15th Annual Duke-UNC Middle East and Islamic Studies Graduate Student Conference

Please submit at minimum a 250-300-word abstract accompanied by a working bibliography and CV to DukeUNCConf@gmail.com by December 1, 2017. 

About the Conference

Conference will be held 9-10 February, 2018, in Durham, North Carolina.

The Duke-UNC Middle East and Islamic Studies Graduate Student Organizing Committee is pleased to accept abstracts for our fifteenth annual conference.

Geography and territoriality are not only the subjects of ongoing contestation, but also compelling paradigms to engage with broader interrelated questions pertaining to the modern makeup of the Middle East. This conference seeks to spark a discussion on the myriad of ways the themes of map, territory, and boundary open up new possibilities of insight in the contexts of the Middle East, Muslim communities, and their connected geographies. We welcome papers that address the themes of map, territory, and boundary in creative ways dealing with topics such as social economy, the body, religious practice, intersectionality, ideological shifts, material culture, and artistic practice i n addition to those that are more closely focused on questions surrounding statehood, the nation-state, geography, and migration. Papers attuned to both the historical and the contemporary are welcome.

Through this conference, we aim to offer a platform for interdisciplinary conversation and contribution and therefore encourage submission from students across a variety of fields such as Political Science, History, Religious Studies, Musicology, Literature, Art History, Architecture and Urban Design, Economics, Anthropology, and Sociology. Paper topics may include but are not limited to

• (Trans)national networks
• Mapping open boundaries and closed alliances
• Connected histories and disconnected territories
• Boundary/border transgression
• Refugees, migration, and emerging identities
• Discursive boundaries
• Postcoloniality
• Spatial reimaginings

As a hallmark of past Duke-UNC Middle East and Islamic Studies conferences, we will provide opportunity for interactive, deliberative, and interdisciplinary engagement with scholarly work by gathering in a collaborative and constructive format.

As an added incentive for committed and serious proposals, we intend to provide each participant with 15 minutes to present their paper with a 30 minute concluding session for questions and comments for the full panel. We will pre-circulate full papers and expect all participants to arrive prepared to discuss their own work and engage their fellow participants in substantial depth.

As a forum for substantive, interdisciplinary interaction, we look forward to the contributions of those invited to present to the various panels over the two-day conference. Lunch and refreshments will be provided on both days, and a dinner will be held on Friday night. Partial travel reimbursements will be available.

Please submit at minimum a 250-300-word abstract accompanied by a working bibliography and CV to DukeUNCConf@gmail.com by December 1, 2017. In addition, fill out this brief biographical form at the time of your conference submission. Submission of a full paper (20 pages maximum) will be required upon acceptance for participation in the conference. Ph.D. students in advanced stages of research and dissertation writing are especially encouraged to apply.