Professor Taraneh Sanei's Talk on April 18, 2026
The Elah茅 Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies, University of Toronto, in collaboration with The Department of Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago jointly present:
AI-Driven Language Pedagogy for Less Commonly Taught Languages
Managing Diverse Proficiency Levels with Al Generative Tools:听The Case of the Persian Classroom in Higher Education
Saturday, April 18 at 1pm EST
Register on.
While much of the discourse around Al-driven language instruction focuses on widely taught languages, this talk draws attention to the specific affordances and limitations-of integrating Al tools into the teaching of Persian. Specifically, I focus on how Al technologies can help with one of the main challenges that Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) instructors in higher education face: how to manage a classroom with a wide variety of linguistic and cultural proficiencies? Due to the typical composition of LCTL classrooms, often including both heritage and non-heritage speakers, providing all students with personalized and appropriately challenging input has long been a preoccupation for teachers. Drawing on classroom experiences and student feedback as well as previous research in Al-driven language pedagogy. I demonstrate the utility of integrating Al generative tools (including ChatGPT) into classroom activities to bridge the gap between proficiencies and keep learners engaged at all times. I discuss the importance of "prompting strategies" for ensuring a more task-relevant and targeted learning activity. In addition to text generation, I also engage with image/video generation tools, along with their multimodal and adaptable features, in the classroom exploring the wide range of possibilities that such platforms can provide us with as language educators of LCTLs.
Finally, I highlight the ways in which current Al systems fall short when it comes to supporting the linguistic and cultural specificities of under-resourced languages like Persian both in terms of language (e.g, non-standardized orthographies) and cultural biases and stereotyping. I thus call for an approach to the integration of Al in the LCTL classroom that, while profiting from its potential in enhancing learner engagement and autonomy, remains critically aware of its pitfalls for under-resourced languages and underrepresented cultures and uses this awareness to develop students' and teachers' digital competencies for a more meaningful language learning/teaching experience.
WIMESSA's Final Movie Night of the Semester - April 9
Under the fig trees, stories unfold
World Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Student Association (WIMESSA) will be screening Under the Fig Trees (鬲丨鬲 丕賱卮噩乇丞), a tender Tunisian film that captures fleeting moments of youth, desire, and connection during a summer harvest.
Directed by Erige Sehiri, the film was Tunisia鈥檚 official submission to the 95th Academy Awards for Best International Feature.
Date: April 9
Time: 4:45 PM
Location: 3475 Peel St, Montreal
Special thanks to PhD student Salma Shabaan for making this event possible.
We hope you鈥檒l join us for one last evening together鈥攃ome for the film, stay for the conversation. 馃幀
Congratulations to PhD Student Seddigheh Kardan!
IIS PhD student Seddigheh Kardan was notified in March 2026 that she had obtained a . Open to full-time senior undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, the award enables talented researchers to undertake one 12 to 48-week project or two 12 to 24-week projects with a host supervisor inbound to Canada or abroad from Canada.
Earlier this year, in January, Ms Kardan was awarded a doctoral travel grant from . The scholarship aims to enable doctoral students who are well into their dissertations, as well as unemployed graduates or university teachers in the field of Religious Studies, who are in a precarious position, to travel in order to conduct research (for example, to consult archives, the collections of certain libraries, or research centers, as well as to work in the field).
Ms Kardan has obtained an , announced in December 2025. The scholarship was established to assist doctoral candidates to complete their fieldwork or dissertation.
Ms Kardan also holds a , which sponsors academic activities encompassing fieldwork, archival research and organizing conferences and workshops for publication.听
Congratulations to PhD Student Umar Haruna!
IIS PhD student Umar Farouq Haruna is one of the recipients of the 2025听, which he has used for archival access to finalize the doctoral thesis in his fourth year in the program at IIS.
April 9听Journalism after Gaza
A Roundtable on the Present & Future of the Press
April 9, 2026, 5 PM
TNC Theatre, Morrice Hall room 017
3485 Rue McTavish
听
MODERATED BY
Julnar Aizouki
Saman Malik
Award-winning Director & Former CBC Journalist (Concordia '04 & Columbia Journalism School '14)
Sana Saeed
Media Critic & Former Al Jazeera Correspondent (涩里番 鈥�09 & IIS 涩里番 鈥�12)
Kareem Shaheen
Middle East Editor at New Lines Magazine and former Guardian Middle East correspondent
Join us for a conversation with three seasoned journalists on the state of the media, traditional and new, global and local, in the aftermath of the Gaza genocide. The discussion will highlight the effects of censorship, social media, and artificial intelligence on the present and future context of journalism.
