Decolonising “Middle Eastern” Studies Conference, IAIS June 2022 - call for papers

The Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at University of Exeter is delighted to announce an upcoming conference on Decolonising "Middle East" Studies, to be convened in June.

In recent years, decolonisation has become a popular term in higher education in the UK, inspiring scholars and activists seeking to expose universities’ colonial and imperial legacies and promoting the transformation of knowledge production through decolonial research and pedagogy in universities.

Regarding the Middle East and North Africa, imperial imagination and colonial agendas in academic scholarship are undeniably visible. This conference invites scholars and activists working on themes related to, what is commonly labelled, the Middle East and North Africa to engage in an interdisciplinary conversation about decolonisation.

Early career researchers, doctoral students, established scholars and activists are encouraged to submit their papers as well as alternative mediums of research to the conference. Aligned with the IAIS’s research culture, the conference themes are interdisciplinary and potentially engage with the arts, culture, religion, languages, archaeology, anthropology, and politics. These themes can be interpreted in a variety of ways and are meant to cover a wide range of topics in the social sciences and humanities.

There will be a number of travel grants available for attendees, from outside of Exeter, to apply for after we have responded to submissions and confirmed attendance.

How to apply

Please submit a title, brief abstract (250-300 words), keywords, and a short biographical paragraph to Rebecca Howarth at rh769@exeter.ac.uk. Please include ‘Abstract – Decolonising’ in the email subject field.

Abstract submission deadline: 1st April. We aim to respond to submissions by mid-April.

The Organising Committee: Peyman Zinati, Rebecca Howarth, Emily Selove