Appel à communication : “Cartographies of Islam: Creating Location and The Places Beyond Meaning”, 11th Annual Duke-UNC Islamic Studies Graduate Student Conference, Université de Caroline du Nord (Etats-Unis), 15-16/02/2014 — LIMITE : 01/12/2013

The Duke-UNC Islamic Studies Graduate Student Organizing Committee is pleased to accept
abstracts for our eleventh annual conference on the “Cartographies of Islam.” From this theme,
we hope to examine various cartographical creations by and on Muslim populations, which render
social organization and behavior meaningful through a particular understanding of geographic
and cosmic space. In relation to meaningful work on Muslim networks of influence and
exchange, we are particularly interested in the role of social-spatial orders to situate thought and
experience. From the celestial to the political, maps provide orientation but also limits. As such,
we take a corollary interest in the peripheral to explore marked boundaries in Islamic thought and
Muslim societies as sites that bear both division and powerful forms of alterity.
We invite papers from a range of disciplines (anthropology, art and art history, design,
geography, history, law, literature, music, philosophy, political science, religious studies, and
sociology) that examine such questions within historical and contemporary Islamicate contexts.

Possible themes for papers include but are not limited to:

• Pre-Islamic figurations of space at work in Muslim majority contexts
• The Differing Wilayat of Sufis and Sultans
• Lost-Found Muslims in the Wilderness of the West
• Technology in the creation of digital sacred space
• Spatiality and Islamic Theological Authority
• Urban planning and architecture in Muslim imperial cities
• Arabic/Arab/Arabia as orientation point and the persistence of an Islamic homeland(s)
• Poetry, Music, and other Artforms as cosmological roadmaps to the divine
• Muslim theological perspectives on the environment

As a hallmark of the Duke-UNC Islamic Studies Conference, we will provide opportunity for
interactive, deliberative, and interdisciplinary engagement with scholarly work in progress by
gathering in an intimate workshop format. We expect that those invited to present papers will
remain present for the duration of the two-day conference in order to engage the other
participants in a true exchange of ideas. Lunch and refreshments will be provided on both days,
and a formal dinner will be held on Saturday night. Limited financial assistance to cover travel
expenses will be offered to those who demonstrate financial need.

Proposal Submission Requirements:
Please submit at minimum a 500-word abstract accompanied by a working bibliography and CV
to DUKEUNCconf@gmail.com by December 1, 2013. In addition, fill out this brief biographical
form at the time of your conference submission. Submissions that include a written paper are
highly preferred. Ph.D students in advanced stages of research and dissertation writing are especially encouraged to apply.