March 31, 2026 - Conversation with Invited Speakers听Fatemeh Keshavarz &听Ahmet Karamustafa
On March 31, join us for a conversation with Fatemeh Keshavarz and Ahmet Karamustafa on their recent co-edited volume, Mystical Landscapes in Medieval Persian Literature. Mystical Landscapes in Medieval Persian Literature explores the artistic cross-fertilisation between medieval Persian literature and Sufism across a broad geography extending from Anatolia to India.
March 31, 4-6pm -听MOR 017
Fatemeh Keshavarz is the Roshan Institute Chair in Persian Language and Literature, and Director of the Roshan Institute Center for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland. Keshavarz is author of award winning books including Reading Mystical Lyric: the Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi (USC Press,1998), Recite in the Name of the Red Rose (USC Press, 2006) and a book of literary analysis and social commentary titled Jasmine and Stars: Reading more than Lolita in Tehran (UNC Press, 2007). She has also published other books and numerous journal articles. Keshavarz is a published poet in Persian and English and an activist for peace and justice. She was invited to speak at the UN General Assembly on the significance of cultural education. Her NPR show 鈥淭he ecstatic faith of Rumi鈥� brought her the Peabody Award in 2008. In the same year, she received the 鈥淗erschel Walker Peace and Justice Award.鈥�
Ahmet T. Karamustafa is Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park. His expertise is in social and intellectual history of medieval and early modern Islam in the Middle East and Southwest Asia as well as in theory and method in the study of religion. He is the author of God鈥檚 Unruly Friends (University of Utah Press, 1994), a book on ascetic movements in medieval Islam; Vahidi鈥檚 Menak谋b-谋 Hvoca-i Cihan ve Netice-i Can (The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1993), a study of a sixteenth-century mystical text in Ottoman Turkish; and Sufism: The Formative Period (published simultaneously by Edinburgh University Press & University of California Press, 2007), a comprehensive historical overview of early Islamic mysticism. Currently, he is at work on a book project tentatively titled The Age of H谋z谋r: Islam in the Mirror of Early Turkish Literature.
This talk is open to the public, and in person only.
March 25, 2026:听A Jewish-Muslim Friendship in the Twentieth Century Knowledge Trade
Mostafa Hussein (University of Michigan)
Wednesday, March 25, 2026,听4:00 鈥� 6:00 pm;听Thomson House Ballroom
The lecture examines the concept of 峁岣�ba through focusing on the shared passion for acquiring and disseminating Arabo-Islamic knowledge that connected Muslims and Jews in the first half of the twentieth century. Their common interest in preserving, reproducing, and classifying Arabo-Islamic sources, ranging from books to manuscripts, led Abraham Shalom Yahuda, Mu岣mmad Am墨n al-Khanj墨 and Sam墨 al-Kh膩nj墨 into a decades-long interconfessional 峁岣a (collegiality/friendship). It argues that a form of 峁岣a existed between Yahuda and al-Kh膩nj墨s that facilitated the movement of Arabic and Islamic knowledge from the East to the West motivated not only by mutual economic benefit but also by satisfying intellectual and ideological objectives during the nah岣�a movement and the colonial era. By reframing 峁岣a in this intellectual context, this lecture highlights its role in the complex interplay between cultural exchange and the formation of modern nationalist identity.
Mostafa Hussein is an assistant professor of Jewish-Muslim Studies in the Judaic Studies Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His scholarship offers fresh perspectives on Jewish-Muslim intersectionalities, shedding light on the complex cultural and historical interconnections between these communities. Dr. Hussein鈥檚 recently published book Hebrew Orientalism: Jewish Engagement with Arabo-Islamic Culture in Late Ottoman and British Palestine (Princeton University Press, 2025) was shortlisted for the 75th National Jewish Book Award. Dr. Hussein is also the co-editor (with Brahim El Guabli) of Remembering Jews in Maghrebi and Middle Eastern Media (Penn State University Press, September 2024).
With support from the Office of Provost and Executive Vice-President. Co-Sponsored by the Institute of Islamic Studies.
Institute of Islamic Studies, 涩里番
Critical Media Lab 涩里番
Hors champ, Laboratoire Cin茅M茅dias (Universit茅 de Montr茅al)
Present
禺蹖丕賱 卮丕賴蹖賳
Visions of Shahin
A Polyphonic Conversation
Tuesday March 24, 2026, 4 p.m.
Room ARTS W-215
Film screenings on 16 mm and digital
Friday March 27, 2026, 6 p.m.
Critical Media Lab 鈥揚eterson Hall 108
Open to the public
Visions of Shahin celebrates with two events the work and life of Iranian Canadian, Montreal based filmmaker Shahin Parhami (1967-2021), a friend of the Institute of Islamic Studies at 涩里番.
