The Muslim Materialities across the Indian Ocean World lecture series launches in September 2026! Stay tuned for an exciting line up of talks by scholars bringing new methods and approaches to the study of Muslim material cultures and arts from across the Indian Ocean World.
2026-2027 Schedule:
Fall:
- Thursday, September 17, 12–2pm: Peyvand Firouzeh
- Thursday, October 8, 1–4pm: Olly Akkerman and Zahir Bhalloo
- Thursday, November 5, 1–3pm: Samira Sheikh
- Thursday, December 3, 1–3pm: Jessica Rahardjo
Winter:
- TBA
Past Events:
2025-26
The lecture series was on pause for the 2025-2026 year.
2024-25
Oct. 17 - Murad Mumtaz Khan: "Squirrels in a Plane Tree? Mughal Painting and Islamic Ontology"
Jan. 16 - Timur Hammond: "Fluid Geographies: Water, Mediation and Infrastructure in an Istanbul Shrine"
Feb. 6 - Anya King: "Leaves from the Garden: The Place of Aromatics in Early Islamic Culture"
Feb. 27 - Seema Golestaneh: "Unknowing of Memory: Sufi Thought and Building Amnesia in Iran"
Mar. 20 - Anna Bigelow: "Material Encounters and the Aesthetics of Muslim Belonging"
2023-24
The theme for this year's Muslim Materialities Lecture Series (MMLS) is Community, Material Culture, and Memory. Speakers will explore this topic from diverse methodological and theoretical perspectives.
All events take place 4:30-6pm in-person at UTM, unless otherwise stated below.
Oct. 5 - Adam Bursi: Prophetic Pieces and Places: Relics and Sacred Spaces in Early Islam
Oct. 24 - co-sponsored with the Centre for South Asian Critical Humanities (CSACH) - Akbar Zaidi: Muslim Identity, the Partition of India and the Making of Pakistan
Nov. 2 - Shenila Khoja-Moolji: Culinary Placemaking: Cookbooks as an Artifact of Displaced Shia Ismaili Muslim Women’s Lives
Jan. 29 - Sana Chavoshian: Blood: Mothers and Martyrs of the Iran-Iraq War
Feb. 13 - Babak Rahimi: 'It is a long way from Kerbela to Cavalry': Matthew Arnold's Medievalist ta'ziyeh
Mar. 7 - Youshaa Patel: How to think about Muslim Difference: On Mimesis and Alterity in Islam
Mar. 14 - Teren Sevea: Saints, Relics and Fragments: Remembering Malay-Islamic Histories in Ruins
Mar. 21 - Frank J. Korom: Making Sense of Bawa
Mar. 28 - Mohammad Nabeel Jafri: The Māḥauls of Oratory: Urdu Shiʿi Khiṭābat in Contemporary Karachi