Public Lecture: Prof Nabil Matar, ‘The Cradle of Jesus and the Oratory of Mary in the Noble Sanctuary’

Close-up of inscription and designs on side of the Dome of the Rock, by Flickr user J McDowell.

The second keynote lecture of our conference ‘Remembering Jerusalem: Imagination, Memory, and the City’ will be delivered by Professor Nabil Matar (Uni. Minnesota) and is titled ‘The Cradle of Jesus and the Oratory of Mary in the Noble Sanctuary’. All are welcome to attend.

It will take place from 9.30-10.30am on Friday 7th November, in Tutu’s, on the fourth floor of the Macadam Building, King’s College London (campus map), and will be chaired by Dr Helen Smith, of the University of York.

Professor Matar’s abstract is below:

‘The paper examines the Christian elements inside the Muslim Sanctuary, consisting of “mahd Isa”/cradle of Jesus and “mihrab Maryam”/oratory of Mary. These were mentioned in the writings of jurists and Sufis since the 10th century, but have received no attention from scholars. The paper traces the allusions to the cradle and the oratory in Arabic pilgrimage accounts and descriptions of Jerusalem and discusses their significance in the history of Islamic worship.’

Public Lecture: Prof Anthony Bale, ‘Jerusalem and the Medieval Meme’

The Garden of Eden at the Holy Land Experience, Florida, taken by Professor Anthony Bale.

All are welcome to attend our opening keynote lecture by Professor Anthony Bale of Birkbeck, University of London, entitled ‘Jerusalem and the Medieval Meme’.

The lecture will take place from 9.30 to 10.30am on Thursday 6th November in Tutu’s, on the fourth floor of the Macadam Building, King’s College London (campus map). It will be chaired by Dr Michele Campopiano, of the University of York.

Professor Bale’s abstract is below:

‘Jerusalem has consistently been reproduced, replayed, restaged, in formulaic ways, from pilgrims’ souvenirs to theme parks. In this paper I seek to go beyond thinking of Jerusalem only in terms of its ‘iconography’ and instead use the term ‘meme’ to explore Jerusalem’s reproduction and reproducibility. I will cover a range of medieval sources – starting with fifteenth-century Jerusalem pilgrims’ accounts of the 1458 voyage from Venice to Jaffa – and will also talk about a contemporary Jerusalem, the Holy Land Experience in Florida.’

Programme for ‘Remembering Jerusalem’ conference now available

We are delighted to announce that the pogramme for our conference ‘Remembering Jerusalem: Imagination, Memory, and the City’, taking place at King’s College London on 6-7 November, is now available to download.

The conference will feature keynote lectures by Professor Anthony Bale, Professor Nabil Matar, and Professor Eyal Weizman. All of the keynote lectures are open to the public, and more details will be announced nearer the time.

Please note that all places on the British Library ‘Show and Tell’ visit are now taken. You can sign up to the waiting list to be notified if a place becomes available.

If you are presenting at the conference, please make sure that you have registered here.

If you are interested in attending the conference but are not giving a paper, please contact the conference organiser, Hannah Boast, to find out about the availability of places, and see this page for more information about fee rates.

The panels and titles are as follows:

Thursday 6th November

First Plenary
Professor Anthony Bale, ‘Jerusalem and the Medieval Meme’
Chaired by Dr Michele Campopiano

Memory and Political Futures
Chair TBC
• Robyn Autry – Grave Decisions: Museums and the Politics of the Past in Jerusalem and New York City
• Dana Hercbergs – Remembering the Future of the City: The Davidization of Jerusalem
• Hava Schwartz – From Jewish Memory to Jewish Monumental Landscape: The Shaping of a National Symbolic Landscape around the Old City of Jerusalem

Jerusalem in European Landscape: Imported and Local Memories
Chaired by Renana Bartal
• Lotem Pinchover – The Holy Sepulchre Representation between Enclosure and Community
• Laura Slater – Jerusalem in Northampton: Christian Histories and Local Memories
• Shimrit Shriki – Jerusalem Remembers: The Role of Jerusalem in Secular Commemorative Practice

