Postcolonialism and Islam are two terms that frequently appear in tandem; however, the relationship between the two and the question of their compatibility has never been extensively investigated.  The speed and intensity of changes characteristic of late modernity under the pressure of cultural and economic globalisation has traumatised Muslims and non- Muslims alike.  Hybrid identity formations, very often provisional, are generated in the articulation of differences marked by imaginary relations to faith, nation, class, gender, sexuality and language.  Postcolonialism might seem to provide a framework for approaching the experiences of not only formerly colonised subjects, but emigres, exiles and expatriates and their host societies.  However, Muslim writers and intellectuals have both adopted and rejected postcolonial theory as an effective tool for analysing and accounting for the experience of Muslims in the modern world.

This conference seeks to explore these questions by problematising the terms themselves and their juxtaposition.

Conference Programme

Friday, 16 April

9:15 – 9:45 – Registration/Coffee & Tea in the Prospect Building

9:45-10:00 – Welcome address by Professor Gary Holmes, Dean of the Faculty of Education & Society, in the Sir Tom Cowie Lecture Theatre, Prospect Building

10:00 – 11:00 – Keynote – Prof. Patrick Williams (Nottingham Trent University): ‘Postcolonialism & Orientalism’ in the Sir Tom Cowie Lecture Theatre, Prospect Building

Chair: Dr. Geoff Nash

11:00 – 12:30 – Parallel Sessions: ‘Islam in Postcolonial Settings’ and ‘Islamic Studies & Politics’

‘Islam in Postcolonial Settings’ in Prospect Building 007

Chair: Prof. Patrick Williams

- Pei-Chien Wu (SOAS): ‘Freedom of Marginality: Negotiating Chinese Muslim Identity in Malaysia’

- William Berridge (University of Durham): ‘Sudanese Police and Prison Officers and Attitudes Towards Sharia, c.1960-1989’

- Dr. Ho Wai-Yip (City University of Hong Kong): ‘Postcolonial Mosque: Under the Sovereign State of China and Transnational Capital from the Gulf’

- Iqbal Akhtar (University of Edinburgh): ‘The Oriental African: Globalized Identity of Khoja Ithna-Asheri of Dar es Salaam’

‘Islamic Studies & Politics’ in Prospect Building 009

Chair: Kathleen Kerr-Koch

- Dr. Abdulsalam Hamad (University of Nizwa): ‘Western Arabo-Islamophobia: Where will it end?’

- Humayun Kabir (Hiroshima University): ‘Politics of “Islam”, the State and the Contesting Cultural Identity in Bangladesh: Contemporary Ulama and their Activism’

- Dr. Moeen Cheema (Australian National University): ‘Postcolonial (Il)legality: Islamization of Criminal Laws in Pakistan’

- Maszlee Malik (University of Durham): ‘Islamic Ontology for Governance’

12:30 – 13:30 – Lunch

13:30 – 14:30 – Keynote – Dr. Anastasia Valassopoulos (University of Manchester): ‘Postcolonialism and Islam: Arab Cinema of the 1960s/70s’ in the Sir Tom Cowie Lecture Theatre, Prospect Building

Chair: Kathleen Kerr-Koch

14:30 – 15:45 – Parallel Sessions: ‘Postcolonial & Multicultural Representations’ & ‘Islam in South Asian Fiction’

‘Postcolonial & Multicultural Representations’ in Prospect Building 007

Chair: Dr. Sarah Hackett

- Amira Richler (University of Rochester, New York): ‘Asserting the Right to Protest: Monica Ali’s Brick Lane and the Collision of Feminist and Postcolonial Politics’

- Dr. Monika Albrecht (University of Limerick): ‘Postcolonialism, Islam, and German Literature’

- Chloe Gill-Khan (SOAS): ‘Postcolonial Citizenship in “Multicultural” Britain: A Reading of Tariq Mehmood’s While there is Light’

‘Islam in South Asian Fiction’ in Prospect Building 009

Chair: Dr. Geoff Nash

- Catherine Fildes (University of Cambridge): ‘Hybrid, Unified and British: Islam in British South Asian Fiction’

- Prof. Abdul Kidwai (Aligarh Muslim University, India): ‘Recountextualization of Muslim Society and Modernity in Qaisra Shahraz’s The Holy Woman (2001)’

- Dr. Alex Pademsee (University of Kent): ‘Postnational Aesthetics and the Work of Mourning in Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi’

15:45 – 16:00 – Coffee/Tea

16:00-17:00 – Keynote – Dr. Claire Chambers (Leeds Metropolitan University) Interviews Fadia Faqir in the Sir Tom Cowie Lecture Theatre, Prospect Building

