Hi friends! In case you missed the announcement, McGill will be hosting a lecture and discussion on “The Role of Media in the Arab Spring and its Aftermath: The Special Case of Egypt.” Further details here.
Sean
The Library is trialing OxResearch from today to Feb. 15 2013.
OxResearch database provides succinct analytical articles covering world and regional economic and political developments of major significance. It evaluates issues and events within a coherent political, social and economic framework. Additionally, it contains objective, multi-disciplinary articles compiled by an extensive international network of over 1,000 faculty members at Oxford and other leading universities around the world, as well as think-tanks and institutes of international standing.
You can access it using the following web address:
https://www.proquest.com/trials/trialSummary.action?view=subject&trialBean.token=WIAS7JQ5L1UZ38TPU49A
Try it and let us know what you think!
Hi friends!
We currently have a trial for Western Travellers in the Islamic World (Brill), a new online database. This database maintains: “Accounts of travel are a popular and accessible source for research on historical relations between “East” and “West” and are attractive for specialists and non-specialists alike. In the pre-modern period a large number of such accounts were published all over Europe, and almost without exception these volumes are now scarce and priceless. Some were republished later in modern editions (like those in the Hakluyt series), but these are often out of print at present.”
Subscription details:
Site address: http://www.primarysourcesonline.nl/c19/
Product: Western Travellers in the Islamic World Online
Subscription id: 22284
Start date: 14 Jan 2013
End date: 12 Feb 2013
Any and all feedback is welcomed and appreciated.
Sean
From www.hurriyetdailynews.com, January 09, 2013
Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry is shedding new light on the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic like never before by releasing restored films and images of national leaders that have never been published before.
“We are looking to collect all these images because we have seen that this is very important … for Turkey [as it will give a chance for us to] see our history,” Culture Ministry Cinema Director General Cem Erkul recently told Anatolia news agency about the ongoing restoration work.
Noting that the videos and images constituted the visual memory of Turkey and that they shed light on both political and cultural history, Erkul said the materials would be digitally catalogued and restored using cutting-edge technology and in such a way that they would be both protected for archival purposes and be open for research. The never-before-seen images include Ottoman Sultan Reşat welcoming the Austro-Hungarian emperor during a visit to Istanbul by the latter, Sultan Vahdeddin attending Sultan Abdülhamid II’s funeral, modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, addressing the Turkish Parliament in 1936, Atatürk welcoming Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi and Adnan Menderes, Turkey’s first democratically elected prime minister, visiting Athens’ Acropolis with a delegation in the 1950s.
The image of Menderes, who was executed by military authorities in 1961 following a coup the previous year, was cleaned only after great difficulty, according to officials.
The images and the films are kept in large books that protect them from light, heat and moisture, the ministry official said, adding that the entrance and exit to the facility housing the material was stringently controlled to ensure that no damage befalls the videos and pictures.
The collective memory
There are currently around 10,000 videos and images being kept in the archive, Erkul said, but added that new images and films would soon be added to the inventory.
Erkul said the archive acted as a repository for the nation’s collective memory as it had documented momentous events, such as the difficult 1980 military coup, while adding that the facility also contained motion pictures from other ministries.
The official also said authorities would work to ensure synchronization on the images in addition to the restoration, while adding that they images could only be played on special devices.
Ultimately, Erkul said his directorate would attempt to restore and archive as much material as possible, adding that there were many professionals to analyze the archive.
“The nitrate-based images cannot be refined as they should be. These are black and white, and they are very valuable for us to learn our history,” Erkul said.
The digital archive will be available for use at any time, he said.Apart from the films and documentaries, the ministry will also begin to archive documentary films that were seized and shelved in some government agencies after the 1980 coup, Erkul said..
Call for papers: Paradigmatic Conflict and Crisis: a Graduate Student Conference on the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa – Feb. 28 & Mar. 1, 2013 – Columbia University, New York
The concept of paradigm opens broad possibilities for the analysis of social and intellectual phenomena across diverse traditions and time periods. Paradigm is commonly but not exclusively viewed as a system of knowledge with a particular power structure, within which a set of beliefs or values plays a dominant and defining role. Studying paradigms may consist of analyzing major social transformations to reveal the paradigmatic tensions and crises underlying them, or employing paradigms as tools to clarify socio-political events. Furthermore, the very notion of paradigm can be contested and transformed.
