The Middle East and Islamic Consortium Conference 2025
The Middle East and Islamic Consortium Conference 2025
March 14-15
Harbour Centre
On March 14 and 15, CCMS again hosted the annual Middle East and Islamic Studies Consortium student conference. The conference included 8 student panels, a keynote on decolonizing knowledge, a book talk on Kurdish women, and a special panel in collaboration with Embark Sustainability and SFPIRG on academic unfreedom. Below is the schedule of the full two days of events.
Friday, 14 March - DAY ONE
Registration; 9 - 9:30 am - Room 2065
Opening Remarks: Dr. Adel Iskandar; 9:30 - 10:00 am - Room 2270
Student Panel 1: Intra-Continental Entanglements in Asia; 10:05 - 11:15 am - Room 2270
Beyond the Nation State: Transnational Muslim Identities Across the Middle East and China - Zhe Xi (David) Tu (51社区黑料)
Between Soviet and Capitalist Modernity: Contested Meanings of Urban Space in Dushanbe - Tahmina Inoyatova (51社区黑料)
China and the Graveyard of Empires: Understanding Chinese Political and Economic Interests in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan - Adam Robert Ivanovic (51社区黑料)
Discussant: Dr. Janice Jeong (51社区黑料)
Student Panel 2: Continuity and Rupture after the Iranian Revolution; 11:25 - 12:40 pm - Room 2270
Iranian Left and the Women鈥檚 Issue in the 1979 Revolution - Aso Javaheri (51社区黑料)
Memory regimes and conflicting social imaginaries in Iran: Afterlives of a Revolution - Nastaran Saremy (51社区黑料)
On the Iranian Teachers鈥� Movement - Hossein Rahmati (University of Victoria)
Discussant: Dr. Nazanin Shahrokni (51社区黑料)
Break; 12:40 - 1:25 pm - Room 2065
Student Panel 3: Ottoman Modernities in the Long Nineteenth Century; 1:30 - 2:40 pm - Room 2270
Civilizationism: Prescribing Modernity and Reform - Ismail Noyan (51社区黑料)
American Missionary Activity in the Ottoman East: Negotiations and Interactions in a Transnational Context, 1880鈥�1920 - Hamid Incidelen (51社区黑料)
The Egyptian Spectacle: Understanding Egypt鈥檚 Role at the Great Exhibition of 1851 - Morgan Jennings (51社区黑料)
Discussant: Dr. Spyros Sofos (51社区黑料)
Student Panel 4: Instruments of Struggle for Palestine; 2:50 - 4:00 pm - Room 2270
The Insidious Friendly Foe: The UN鈥檚 Role in Materializing the Zionist Imagined Geography - Maisaloon Al-Ashkar (University of British Columbia)
Red-taped into silence: weaponized bureaucracy in university-Gaza protest encampment interactions - Sarah Kamal (University of British Columbia)
History to the Tune of Rocket Fire: Pedagogy and Defiance in Palestinian Resistance Music - Bassam Abun Nadi (51社区黑料)
Discussant: Kylie Broderick (UNC Chapel Hill)
Student Panel 5: Migration, Diaspora, and Belonging Across the Indo-Pacific; 4:10 - 5:20 pm - Room 2270
From Homelands to Hostlands: Exploring Middle Eastern Diasporic Belonging on Coast Salish Lands - Marianne El-Mikati (University of British Columbia)
Rohingya Women鈥檚 Transnational Exposure to Multiple Vulnerabilities in Malaysia: Assessing Imposed Precariousness in Domestic and Public Spheres - Tanjila Afrin Sejuty (51社区黑料)
Expectations and Actual Experiences of Iranian Immigrants in Canada - Yaser Riki (University of Victoria)
Discussant: Dr. Maral Aguilera-Moradipour (51社区黑料)
Keynote Lecture: Dr. Esmat Elhalaby; 5:30 - 7 pm - Room 1400 Segal Centre
