Deadline for Submission: September 9, 2024

Panel Sponsor: Islamic Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Panel Co-Sponsor: International Law Section of the AALS

The Islamic Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), in co-sponsorship with the International Law Section, invites submission of paper abstracts for a panel entitled Islamic Law and Social Movements at the AALS annual meeting in San Francisco in January 2025.

The panel will explore the relationship and interconnections between Islamic law and social movements in the past, present, or future. Islamic law often provides contested terrain upon which debates about social and legal issues and advocacy for change are forged. Narratives, conceptions, arguments, debates, and practices of “Islamic law” have played and continue to play diverse roles within social movements in both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority contexts. The Section invites papers for this panel that examine the ways in which Islamic law is constructed, imagined, mobilized, and debated by or within social movements; the role of Islamic law and discourse on Islamic law in social movements; the ways in which grievances, rights, and demands are framed through Islamic law; the ways in which Islamic law is deployed or negotiated in movement lawyering or in legal strategy; and the relationship between Islamic law and community formation, identity formation, or mobilization. Papers from a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to legal studies, including law, sociology, anthropology, politics, and history, are welcomed. The Section particularly encourages submissions focused on the 2025 conference theme, “Courage in Action.”

Paper abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent to Dana Lee ([email protected]) no later than Monday, September 9, 2024. The Section welcomes submissions from academics at all levels: tenured, pre-tenure, non-tenure track, fellows, visiting assistant professors, adjunct professors, graduate students, etc. You do not need to be based at a law school to submit a paper proposal. Note that presenters will be expected to pay the membership and registration fees to attend AALS (www.aals.org).