Call for MESA Panelists - Shi'i-Sunni Sectarian Identities

Call for Panelist: "The Radicalization of Shi'i-Sunni Sectarian Identities in the Contemporary Middle East"
Middle East Studies Association 2014 Annual Meeting

Abstract Deadline: February 5, 2014

November 22-25, 2014   |   Washington, DC

Organizers:
Farah Kawtharani, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan - Dearborn
Christopher Anzalone, PhD Candidate, McGill University

Please email your abstract (maximum 400 words), along with your name and academic affiliation, no later than February 5 to Farah Kawtharani (fkawth@umich.edu) and Christopher Anzalone (canzalon@umail.iu.edu).

*Panel Summary*

The radicalization of sectarian identities has risen sharply over the past decade, tied to bitter political and armed conflicts in the Middle East. Political battles in post-Ba'thist Iraq and Bahrain and the Syrian civil war have led to the increasing invocation and reinterpretation of historical disputes and theological differences by both Shi'i and Sunni socio-political movements to fit contemporary conflicts and political contexts.

The radicalization of Shi'i and Sunni political religious identities is the product of the intersection of regional factors and the locally-specific and unique contexts produced in individual countries. Lebanon historically, Iraq and Bahrain recently, and Syria presently have become proxy battlefields on which political contestations between regional powers such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as their local allies, are being played. Moreover, each country also displays its own sectarianized local context.

This panel investigates the recent rise of sectarianism among Shi'i socio-political movements and analyses it in light of the on-going, simultaneous rise of radical sectarian identities among Sunni intellectuals and movements The papers seek to move away from essentialist, ahistorical views of sectarianism by unpacking the local factors at play and the intersection of the local and regional contexts that are key to understanding both the radicalization of Sunni and Shi'i sectarian identities and the development and evolution of inter-communal relations and conflict in the region.

Successful authors must complete on-line submissions on the MESA site by February 15.

For full conference details, please see: http://www.mesa.arizona.edu/annual-meeting/.