Conference: 18th Annual Duke-UNC Middle East and Islamic Studies Graduate Student Conference Call for Papers, Duke – UNC, February 20-21, 2020

What Does Race Have to Do with Religion?

Racialization and Worldwide Islam

The Islamicate Graduate Student Association invites papers for our 18th Annual Duke-UNC Conference, one of the longest running graduate student Middle East & Islamic Studies conferences in the U.S. This year’s conference, “What Does Race Have to Do with Religion? Racialization and Worldwide Islam” will be held online via a live video broadcasting platform on Saturday and Sunday, February 20-21, 2021. A comprehensive schedule will be provided prior to the conference.

Potential topics include, but are not limited, to the following:

• How do race, racial identity, and racialized experiences relate to Muslims’ experiences of their religion?
• Tracing the relationship between race and religion by tracking discourses, conceptions,
• In places like the US, how have historical (and ongoing) legacies of mapping Muslims legally, politically, and socially, such as the 1965 immigration code, impacted Muslims’ experiences of themselves and their identities?
• How is Islam itself racialized?
• How has the relationship between race and Islam changed over time and with the imposition of 20th-century “modernity”?
• How does the racialization of Islam and Muslims vary by place, nation, etc.?
• How can race and ethnicity studies be used to elucidate the lived experiences of Muslims?
• How are race and religion co-constituted?

We are seeking submissions from fields inclusive of, but not limited to: Religious Studies, Political Science, Sociology, History, Art History, Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Asian Studies, African American Studies, Geography, Women and Gender Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, American Studies, and African Studies. In addition to seeking submissions from graduate students, we are also inviting submissions from independent scholars, advocates, and people outside the academy.

For this year’s annual conference, we are also specifically pursuing artistic, poetic, photographic, or other forms of aesthetic submissions. We encourage artists of all kinds to submit on this topic. Please include a one page artist statement with your submission.

Please note that if you are accepted to attend this conference, you will be required to consent to being recorded. Given this conference is being broadcast on Zoom, we are planning on recording the conference and publishing it for interested viewers to watch after the live conference ends.

Submit a short bio and a maximum 500 word abstract to IGSAcouncil@gmail.com by Friday, November 15, 2020. Applicants will be notified of our decision no later than Monday, December 21, 2020. Accepted abstracts must submit their 10-20 page paper by Friday, January 10, 2021.