM, 454 PAM

How is the “Arab Spring” reflected in contemporary Arabic literature?

While Stephan Guth sheds some light on pre-2011 narratives many of which describe processes of individual maturation and tell stories of ruptures, Teresa Pepe presents a close reading of a post-2011 Egyptian literary blog as a means of self-exploration, self-expression and community (re-)building.

Organizer

Center for Islamic and Middle East Studies, IKOS


The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’ān

The case of the Hebrew and Judeo-Aramean loanwords will be presented by dr. Catherine Pennacchio, INALCO, Paris in an open guest lecture.

Time and place: Feb. 17, 2012 11:15 AM–1:00 PM, Room 454 PAM

Since the beginning of Islam, the foreign words of the Qur’ān have raised numerous investigations both in the Islamic tradition, and much later by Western scholars. The former placed them at the heart of the ideological debate around the Arab identity of the sacred text. The latter studied them in the framework of research on the influences of Judaism and Christianity on the origins of Islam.

The last study completed about Qur’ānic loanwords is Arthur Jeffery’s The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’ān (1938), which comprises all the previous works about this subject. Since then, the study of the Qur’ānic loanwords has only little advanced so that today, it needs to be updated. The progresses made in comparative linguistics and the discovery of thousands of inscriptions in the Arabian Peninsula invite us to reconsider Qur’ānic loanwords in their linguistic and historical contexts.

While lexical borrowings from Hebrew and Judeo-Aramean have been recognized since long, their study suffered, since the beginning of the 20th century, from an overestimation of the Syriac sources. Through a reevaluation of the loanwords in the light of all the materials now available – linguistics, epigraphy, history, lexicology, philology – it appears that while the Jewish neighborhood undeniably formed part of Islam’s early environment, many loans may in fact be common to the Semitic languages and that some of the Jewish terms and concepts were already known in Arabia, long before Islam.

Organizer

Center for Islamic and Middle East Studies


"Subordination in Biblical Hebrew"

Open guest lecture by Prof. Bo Isaksson, Uppsala University

Time and place: Jan. 27, 2012 3:15 PM–5:00 PM, 389 PAM

What is, in linguistic terms, a subordinate clause in a Semitic setting? How is a hypotactic relation marked in relation to the head clause? Such fundamental questions have never been answered in a satisfactory way by Semitic scholarship, in spite of the fact that ‘subordination’, or hypotaxis, is a core category in general linguistics.

Bo Isaksson is professor of Semitic Languages at the Dept. of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University.

Organizer

Department of Culture Studies and Oriental languages


3rd International Conference on Democracy as Idea and Practice


Time and place: Jan. 12, 2012–Jan. 13, 2012, Georg Sverdrups hus


2011

De-friending the Status-Quo: Translating Social Media onto Egypt's Streets

Guest lecture by Amro Ali

Time and place: Sep. 19, 2011 12:15 PM–2:00 PM, Aud. 6, Eilert Sundts hus

The presentation seeks to look at how and why social media plays an intricate role in the identities, imagery as an agent of change, and the socio-geographic elements of the Egyptian Revolution and subsequent developments.

The implications will require a redefining of social networks, and measuring the alignment of popular sentiments between urban centers in the wired world. Moreover, specialists will need to reframe their paradigms so as to be more accommodating of social media and its relationship to collective identities, shared grievances, and, ultimately, perceptions that provoke cascading effects.

Organizer

Center for Islamic and Middle East Studies, IKOS


Opening of Center for Islamic and Middle East Studies

We mark the occasion of the  the establishment of the Center for Islamic and Middle East at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages with an official opening of the centers new web page.

Time and place: June 14, 2011 10:00 AM–3:00 PM, 12th floor Niels Treschow building

Organizer

IKOS

 

Published May 13, 2022 10:26 AM - Last modified May 31, 2022 10:33 AM