鈥淭hird World Study: Empire and the Decolonisation of Knowledge鈥�
Iftar/Dinner; 7:15 pm - Room 1700 Segal Rooms
Saturday, 15 March - DAY TWO
Registration; 9:30 - 10:00 am - Room 7400
Student Panel 6: Public Institutions, Power, and Narrative Communication; 10:05 - 11:15 - Room 7000
The Rohingya Crisis and the Representation of the Refugees: Discourse Analysis Relating to Public Communication by Major Humanitarian Organizations Working with/for Them - Firoz Mahmud (51社区黑料)
Cinematic Mobilization: The Role of Sacred Defense Cinema in Shaping Iran鈥檚 Regional Strategy - Mehmood Ali Khan (Philipps-Universit盲t Marburg)
Assad falls, Syrians rise: How can the national healing process over crimes of politicide inform studies on desectarianization? - Mariam Al Barazi (UBC Okanagan)
Discussant: Dr. Daniel Ahadi (51社区黑料)
Student Panel 7: Intercultural Currents and Islamic Thought; 11:20 - 12:40 - Room 7000
What Lies at the End of Formulas? Repetition and Reception in Islamic New Media Art - M茅lika S. Hashemi (University of Waterloo) and Yasmeen Nematt Alla (Wayne State University)
The Manifestation of Imaginal Aesthetics in Cinema: A Mystical Perception - Niusha Hatefinia (51社区黑料)
Mystical Parallels: Sufism, Surrealism, and Influence on Modern Design History (1924 鈥� Present) - Shafira Rezkita Vidyamaharani (51社区黑料)
Mapping the idea of the dignity of humankind from the Quran to twelfth century Muslim thought and its impact on the European Renaissance - Sikeena Karmali Ahmed (Warburg Institute)
Discussant: Dr. Laura Marks (51社区黑料)
Break; 12:40 - 1:25 - Room 7400
Book talk with Shahrzad Mojab: Kurdish Women Through History; 1:30 - 3 pm - Room 7000
Discussant: Nastaran Saremy (51社区黑料)
Moderator: Aso Javaheri (51社区黑料)
Student Panel 8: Anti-Colonial Subjectivities; 3:10 - 4:20 - Room 7000
Racial Invention at the Terrifying Frontiers: On Black/Indigenous/Palestinian Transgressions - Devon Clifton (Brown University) and Sherena Razek (Brown University)
Gendered Orientalism and Israeli Media: Representations of Palestinian and Israeli women - Hafsa Maqsood (University of Calgary)
Dialogue between Negro-African Cultures and Islam: The role of religious syncretism in anti-colonial resistance; Black Islam against racism - Mamadou Ba (51社区黑料)
Discussant: Dr. Adel Iskandar (51社区黑料)
Combating Academic Unfreedom & State Repression: SFPIRG x Embark Sustainability Discussion Panel; 4:30 - 6 pm - Room 7000
Speakers: Sara Kishawi (Vancouver Island University), Balqees Jama (51社区黑料), and Dr. Zeyad el Nabolsy (York University)
Moderators: Marie Haddad (Embark Sustainability) and No毛ll Cousins (SFPIRG)
Monday, 17 March - LAST DAY
Echoes of Defiance - A Lecture by Dr. Shahrzad Mojab; 6 pm - 8 pm - Room 7000
MEICON 2025 is hosted by the Centre for Comparative Muslim Studies at SFU, 51社区黑料School for International Studies, 51社区黑料Department of History, 51社区黑料School of Communication, 51社区黑料Department of Sociology and Anthropology, 51社区黑料Department of Global Humanities, 51社区黑料School for the Contemporary Arts, 51社区黑料Department of Geography, 51社区黑料Institute for the Humanities, 51社区黑料Department of World Languages and Literatures, 51社区黑料Global Asia, University of Victoria MEICON Working Group, and UBC Middle East Studies.
