Author: CMESWeb

In partnership with Beau Beausoleil and Heather Hughes, Mona Damluji (Film and Media Studies) co-curated a virtual exhibition of The Shadow and Light Project that honors Iraqi academics killed in Iraq between 2003-2012. The exhibit is hosted by the UCSB Library and has just gone live: https://spotlight.library.ucsb.edu/starlight/shadow-and-light About the Exhibit The Shadow and Light project compiled by Beau Read More …

Continuing from CMES Affiliated Faculty News Part I, we celebrate and congratulate CMES affiliated faculty on their recent accomplishments. Ahmad Atif Ahmad (Professor, Religious Studies) published a series of articles on Harvard’s Islamic Law Blog titled “From Punishment to Restitution”: 1 2 3 4. Professor Ahmad also tackled the translation of a 15th century manuscript Read More …

CMES affiliated faculty have been busy in 2020. Here are a few highlights of their work. We will be highlighting more in part II! Peter Bloom (Chair, Film and Media Studies) co-convened a workshop at the Getty Research Institute entitled Narration and Perception in the Archive of Optical Mediation Workshop that was held Feb 20-21, Read More …

Professor Stephen Humphreys (History) has a new article out about adaptation to Muslim rule in a Syrian Orthodox community. The paper titled “Adapting to Muslim Rule: The Syrian Orthodox Community in Twelfth-Century Northern Syria and the Jazira” is available in the edited volume Syria in Crusader Times: conflict and Coexistence (Edinburgh Univ Press, 2020), pp. Read More …

Assistant Professor Laila Shereen Sakr (Film & Media Studies)  has had a busy and creative year. February to March, 2020, Laila’s solo exhibition at the American University of Cairo’s (AUC) Tahrir Cultural Center, Beit Um Amel /بيت ام امل X“, shared a virtual archive of “Pixelated self-portraits, digital archives of social media activity in the Read More …

Congratulations to Professor Paul Amar (Director of the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies, Professor of Global Studies) and the Orfalea Center for receiving $240,000 from the Ford Foundation and $175,000 from the Carnegie Corp. Read more about these grants and the projects they will fund HERE.

Professor Elliot Wolfson (Religious Studies) publishes several chapters and articles on Kabbalah (part of Jewish tradition that deals with the essence of God) in 2020. A few highlights are below. “Ṣimṣum, Lichtung, and the Leap of Bestowing Refusal: Kabbalistic and Heideggerian Metaontology in Dialogue.” In Tsimtsum and Modernity: Lurianic Heritage in Modern Philosophy and Theology, edited by A. Read More …

James White of the UCSB History Department successfully defended his PhD dissertation, Bows and Spears in Achaemenid Persia, on Friday, 28 August.  Combining Greek and Near Eastern textual, visual, and material evidence with insights from archaeological reconstruction of ancient military equipment, this dissertation makes a groundbreaking contribution to our understanding of warfare and culture in the Achaemenid Read More …

Admar Sabra (History) publishes Kitāb Dustūr al-gharāʾib wa-maʿdan al-raghāʾib and Related Texts with Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Publishers. This is the first publication of the official correspondence of the leading religious scholar and literary figure, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Abi al-Hasan al-Bakri al-Siddiqi al-Shafi‘i Sibt Al al-Hasan. It provides a window into the world of an influential Read More …

Dwight Reynolds (Religious Studies) has a book in press with Routledge/Taylor & Francis titled The Musical Heritage of al-Andalus that deals with music in medieval Iberia from the Muslim conquest in 711 CE to the final expulsion of the Moriscos (Muslims converted voluntarily or involuntarily to Christianity) in 1609-14. This volume documents the various cultural Read More …