[Appel à contribution] Seminar for Arabian Studies 2020 (Lim. 28 fév. 2020)

We are very pleased to announce that the 54th Seminar for Arabian Studies, organised by the International Association for the Study of Arabia (IASA), will take place in Casa Arabe, Cordoba, Spain, from 15th to 18th July 2020. More information on this fantastic venue can be found here.

If you wish to offer a paper, please send an abstract to seminar.arab@theiasa.com on or before the 28 February 2020 for consideration by the Steering Committee. The Seminar for Arabian Studies is an annual international conference for the presentation of the latest academic research on the archaeology, history, epigraphy, languages, literature, art, culture, ethnography, geography, geology and natural history of the Arabian Peninsula (and associated areas), from the earliest times to the present day or, in the case of political and social history, to the end of the Ottoman Empire (1922). Full details on how to submit your abstract are below.
 
This is the first time that the Seminar has been held in Spain and only the second time that it has been held outside the UK in 50 years. In addition to the regular three day Seminar several special and focus sessions are also being held, full details are below.

Special Sessions

We are pleased to announce that there will be two special held at the next Seminar for Arabian Studies and we welcome abstract submissions to these sessions. Please submit your abstract to seminar.arab@theiasa.com on or before the 28 February 2020 for consideration by the Steering Committee. Your abstract must include all the details listed below in the call for papers. 
 
Special Session 1: Intellectual links: language, law, theology and culture in Jazirat al-‘Arab and Jazirat al-Andalus.
As in other regions of the Islamic world, in al-Andalus Arabia had an important presence in the writings of its scholars and the imaginaire of its inhabitants. The process of Arabization, the spread of the Maliki legal school with its origins in Medinan legal practice, the literary and historical memory of pre-Islamic Arabia, and the interest for its geography and history against the background of the hajj practices are some of the aspects that have been explored although there is still room for new approaches and perspectives. In this Special Session we invite
We are pleased to announce that there will be two special held at the next Seminar for Arabian Studies and we welcome abstract submissions to these sessions. Please submit your abstract to seminar.arab@theiasa.com on or before the 28 February 2020 for consideration by the Steering Committee. Your abstract must include all the details listed below in the call for papers. 


Special Session 2: Comparison of cultural environmental adaptations in the Arabian and Iberian peninsulas.
In this session we aim at discussing diversity in human adaptations to arid environments in the Arabian and Iberian Peninsula. These two peninsulas are both large land masses with a range of geographies and with rich cultural histories. Although they came closely into contact only from the Islamic period onwards they shared similarities in climate, land, and connectivity long before that. This session is intended to allow scholars to present on behavioural strategies developed to cope with the specifics of arid landscapes in both Arabia and Iberia from the early prehistory to modern times. There is particular interest in settlement dynamics, subsistence strategies as well as water control and management from an archaeological point of view, but contributions from other perspectives are also welcome.

Focus Session

Revealing cultural landscapes in northwest Arabia: new archaeological explorations in Al-Ula
 
Best known for Saudi Arabia’s first inscribed World Heritage Site, Hegra, this Nabataean sister city of Petra is the only extensively studied and contextualised archaeological site in AlUla County (northwest Saudi Arabia). Since 2018, an international team of more than 30 surveyors and specialists led by Oxford Archaeology in the core area and University of Western Australia in the hinterland, with inputs from King Saud University, has developed a survey of the area and has thus far identified more than 19,000 sites. The largest number of sites are funerary, agro-pastoral and rock art/inscriptions, generating essential information on the nature of and changes in AlUla’s past cultural landscapes, particularly in late prehistory. Targeted excavations are enhancing the understanding of chronology and function of major site types, in some cases with surprising results. Evidences range from Palaeolithic activity areas to Neolithic ritual practices at 7200 cal BP to Muslim pilgrimage sub routes.

Call for Papers

Abstracts for main Seminar or the special sessions should include what the proposed paper intends to cover, an outline of the approach it will take and an indication of the significance of the topic. Abstracts can include up to three relevant bibliographical references. All abstracts must also include 1) the title of the proposed paper; 2) name(s) and affiliation(s) of the contributor(s); 3) five keywords. Abstracts are limited to 200 words maximum (not including bibliographic references) and abstracts that are significantly over the word limit may rejected. Please submit your abstracts as Word documents only.
 
Presentations are limited to 20 minutes, with an additional 5 minutes for discussion. Due to programme time constraints, and the ever-increasing number of abstracts received, there is no guarantee that all papers will be accepted. The Steering Committee will select those abstracts that are most scholarly, with a focused statement of thesis or importance, clear aims and methodology, well-organised research data, specified sources, and coherent conclusions. As in previous years, the Committee will normally only accept one abstract from any given project.
 
Only those papers that are actually presented at the Seminar will be considered for publication in the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, and they will be subject to editorial and peer review.
 
Focus Session Proposals
The Committee is happy to consider possible Focus Session Proposals. A Focus Session Proposal must include a minimum of four papers and have a clear scholarly focus with the explicit purpose to promote discussion and debate on work currently in progress, the current state of scholarship, issues involved in the application of new approaches and models, etc. A proposal for a Focus Session should include a summary of up to 200 words outlining the purpose of the Session, along with abstracts formatted as outlined above for individual abstracts. The Committee will still consider each focus session abstract individually. A Focus Session chair may be nominated by the proposer but a final decision on this will remain with the Committee.
 
Posters
The Seminar is very happy to receive submissions for the presentation of research posters. All posters presented at the Seminar must have an abstract approved in advance by the Committee; other posters will not be accepted. The deadline for the submission of poster abstracts is the 31 April 2020. A poster abstract submission form and guidelines are on the Seminar’s website. Posters will no longer be published as short papers in PSAS. For further information please see:  https://www.theiasa.com/seminar/ and contact seminar.arab@theiasa.com

The next Seminar for Arabian Studies will be held at Casa Árabe Córdoba from Wednesday 15th to Saturday 18th July 2020.

Enki Baptiste

Postdoctorant en histoire médiévale et en islamologie (Université Lumière Lyon 2 - CIHAM UMR 5648), chercheur associé au CEFREPA USR 3141

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