Women ‘Re-Member’ Jerusalem
Chaired by Claire Gallien
• Ragnhild Johnsrud Zorgati – Fredrika Bremer and the olive tree – memory and representations of religious history in a 19th century protestant travel narrative
• Sophia Brown – Looking up at our former home…I felt the years of separation’ – The impact of returning to Jerusalem in expatriate Palestinian women’s life-writing/‘I am Jerusalem’
• Irene Fernandez Ramos – I am Jerusalem’: the engendered body as city, memory and site of resistance

Registration and Schedule for ‘Remembering Jerusalem’ conference

Registration is now available for our conference ‘Remembering Jerusalem: Imagination, Memory, and the City’. You can register for the conference via Eventbrite.

The conference has been so popular that we unfortunately have very few places for non-presenting delegates. Please email the network administrator, Hannah Boast, before registering if you would like to attend and are not giving a paper.

The conference meal will take place on the 6th November at Tas Bloomsbury. It will include a selection of mezes, a main course, a half-bottle of wine per person (or soft drinks), and a small service charge, for a total of £33. You can reserve a place via the above Eventbrite link.

The draft schedule is available to download here. We are delighted with the enthusiastic response we had to the initial call for papers, and very much looking forward to what promise to be a varied and fascinating two days.

Demolition of conference presenter Dr Mutasem Adileh’s house, East Jerusalem

Dr Mutasem Adileh, of Al Quds University, has informed us that he will be unable to attend our November conference due to the demolition of his house by the Jerusalem municipality.

Dr Adileh is an ethnomusicologist, and was to present a paper at ‘Remembering Jerusalem: Imagination, Memory, and the City’ on Palestinian music and national identity.

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq monitor Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes. You can read more about this on their websites.

Ottoman Cosmopolitanism Masterclass on Transcultural Ottoman Memories, London, 29 November

The AHRC-funded Ottoman Cosmopolitanism network is hosting a masterclass for postgraduate and early career researchers on the topic of ‘Transmedial/Transcultural Memories: Points of Convergence’, which may be of interest to researchers working on Ottoman Jerusalem. The deadline for applications is 15 October, so get writing!

The following is reblogged from the Ottoman Cosmopolitanism blog:

Transmedial/Transcultural Memories: Points of Convergence

London, Saturday 29 November 2014

The Ottoman Cosmopolitanism Network is pleased to present a free half-day masterclass on the topic of transmedial/transcultural Ottoman memories for postgraduate students and early career researchers (who have completed their PhD for no more than 3 years), led by theorist of postmemory, Marianne Hirsch (Professor, Columbia University) and archivist/creator of aka Kurdistan, Susan Meiselas (Magnum photographer). The class will focus on the ways in which transcultural memories becomes crucially translated across various media, including trans-modal forms, e.g. in combination with websites and books, films and exhibitions. The class will also explore the nature of disputed memories and representations of particular attachments to land and place in spite of histories of trauma and exile. While not mandatory to attend, the second half of the day will be dedicated to performances by storytellers and cultural activists who practise differing creative modalities of articulating transcultural Ottoman memories.

Due to the interactive nature of the masterclass, there are only 25 positions available. In order to apply, please fill out the below application form. If accepted, you will be expected to produce of a poster (A4 size fine) which best represents your research and its relation to the central themes of the class. The poster (which will be shared in the class) must include (a) a maximum 300-word description of your current research and how it relates to the topic of the class, and (b) any kind of visual representation of your research: images, diagrams, etc. You may choose to include your poster as part of your application. Applications are encouraged from any field of discipline and do not need to be practice-based. Applicants should also be aware that there will be a small amount of required reading by Hirsch and Meiselas (which will be provided through email) before the class.

Click on the following link for the Ottoman Masterclass Application Form, which is due by 15 October 2014. For a pdf version, click here.