March 2026

Islamic Law Speakers Series: Ihsan Yilmaz (Deakin University), “Sharia as Informal Law: Lived Experiences of Young Muslims in Western Societies,” March 10, 2026 @ 12:30pm

March 10 @ 12:30 - 13:30

On Tuesday, March 10, 2026, at 12:30-1:30PM US EST, Professor Yilmaz will be speaking on his book Sharia as Informal Law: Lived Experiences of Young Muslims in Western Societies. This book takes a comprehensive approach to investigate how Sharia influences and manifests in the everyday lives of young Muslims, aiming to unravel the meaning and …

Conference: Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America, Amherst, MA, March 19–21, 2026

March 19 - March 21

Registration is now open for the 101st Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America. The Meeting will take place on March 19–21, 2026 on the campuses of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Amherst College, and will also include events at Mt. Holyoke College and Smith College. Hosted by the Five College Consortium, the …

April 2026

Workshop: Arabic TEI (Textual Encoding Initiative), April 2–3, 2026

April 2 - April 3

Join us for a two-day Arabic digital humanities workshop to learn TEI (Textual Encoding Initiative) mark-up of Arabic-script texts for critical digital editions. Hugh Cayless (TEI treasurer, senior programmer Duke University Libraries) and Adam Mestyan (Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, NELC) will teach the sessions. The workshop will feature an evening talk by Sabine Schmidtke (IAS …

Islamic Law Speaker Series: Sherman Jackson (University of Southern California), “The Islamic Secular,” April 7, 2026 @ 12:30pm

April 7 @ 12:30 - 13:30

On Tuesday, April 7, 2026, at 12:30-1:30PM US EST, Professor Sherman Jackson will be speaking on his book, The Islamic Secular. The basic point of the secular in the modern West is to “liberate” certain pursuits—the state, the economy, science—from the authority of religion. This is also assumed to be the goal and meaning of …

Conference: Humanities of AI—Intelligence and Imitation: Mind, Mechanism, Mimesis, Johns Hopkins University, April 24-26, 2026

April 24 - April 26

Intelligence and Imitation: Mind, Mechanism, Mimesis Inaugural Humanities of AI Workshop Johns Hopkins University, April 24-26, 2026 As a creative aspiration, the Greek notion of mimesis (“imitation”) manifested not only in artistic works imitating reality and philosophical speculations but also in scientific theories and mechanical artifacts. Plato and Aristotle’s nous as a non-bodily principle of …

Conference: American Society for Premodern Asia Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, April 24–27, 2026

April 24 - April 27

From the organizers: The 236th Meeting of the American Society for Premodern Asia will be held Friday, April 24, 2026 through Monday, April 27, 2026, in Los Angeles, CA USA. Hotel and Reservations: A block of conference-rate accommodations has been reserved at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel at California Plaza, 251 South Olive Street, Los …

May 2026

Conference: 40th Annual Middle East History and Theory Conference (MEHAT), University of Chicago, May 1–2, 2026

May 1 - May 2

The 40th Annual Middle East History and Theory Conference (MEHAT) at The University of Chicago will take place on May 1-2, 2026. About the Conference. Since its inception four decades ago, the annual Middle East History and Theory Conference at the University of Chicago has earned a reputation as one of the premier academic gatherings in …