Chair: Dr. Geoff Nash

17:00 – 18:15 – Parallel Sessions: ‘Arab Literary Voices’ & ‘Islam & Multiculturalism in Britain’

‘Arab Literary Voices’ in Prospect Building 007

Chair: Dr. Anastasia Valassopoulos

- Dr. Christina Phillips (SOAS): ‘The Domestic Other: Islam in the Arabic Novel’

- Yousef Awad (University of Manchester): ‘‘Islam and Trans-cultural Dialogue/Monologue – Leila Aboulela’s The Translator’

- Linda Maloul (University of Manchester): ‘Refracting and Subverting the Oriental Tale: The Representation of Islam in the Fiction of Ahdaf Soueif and Leila Aboulela’

‘Islam & Multiculturalism in Britain’ in Prospect Building 009

Chair: Dr. Tahir Abbas

- Samaya Farooq (University of Warwick): ‘Shooting Hoops for Britain: De-Colonising the British Muslim Women’s Basketball Team’

- Brooke Storer (University of Bristol): ‘From the Drawing Board to Everyday Reality: Navigating British Muslims’ Identities through Notions of “Private”, “Public” and “Political”’

- Alexej Ulbricht (SOAS): ‘Liberal Multiculturalism/Liberal Monoculturalism’

7pm Onwards – Conference Dinner in the Lowry Room in the Marriott Hotel

Saturday, 17 April

9:30 – 10:30 – Keynote – Prof. Javed Majeed (Queen Mary, University of London): ‘Islam, Aesthetics & Postcolonialism: Mohammed Iqbal’ in the Sir Tom Cowie Lecture Theatre, Prospect Building

Chair: Kathleen Kerr-Koch

10:30 – 11:00 – Coffee/Tea

11:00 – 12:30 – Parallel Sessions: ‘Situating Muslim Women’ & ‘Islam on Film & Music’

‘Situating Muslim Women’ in Prospect Building 007

Chair: Dr. Claire Chambers

- Petra Feldmann (University of Bielefeld): ‘Between Orient or Modernity? Representations of German-Muslim Women in German Mass Media: A Critical Glance’

- Dr. Fotini Tsibiridou (Macedonia University): ‘In the Name of Islam! Critical Approach to the Politics of Islamic Feminism’

- Silvia Bruzzi (Bologna University): ‘The Contribution of Western Colonial Discourse in Bounding Muslim Women Leadership. An Historical Case Study’

- Ruth Barzilai-Lumbroso (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Israel): ‘Reverse Orientalism: Turkish Historians Writing the History of Ottoman Women’

‘Islam on Film & Music’ in Prospect Building 009

Chair: Dr. Sarah Hackett

- Syed Haider (SOAS): ‘Shooting Muslims: Looking at Islam in Bollywood through a Postcolonial Lens’

- Sariel Birnbaum (Hebrew University): Youssef Chahine and the Colonial and Postcolonial West’

- Dr. Claire Chambers (Leeds Metropolitan University): ‘Choosing Between the Sacred and the Secular in Recent Filmic Representations of British Muslims’

- Dr. Amir Saeed (University of Sunderland): ‘Between Hip-Hop and Muhammad: European Muslim Hip-Hop and Identity’

12:30 – 13:30 – Lunch

13:30 – 14:30 – Keynote – Dr. Rabah Aissaoui (University of Leicester): ‘The Political Uses of Religion by North African Immigrants in Colonial and Post-colonial France’ in the Sir Tom Cowie Lecture Theatre, Prospect Building

Chair: Dr. Sarah Hackett

14:30 – 15:45 – Parallel Sessions: ‘Islam in the West’ & ‘Theorising Muslims & Islam’

‘Islam in the West’ in Prospect Building 007

Chair: Kathleen Kerr-Koch

- Candace Hoffman-Hussain (Lancaster University): ‘An Exploration of Hybrid Identities of Five Interfaith Muslim-Christian Couples in Postcolonial Britain’

- Leon Moosavi (Lancaster University): ‘Muslim Converts in a Post-colonial World’

- Siraj Khan: ‘Islam at the Crossroads: No Left Turn’

‘Theorising Muslims & Islam in Prospect Building 009

Chair: Dr. Geoff Nash

- Dr. Rosa Vasilaki (University of Bristol): ‘The Muslim Political Subject: From Postcolonialism to Radical Historicism’

- Narzanin Massoumi (University of Bristol): ‘The Political Consciousness of Muslim Women Activists in the Movement against the “War on Terror”’

- Prof. Mustapha Marrouchi (University of Nevada, Las Vegas): ‘(Im)possible Narratives: Islams De/Reconstructed’

