Opportunities

Kohl is a progressive, intersectional and inter/trans- disciplinary journal that theorizes from and thinks with the Middle East, South West Asia, and North Africa regions. Kohl Journal is a biannual, multilingual, open access, and peer reviewed academic journal. It targets mainly, but not exclusively, graduate-level academics, fresh graduates, independent writers, activists, and researchers who are not affiliated with an academic institution.

At Kohl, we are calling for contributions in a new format: we would like to read and publish pieces of political analysis that allow us to piece together the different ways in which global imperialisms are connected in our region and beyond, while remaining anchored in our different locations. We are ideally looking for texts that focus on one or more facets of the ongoing imperial war (historical, current, or potential), such as land, oil, trade, popular uprisings, migration/displacement, the arms industry, military sites, state formations… in order to push past the fragmentation of our respective struggles and narratives.

We are accepting texts and abstracts throughout the month of March, which you can email to submit@kohljournal.press. Please note that we are happy to accept shorter pieces, personal essays, as well as voice-recorded commentaries that we can help you turn into written text. We encourage submissions in Arabic, and also accept texts in English.

The School of Government and International Affairs (SGIA) at Durham University seeks to appoint an exceptional scholar as an Assistant Professor with research and teaching expertise in Middle East Politics with a focus on the Arab world. Applicants with research and teaching expertise in the politics, political economy, or security of the Middle East, with a particular focus on the Arab states, are encouraged to apply. 

We particularly welcome applications from candidates whose research engages with state–society relations in the Arab world, with a particular focus on the Gulf. This may include (but is not limited to) governance and authoritarian resilience; political legitimacy, contestation, and repression; civic mobilisation and social movements; political participation and representation; public policy, welfare and service provision; identity politics and social cohesion; gender and the changing dynamics of citizenship, rights, and belonging. Applicants whose work addresses the intersection of domestic politics with major global and regional challenges of the Arab world are also strongly encouraged to apply. Relevant themes may include the international relations of the Middle East, politics of energy transition, climate governance, and environmental sustainability; migration, displacement, and demographic change; security governance and militarisation; and the international political economy of the Arab world. 

Panel at EuroSEAS 2026 conference, Madrid, 1-3 September 2026

The panel calls for methodological reflections based on concrete case studies on how to trace the exchange, adaptation, and reinterpretation of political ideas, practices, and movements between the Middle East and Indonesia during the 20th century. The panel originates from the conveners’ research on the transmission of political Shi’ism from the 1950s and 1960s in Najaf, Iraq, to Indonesia, and its significance for both sides of this exchange (Sausa & Menghini, forthcoming). In this sense, the panel also invites proposals that focus on challenging the center-periphery relationship between the Middle East—also seen as, but not limited to, the heartland of the Islamic world—and Southeast Asia. Building on the numerous contributions about the connection between these two regions through Hajj routes, scholarly networks, and economic links (Von der Mehden 1993; Ho 2006; Laffan 2011; Ricci 2011; Tagliacozzo 2013; Bradley 2014), the panel seeks contributions exploring alternative routes of connection between Indonesia and the Middle East. These should focus on the exchange of political ideas, practices, texts, and the circulation of people involved in political movements. Additionally, the panel aims to use these case studies to foster a methodological conversation on how a global micro-historical approach (Ghobrial 2019) can help reconstruct the global lives (Gamsa 2017) of non-elite or subaltern actors (Trivellato 2011). Emphasizing the circulation of people and objects, primarily texts, can help connect a broad geographical research scope (De Vito 2019)—such as contacts between Indonesia and the Middle East—while allowing for in-depth contextual analysis of events. Simultaneously, this approach can shed light on global dynamics (Trivellato 2011), using biographies and circulation as “windows” into broader processes. 

Workshop, Egyptian Geographical Society, Cairo, 23-25 June 2026

To be held at the Egyptian Geographical Society (EGS) in Cairo—a key historical and institutional site for the production, circulation, and preservation of geographical knowledge in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—this workshop constitutes the first event of the Workshop Series (2026–2027) launched by the AHRC research project Reassessing (Hi)stories of Early Italian Colonialism: The Afterlives of Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti’s African Collections in Italy and Beyond. It aims to bring together scholars from different disciplines to critically examine the entangled histories of geographical exploration, colonial expansion, and the production, circulation, and afterlives of African collections.