A Polyphonic Conversation
March 24th, 4 p.m.
Assembling a polyphonic set of voices each offering a short presentation on a concrete aspect of Shahin鈥檚 artistic and existential vision, the event aims at delineating Shahin鈥檚 unique approach to art. Shahin Parhami lived nurtured by an original vision in which a variety of elements combined into a unique cosmopolitan aesthetic sensibility. Drawing inspiration from the New Wave Iranian cinema, horror movies, Indian food, Arabic music, Filmfarsi, Persian poetry, cats, Stockhausen, les ruelles de Montr茅al and much more, Shahin Parhami assembled these elements with his own signature style. Faculty members of the Institute of Islamic Studies and other friends will discuss several aspects of Shahin鈥檚 work and scholar of Iranian cinema Farbod Honarpisheh (Yale University) will give a talk on his cinematic works.
Film Screenings
March 27th, 6 p.m.
This program will feature a selection of early rarely seen films and fragments by Shahin Parhami (on 16mm and digital format), as well as his very last completed short film, Stem Cell II. Friends and collaborators will be present to introduce the works. The program is presented in collaboration with the journal Hors champ, the Laboratoire Cin茅M茅dias (Universit茅 de Montr茅al) and the Critical Media Lab. It was curated by Andr茅 Habib (Universit茅 de Montr茅al).
IIS Poetry Night and Potluck 陌ftar: 12 March
Join us on Thursday, March 12, 2026, for an evening of poetry and food!
We will begin with a poetry gathering in the Octagon Room (Islamic Studies Library) from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., followed by a potluck iftar from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Common Room (3rd floor). There will be food from Anatolia. Any additional contributions are very welcome!
Morrice Hall, 3485 Rue McTavish 鈫� All languages welcome 鈫� Five to ten-minute poetry time slots
Congratulations to Professor Michelle Hartman!
Congratulations to Michelle Hartman on the publication of her translation of Iman Humaydan鈥檚 latest novel, Songs for Darkness (Interlink, 2026), a long novel set over almost a century, telling the stories of four generations of women, set in a village in Mount Lebanon.
An celebrates the publication day. Michelle speaks about the translation of the novel on the .
An with Iman Humaydan and Michelle Hartman on the novel, "Songs as Memory, as Solidarity, as Resistance鈥�, has also appeared this week.
You can order the book on .
Only songs are able to comfort the soul in its darkness鈥攂ut can anyone hear them?
Iman Humaydan鈥檚 saga recalls the voices of four generations of women from one family in the imaginary village of Kasura, in Mount Lebanon. Its narrator, Asmahan, named after the beloved Syrian singer, has devoted her adult life to recovering the stories of her ancestors, who persisted in the shadows of male supremacy, war, military occupation, and impoverishment.
Her mother, Layla, disappeared when Asmahan was still a teenager. Her grandmother, Yasmine, died giving birth. And her great-grandmother, Shahira, struggled through two world wars, famine, and suffocating gender norms to win an education for her children and eke out a better life for her family. Asmahan is determined to protect her daughter and break out of the cycle of intergenerational violence and wounds that the women who came before her suffered. She packs up her daughter to emigrate after a divorce, when her husband takes their son away from her on his seventh birthday, during the darkest days of the 1982 Israeli invasion.
These women鈥檚 legacies span and echo the scarred history of an abused homeland, from the eve of the first World War to the 1982 Lebanon War. In honoring their unfulfilled lives, Iman Humaydan insistently preserves intimate stories of abundant tenacity, generosity, sacrifice鈥攁nd songs, provisions sorely needed for dark times.
The Institute of Islamic Studies
Invites you to
The US-Iran Conflict and Its Regional Implications
with
Prof. Khalid Madani (Director Institute of Islamic Studies, 涩里番)
Prof. Setrag Manoukian (Institute of Islamic Studies and Department of Anthropology, 涩里番)
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
5:30pm,听ARTS W-120
Dr. Razak Khan's Talk on March 18, 2026听
Syed Abid Husain, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, and Islamic Studies in Postcolonial India
5pm, Morrice Hall, Room 328
Dr. Razak Khan is a Research Fellow in Global History at the Department of History, Free University, Berlin. He is part of ERC consolidator grant project 鈥淒emocratising the Family? Gender Equality, Parental Rights, and Child Welfare in Contemporary Global History鈥� (DEMFAM). His project is entitled Unfamiliar: Family, Law, and Democracy in South Asia. He is finishing his second book project, Minor Cosmopolitanism: Islam, Democracy, and Emotional Integration in the Life and Writings of Syed Abid Husain (1896-1978).
