None of these issues is confined to Islamic studies. Exploring them allows us to make Islamic studies more central to the main currents of social thought. The seminar aims at encouraging participants to frame their projects to address issues in their immediate field and at the same time engage wider issues of method and concepts in history, cultural studies, and the social sciences. Regular attendance and active participation is expected. English is the main working language of the seminar.
Participants receive a stipend covering travel and accommodation expenses.
Divergent historical trajectories have meant that each region may have distinctive practices, discourses, and infrastructures. Accelerated rates of urbanization, expanded educational opportunities, and increased use of new media contribute significantly to altering the production of Islamic knowledge. Diasporic communities in the West as well as in predominantly Muslim countries, add to the complexity of the interplay between local and transnational contexts in which Islamic knowledge is produced. The programme addresses doctoral and postdoctoral researchers in Islamic as well as relevant area studies, history, anthropology, law and social sciences. The researchers' work should be clearly relevant to the theme as described above.