We invite scholars from a range of disciplines—including history, geography, anthropology, museum studies, African studies, postcolonial studies, and heritage studies—to submit proposals engaging with (but not limited to) the following thematic clusters:

- Theme 1: Geography, Exploration, and Colonial “Modernity”
- Theme 2: Geographical Societies as Networks and Nodes of Knowledge
- Theme 3: Theme 3: Ethnographic Museums, Collections, and logics of Co-production

Contributions based on archival research in Italy, Egypt, Ethiopia, and other relevant contexts are especially welcome. We also strongly encourage papers that reflect on the contemporary resonances of these histories, including debates on museum practices, restitution, and the public reception of colonial-era collections.

Conference, University of Cambridge, 17–18 September 2026

The Syrian Academics and Researchers’ Network in the UK (SARN UK) is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for its 2026 international conference, co-hosted with the Margaret Anstee Centre for Global Studies (MAC) at Newnham College, University of Cambridge.

This year's theme, “Syria in Transition: Knowledge, Memory, and the Everyday Aftermath,” invites Syrian and Syria-focused scholars to reflect on the evolving role of academic, cultural, and intellectual work in shaping Syria’s futures. At a moment marked by deep political uncertainty, contested narratives of reconstruction, and widening gaps between exile and those inside the country, the conference offers a space to come together in critical solidarity.

We welcome papers that explore how Syrian scholars, artists, and practitioners — wherever they are — engage with the complex legacies of violence, displacement, and resistance, and how their work contributes to imagining more just, plural, and inclusive futures. We are particularly interested in proposals that bridge disciplines and challenge inherited binaries of inside/outside, past/future, victim/agent, or state/society.

We accept individual as well as co-authored paper proposals.

The Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences at Qatar University and the Centre for Islamic and West Asian Studies (CIWAS) at Royal Holloway, University of London, have jointly developed this project as a focused research initiative. 

For too long, debates about Islam in the academy have been framed by a narrow set of questions: compatibility with Western liberalism, confrontation with modernity, or reduction to cultural heritage. These frameworks do a disservice to the depth and vitality of Islamic intellectual traditions, and they are becoming increasingly inadequate as Western modernity itself faces mounting pressures: crises of truth and authority, the erosion of consensus around human rights, social fragmentation, and widening economic inequality.

This initiative reframes the question. Rather than asking how Islamic thought responds to Western frameworks, we ask what Islamic intellectual, legal, ethical, and institutional traditions can actively contribute to the reimagining of global values, as sources of norm formation, ethical reasoning, and institutional vision. We welcome analytically grounded contributions from across disciplines, engaging themes including truth, knowledge, and science in crisis; human rights and the future of dignity; populism and political ethics; economic ethics and entrepreneurship; philanthropy and the public good; gender, inclusivity, and educational reform; and Muslim women and cultural production. Selected authors will be invited to present at a closed academic workshop at Qatar University in Doha, followed by a public symposium in London. Outstanding papers will be considered for an edited academic volume arising from the project.

Papers are invited for the 3rd workshop of this multi-year research programme funded by the British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS). The aim of this project is to involve scholars from a wide range of disciplines in the commencement of an organised effort to utilise an extensive range of sources to recover evidence of the ‘voices’ of ‘subalterns’ across the pre-modern and modern terrains of both rural and urban society across the Persianate world. 

The third workshop on subalterns across the entire Persianate world in the Zand and Qajar periods will be held at the University of Edinburgh, UK, on 27-29 October, 2026. 

Papers from PhD students, ECRs and unaffiliated scholars are encouraged.

RSVP to anewman@ed.ac.uk by Friday, 12 June, 2026.

The Global Digital Humanities programme at the University of St Andrews offers a flexible, fully online postgraduate route for students interested in the relationship between technology, language, literature, culture, and heritage. Taught jointly by the School of Modern Languages and the School of Computer Science, the programme combines humanities inquiry with computational methods including Python, machine learning, and data visualisation.

With PGCert, PGDip, and MSc pathways, students can build their studies around their goals and commitments while learning from anywhere in the world. The programme is designed for those who want to upskill, change direction, deepen their research practice, or prepare for doctoral study.

Applicants to the full online MSc may also be eligible for the Global Digital Humanities Online MSc Scholarship. Up to six scholarships are available each academic year, with each award worth up to £4,500 towards tuition fees for up to three years. Applicants can apply for the scholarship after submitting their course application and do not need to wait for an offer before applying. Selection is based partly on financial need and includes short statements on financial circumstances and course suitability.

Explore how digital tools are reshaping the humanities — and how you can help shape that future.

Find the full details and application information below and feel free to contact Dr Orhan Elmaz (oe2@st-andrews.ac.uk) with any questions.