Call for Application: Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies

PhD candidates, research master students and advanced MA students, whose research focuses on the study of Muslims, Muslim societies and Islam in the broadest sense of the word, are invited to apply for participation in the Tirana Spring School 2018.

To apply for participation, applications must be sent to Dr.Petra de Bruijn (nisis@hum.leidenuniv.nl) before Monday 15 January 2018, 09.00 hrs (CET). Applications submitted after this date will not be taken into consideration.

Applications must include the following (in one single pdf document):

• A CV
• A Motivation Letter
• A one-page descrition of your MA thesis of PhD project, indicating supervisor (s)
• a reference letter from your MA thesis/PhD supervisor (only required for non – Dutch applicants)
• a title and an abstract of your presentation (250 words (max))*
• a short biography (50 words max, in third person)*

*If your application is successful these will be used in the digital programme booklet.

Please note the following:

1. This call for applications concerns the places allocated to NISIS participants in the Tirana Spring School. Candidates enrolled at German universities are also invited to apply at NISIS. Candidates enrolled at French & Spanish universities are invited to apply at IISMM. Candidates from Albanian universities can apply at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Arts Studies. Candidates not enrolled at universities in one of these countries are requested to apply at one institution only.
2. NISIS junior members automatically qualify for participation (if capacity permits) but do NOT automatically qualify for funding. If NISIS junior members wish to apply for funding they have to apply by handing in: a motivation letter, a title and an abstract and a short biography (see above for format).

If they want to participate without funding from NISIS, they have to apply by handing in a title and abstract and a short biography. They will be accepted on the condition that capacity permits.

3. The number of applicants admitted to the Spring School is limited.
4. Probably there will be possibilities for a small contribution towards the travel and housing expenses for a limited number of participants. More information will be announced. We advise PhD candidates and Research master students to explore funding possibilities at their home institutions. In case funding possibilities materialize, you have to fill out the reimbursement form supplied by the NISIS office. Reimbursement will take place after submitting to the NISIS office by email: (scans of) original tickets and receipts , and the supplied reimbursement form.

5. Successful applicants are responsible for arranging their travel, visa (if applicable) and accommodation in Tirana themselves. A conference dinner and an excursion will be included in the programme.

Important Dates

School Date: 19 March 2018 – 23 March 2018

Deadline for Application: 15 January, 2018

Venue: Tirana, Albania

It invites PhD candidates and Research Master students to reflect on notions of space, movement, place, crossing and dwelling in their own work and to present their ongoing work from the angle of spatiality. We also invite students to bring forward their ideas on various sub-themes, such as narratives of space and place, the contestation and (re)appropriation of space, imaginative spaces, mapping of religious cultures, bridges and boundaries, built spaces and built environments and their religious and socio-political understandings, the spatial framing of religious experiences, memory, storytelling and space, practices of place-making, shifting religious landscapes, rural and urban spatiality, (de)territorialisation, spatial politics, spatial traumas, religious (dis)placement, emotional landscapes, knowledge production linked to space, place and dwelling, etc.

Speakers and Programme

The speakers of this year’s Spring School are:

Prof. Nathalie Clayer (EHESS)

Prof. Dick Douwes (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Prof. Suraiya Faroqhi (Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul)

Dr Araceli González Vázquez (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones cientificas, CSIC)

Dr Oskar Verkaaik (University of Amsterdam)

Prof. Armand Vokshi (Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism Polytechnic University of Tirana)