15:45 – 16:15 – Coffee/Tea

16:15 – 17:15 – Keynote – Dr. Tahir Abbas (Head of Research, Policy and International Relations, DEEN Foundation): ‘Post-Islamism in the Context of Globalisation and Multicultural Politics: British Muslims at the Crossroads’ in the Sir Tom Cowie Lecture Theatre, Prospect Building

Chair: Dr. Sarah Hackett

CLOSE

Trajectories of Indian Independence: 1857, 1947, 2007

One-day Seminar

December 1st, 2007

St Peter’s Campus, University of Sunderland

Organised by the Northern Association of Postcolonial Studies

9-10: Registration

10-11 Dr Alex Tickell, (University of Portsmouth):

"Cawnpore and Colonial Charivari: Memorial and Counterinsurgency in Anglo-Indian Popular Culture".

11-11:30 coffee break

11:30-12:30 Dr Ananya Jahanara Kabir (Leeds University):

"Shared Anniversaries, Separate Histories? Post-1947 trajectories of Indian and Pakistani visual art."

12:30-2 –lunch

2-3  Professor Javed Majeed (Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London):

"1947 and Secularism’s Opportunity"

3-3:30 tea break

3:30-4:30

Roundtable with all the speakers and the audience.

4:30-6:30

Screening of Junoon (1978), dir. Shyam Benegal

Following the establishment of the East India Company in 1857, some Mughals, led by Sarfaraz Khan, decided to rebel against their British masters, killing many and forcing others to flee. Three women from the Labadoor family, Grandma, Mariam, and Ruth, seek shelter with a local money-lender, Lala Ramjimal, who would like to recover his money from the Labadoors and has a vested interest in their survival. But he is unable to keep their presence secret, and Javed Khan and his men storm into his home, and take the three women to Javed’s house. Under normal circumstances, these three would have been beheaded and Ramjimal and his family severely punished, but Javed would like to make Ruth his second wife. Miriam and Javed’s wife, Firdaus, strongly oppose this move, but Javed is clearly obsessed by Ruth’s beauty and nothing will deter him from marrying her. Then things get really complicated when Ruth starts having feelings for Javed, and the British seek retributionfor those killed by the Mughals.

7:00 conference dinner

Programme

June 8th, 2007

Venue: Newcastle University, Percy Building, Newcastle upon Tyne

10:30 – 11:00 Foyer (ground floor)

Coffee/Tea and Registration

10:30 – 1:00 Room G11 (ground floor)

Jack Mapanje (Newcastle), “Two Footnotes”;

Fadia Faquir (Durham) “Lost in Translation: the Arab Book in the Language of the Other”;

Becky Ayebia (London) “The Challenges of Publishing New African Writing in the 21st Century”

1:00 – 2:00 Foyer (ground floor)

Lunch: with a brief announcement by Benita Perry and colleagues (Warwick) about their project “The Aesthetics of Third Worldism”

2:00-4:00 Room G11 (ground floor)

Frascesca Orsini (SOAS), “Is There a Greenich Meridian? Reflections on World Literature”

Kathleen Kerr-Koch (Sunderland) “Who’s Afraid of World Literature(s)?

4:00-4:15 Foyer (ground floor)

Tea/Coffee

4:15-6:00 Room G11 (ground floor)

Round table with all speakers and Derek Attridge (York) “Local Readings, Global Responsibilities”

The Universities of Scotland and Northern England were among the first to institutionalise postcolonial studies in the 1970’s, and many remain internationally recognised centres; rich in post-colonial resources, with established MA programmesand significan clusters of acadademics. Nevertheless, it remains the case that the North lacks the kind of integrated research culture available in London and the South, with its powerful concentration of institutions and its obvious pull to international speakers.

The Northern Association for Postcolonial Studies (NAPS) is a research collective working through Newcastle UNiversity and the University of Sunderland seeking to advance links in the area of post-colonial studies both regionally, and across Britiain.

Aims and Objectives

1. To establish a circuit of academics, creative writers and postgraduates working in post-colonial studies and cognate areas. The foundation for this circuit will be academic institutions in the North of England and Scotland, but it will draw upon and seek to establish links nationally and internationally.

2. To stimulate collaborative research projects between institutions, with the intention of applying for large research grants.

3. To establish a roaming seminar series to meet bi-annually.

4. To provide a forum for existing pockets of postgraduate students currently dispersed through institutions. In addition to bi-annual seminars, this might take the form of workshops, occasional reading groups, an online newsletter etc.

5. To provide a meeting point for critics and creative practitioners in postcolonial studies both within and without the University. This might involve, for example, working with local libraries, cinemas and museums.