The annual Graduate Student Conference at Columbia University’s Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) is soliciting papers exploring the debates, moments, and spaces in which paradigms undergo crisis and conflict, or challenge the dominant theoretical positions underpinning its very constitution. Papers can focus on any topic within the humanities and social sciences.
Papers may relate to but need not be bound by the following themes:
– Paradigm as Comparative Tool: How do paradigmatic elements within intellectual traditions allow for historical and cross-cultural comparative work?
– Conflict In and Across Paradigms: How is conflict dealt with in a paradigm?
– Paradigm Shifts: When and how do paradigms become outdated?
– Critical Theory as Anti-Paradigmatic: How can critical theory challenge established paradigms or paradigm shifts?
– Paradigmatic Technology: How does the adoption of a given technology challenge, strengthen, or influence the implementation or development of different paradigms?
Students interested in presenting a 20-minute paper should submit a 300-word abstract and one-page CV to the website by January 15th. Panel submissions are encouraged. Exceptional papers will be collected into a digital volume under the conference title.
For all inquiries, contact: info@mesaasgradconference.org
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28th Annual Middle East History and Theory Conference / University of Chicago, May 3-5, 2013
We are pleased to invite students and faculty to submit papers for the 28th Annual *Middle East History and Theory (MEHAT) Conference, to be held May 3-5, 2013, at the University of Chicago. We welcome a broad range of submissions from across the disciplines, including (but not limited to) anthropology, art history, cinema and media studies, economics, history, literature, philosophy, politics, religion, sociology, or any other topic concerning the Middle East from the advent of Islam to the present day.
Those wishing to participate should send a 250-word abstract to the conference organizers at mehat.chicago@gmail.com by February 15, 2013. We will accept both individual papers and prearranged themed panels; the latter is especially encouraged.
More information about the conference and submission process can be viewed on the Conference page: http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/mehat/conference/.
Hi everyone!
Our first orientation workshop of the year (Getting started) will be held tomorrow, Tuesday January 8, 2013 at 10 a.m., in the Octagon room. This will be the perfect occasion for us to answer any question you may have regarding the Library system, borrowing, or searching the catalogue, etc.
Feel free to drop by!
Hi friends!
Another successful year is descending upon us–we close today at 6pm and reopen on the 2nd of January, 2013. Many thanks for your visits and feedback! We wish you a Happy Holiday season and best wishes for the new year! To our Christian friends, Merry Christmas and to our Jewish friends, a belated, Happy Hanukkah.
See you in 2013!
Hi friends! Dr. Medani of the IIS has just published a comparative piece on Egypt’s current changes and challenges and those of the Sudan in 1989.
Hot tip of the day: If you wish to continue reading more about the Sudan and not sure where to begin, go to McGill’s WorldCat Local catalogue and type in SU: Sudan. The SU stands for Subject and will return all titles with Sudan as a subject heading.
Enjoy!
Hi friends! Over the Christmas break don’t forget to begin studying Baluchi! McGill has recently digitized the 1969 publication by IIS members Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker and Aquil Khan Mengal. Good luck!
http://www.library.mcgill.ca/hostedjournals/002201021.html.
Dirk Wintergruen, Robert Casties, Sally Ragep, Jamil Ragep (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science / McGill)
The Open Mind database of the Islamic Scientific Manuscript Initiative (ISMI)
Dec 13, 1pm, Arts 160
Traditional databases work well with structured data that can be organized into tables. But humanist scholars often deal with very unstructured information that is fluid and in need of flexible structures. The Open Mind database of the Islamic Scientific Manuscript Initiative (ISMI) was developed by humanist scholars and technical experts working jointly through a partnership between the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin and McGill’s Institute of Islamic Studies. The technical humanists and humanist technicians from both Institutes will discuss their experiences over almost a decade in developing the database and answer questions about how other projects can profit from the experiences made during the development of the project and how this open-source data structure might be re-used by other humanist scholars.