| Start: | Apr 25, '08 12:00a |
| Location: | Istanbul, Turkey |
INTERNATIONAL SUMMER ACADEMY
FOR DOCTORAL AND POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHERS
The Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim
Civilisations,
the Department of History of Bogazici University and the research
program 'Europe in the Middle East - the Middle East in Europe' of the
Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Fritz
Thyssen
Foundation and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in cooperation with
the
German 'Orient-Institute Istanbul', the Centre for Modern Oriental
Studies in Berlin, and the International Institute for the Study of
Islam in the Modern World (ISIM), Leiden invite applications for an
international Summer Academy on the theme:
LIVING TOGETHER:
PLURALITY AND COSMOPOLITANISM IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND BEYOND
The Summer Academy is scheduled for September 21 - 28, 2008 at the
Ottoman Bank Museum in Istanbul (www.obmuze.com). Twenty-four young
scholars will be given the opportunity to present and discuss their
current research on cities, pluralism and cosmopolitanism. Participants
receive a stipend to cover travel and accommodation. The Summer Academy
will be chaired by a group of scholars: Asef Bayat (ISIM), Edhem Eldem
(Bogazici University, Istanbul), Ulrike Freitag (Centre for Modern
Oriental Studies, Berlin), Nora Lafi (Centre for Modern Oriental
Studies, Berlin), and Stefan Weber (Aga Khan University Institute for
the Study of Muslim Civilisations, London).
In contemporary debates on societal pluralism the notion of
Cosmopolitanism has become the object of strong ideological
investments.
In its present form, cosmopolitanism is used both in a very loose
historical sense and as a normative concept to project a global and
better future. Critics claim that cosmopolitanism is a phenomenon that
unites and organizes along the lines of certain visions of history and
modernity that are rooted in colonial or quasi-colonial structures with
strong allegiances to western-European models or to the ways of life of
elites.
The Summer Academy intends to relate these debates on cosmopolitanism
and similar notions to the historical experiences of cities in the
Ottoman Empire, its successor and its neighbouring states - in the
Balkans, Anatolia, the Arab and Muslim World. How did people of
different cultural, ethnic, social and religious backgrounds live
together in these cities? How are such examples of conviviality,
conflict, migration, urban regimes of governance and stratification
imagined and conceptualized? How were plural social relations organized
and translated into space and material culture? To which degree were
social groups of different strata and regional settings part of a
'cosmos' of interacting, interconnected and competing ideas and
knowledge systems? What is the role of local agency? Social History,
and
questions of spatial organisation, local agencies and vernacular
modernities that emerge from scholarship on the cities of the Ottoman
Empire and adjunct regions may offer perspectives of a cosmopolitanism
"from below" that can contribute to contemporary debates and
conceptions
of the city, civil society, multicultural societies, migration, or
cosmopolitanism.
CONDITIONS OF APPLICATION
The Summer Academy invites applications of doctoral and postdoctoral
researchers in Art, Urban, Social and Cultural History, Sociology,
Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science. The researchers' work
should be clearly relevant to the theme of the Summer Academy. The
working language is English. The application should likewise be in
English and consist of
- a CURRICULUM VITAE,
- a FIVE-PAGE OUTLINE of the project the applicant is currently working
on, with a brief summary thereof,
- and the NAMES OF TWO UNIVERSITY FACULTY MEMBERS AS REFEREES (no
letters of recommendation required).
The application should be received no later than 25 APRIL 2008 and SENT
BY EMAIL as ONE PDF FILE or in ONE WORD document to:
Georges Khalil, Europe in the Middle East - The Middle East in Europe,
c/o Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Wallotstrasse 19, 14193 Berlin,
Germany
Email: KHALIL@WIKO-BERLIN.DE
The Summer Academy is supported within the overall framework of the
research program 'Europe in the Middle East - the Middle East in
Europe', which focuses on the diverse processes of transfer, exchange
and interaction between Europe and the Middle East, and is funded by
the
Fritz Thyssen Foundation and the Aga Khan University.
For further information on the Summer Academy and the research program
'Europe in the Middle East - the Middle East in Europe' please visit
www.eume-berlin.de; for information on the Institute for the Study of
Muslim Civilisations of the Aga Khan University please visit:
www.aku.edu/ISMC/
Georges Khalil
Europa im Nahen Osten - Der Nahe Osten in Europa
Europe in the Middle East - The Middle East in Europe
c/o Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
Institute for Advanced Study
Wallotstrasse 19, 14193 Berlin
Telefon +49 (0)30 89 001-258
Telefax +49 (0)30 89 001-200
khalil@wiko-berlin.de
http://www.eume-berlin.de http://www.wiko-berlin.de
