Date: Sept. 30 – Oct. 1, 2017

Venue: Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5324, USA

We are pleased to announce our first annual workshop, which will take place on the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, a convenient middle ground between Chicago, Bloomington, Columbus, and Ann Arbor. The workshop is intended to be friendly but rigorous; works in progress and/or graduate student submissions are strongly encouraged.

The Great Lakes Adiban is a newly-founded organization intended to provide a regional forum for scholars of Islamicate adab, particularly of the medieval and early modern periods. By Islamicate, we mean the literatures and literary practices cultivated in languages like Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Bengali and so on; other traditions that are not majority-Muslim but nevertheless participate in this general discourse include Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew, Spanish, and so on. By sponsoring panels at conferences and convening regular workshops, we hope to facilitate the exchange of ideas, give scholars a chance to critique and refine each other’s work, and foster a sense of community in the Great Lakes region.

Application, Format, and Logistics

If you have an article, book chapter, or other research you would like to present to your colleagues for discussion and critique, please fill out the application form (url below) by September 1st. We will let you know by September 8th whether your submission has been accepted. If you are able, we will ask you to send us a draft of your paper a week before the workshop for circulation.

The workshop will begin on the morning of September 30^th. Each speaker will have 20–30 minutes to present their research, followed by discussion until an hour and a half has passed. This will be repeated, with regular breaks in between for refreshments and conversation. Depending on the number of speakers we have, we may extend the program for a half-day on October 1^st.

Because this workshop is deliberately structured as a low-key, small-budget enterprise, we ask that participants plan to provide for their own travel and lodging. See the links below for suggested places to stay. Snacks and lunch will be provided during the workshop and one group dinner for conference participants. Depending on the availability of funding, we may be able to offer small stipends to graduate students to help offset at least part of their travel costs to the workshop.

Source: The Great Lakes Adiban Society