This examines Jawaharlal Nehru's vision of secular Indian Islam and his policies towards creating one and explores the response and agency of Indian Muslims as exemplified in the life and writings of Syed Abid Husain (1896-1978). It analyzes his book The Destiny of Indian Muslims (1965) as an elaboration of this understanding and vision. It also looks at his efforts to create secular Islamic Studies through Islam and the Modern Age Society (1975) and Journal at the Jamia Millia Islamia. In doing so, it situates the nationalist histories of "Muslim Universities" in India within larger global histories of knowledge production about Islam in North America. The emergence of Secular Islamic Studies and Comparative Religious Studies connects Aligarh University and Jamia Millia Islamia with the Institute of Islamic Studies at 涩里番 through the life and works of Wilfred Cantwell Smith.
Professor Francesca Chubb-Confer - Nightingales and Falcons - February 26, 2026
Nightingales and Falcons: Iqbal, Metaphor, and the Poetic Imagination of Islamic Modernity
February 26, 2026 6:00 PM following iftari and maghrib
Morrice Hall room 328,听 3485 McTavish Street, Institute of Islamic Studies
This talk examines how literary metaphor mediates the relationship between Islam and modernity in the poetry of Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938). Focusing on the figures of the nightingale and the falcon in Iqbal鈥檚 Persian and Urdu ghazals, it argues that resources drawn from pre-modern Sufi poetry鈥攅specially ambiguity and paradox鈥攚ere important tools for articulating modern Muslim selfhood.
These metaphors register the tensions between inherited traditions and the demands of colonial modernity in South Asia, while foregrounding the entanglements of religion, literature, and politics. The talk also highlights the importance of vernacular languages and literary genres often considered marginal to Islamic Studies.
Note: The talk will be in-person only, and will not be recorded.
The Montreal British History Seminar presents:
Gaza 1917
Professor Laila Parsons, Department of History and Classical Studies & Institute of Islamic Studies
Thursday, February 19
4pm - 5:30pm, Rm. 404, Thomson House (3650 McTavish)
Based on the second chapter of Laila Parsons' book manuscript, The British Occupation of Palestine 1917-1948, and drawing on British and Palestinian sources, this talk narrates the British invasion and conquest of Gaza in 1917. It frames the battles for Gaza not as a sideshow of the First World War but as the foundational moment in the colonization of Palestine, pointing to the ways in which the invasion and conquest were structurally linked to British colonial violence in Palestine after the war.
Congratulations to Andrew Sandock!
Congratulations to former IIS undergraduate student Andrew Sandock on the publication of his article "鈥�, which was awarded the 2024 Dodds Prize by the Association of Canadian Archivists. After graduating from 涩里番, Andrew joined the University of Toronto鈥檚 Faculty of Information where he received his Master of Information in the Spring of 2024. See the full
Book Roundtable: Buddhism and Islam - Tuesday, February 10
The author Kieko Obuse (School of Religious Studies, 涩里番 and Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Japan)
will discuss the book (Brill 2025) with
Mika毛l Bauer (Director, School of Religious Studies, 涩里番)
Prashant Keshavmurthy (Institute of Islamic Studies, 涩里番)
Chaired by: Setrag Manoukian (Institute of Islamic Studies and Anthropology, 涩里番)
Buddhist-Muslim relations are usually seen as inherently confrontational. This book challenges the view of Buddhism and Islam as fundamentally irreconcilable by exploring the diverse ways representatives of the two traditions have engaged each other in Southeast Asia-the global frontstage of contemporary Buddhist-Muslim relations-and Japan-a Buddhist-majority country whose 'Islam policy' played a significant role in its surge to global power status. It investigates the processes through which mutual perceptions and discourses have developed in response to shifting socio-political circumstances and via the intellectual interventions of leading personalities
Congratulations to PhD Student Jaleh Ebrahimi!
IIS Doctoral Student Jaleh Ebrahimi has been awarded the听BLUE Fellowship at Building 21 for Winter 2026.
Her project is titled:
is a space in which unique, daring, beautiful, and rigorous ideas and scholarship are welcomed and nurtured. It is an innovative educational experiment that allows intrinsically motivated scholars to join an innovative, rigorous, and experimental culture of peers and mentors. This culture actively facilitates the development of both original scholars and original scholarship, inclusive of all ages, disciplines, and levels of expertise.
In collaboration with a global network of adjacent communities, Building 21 maintains a commitment to challenge, refine, and encourage a diversity of approaches, processes, and thinkers across the spectrum of human competencies.