SATURDAY APRIL 27

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Welcome and Introduction

8:30 AM - 9:00 AM

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Panel 1: A “Mystical Modernity”? Ali Shariati and Beyond

9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

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Chair: Peyman Vahabzadeh, University of Victoria

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Mystical Modernity: A Comparative Study of Philosophy of History and Political Theory of Walter Benjamin and Ali Shariati

Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Princeton University

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Return to the Self: Ali Shariati, Frantz Fanon and Walter Benjamin’s Critiques of Modernity

Mina Khanlarzadeh, Columbia University

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Intimations of a Civil Mysticism in Ali Shariati’s Erfan

Kara Abdolmaleki, University of Alberta

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Imagining Freedom as Solidarity: In Conversation with Shari’ati, Mbembe and Sartre

Jeanique Tucker, University of Alberta

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Break

11:00 AM -11:15 AM

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Panel 2: Promises and Pitfalls of The Intellectual Project of Critical Progressive Islam?

11:15 AM -12:45 PM

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Chair: Babak Rahimi, University of California, San Diego

 

“Protestant” Defiance of Clerical Authority and the Intellectual Project of Progressive Islam

Afshin Matin-Asgari, California State University, Los Angeles

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Public Religiosity and Emancipatory Politics: Toward an Islamic Intersectional Theology

Siavash Saffari, Seoul National University

 

“Religion Against Religion”: Ali Shariati on the Dialectic of Religion

Mahmood Exiri Fard, University of Alberta

 

For the Sake of Nature, For the Best of All: Intersections of Islamic EnvironmentalPhilosophy with Democratic Eco-socialism

Rezvaneh Erfani Hossein Pour, University of Alberta

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Lunch 

12:45 PM -1:45 PM

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Panel 3: “What Does it Mean to be Contemporary” in Muslim Majority Contexts?

1:45PM - 3:15 PM 

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Chair: Afshin Matin-Asgari, California State University, Los Angeles

 

Being Maverick: Mostafa Sho‘aiyan’s Cosmopolitan and Frontal Theory of Rebellion

Peyman Vahabzadeh, University of Victoria

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A Communist Theology? Mostafa Sho‘aiyan’s Political Imaginary 

Fatemeh Sadeghi, Fellow at McGill University

 

“Of Whom and Of What” is the Neo-Shariati Discourse “Contemporary”?

Mojtaba Mahdavi, University of Alberta

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 Break

  3:15 PM -3:30 PM

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Panel 4: On the Conditions of Possibility of a Muslim Democratic Socialism

3:30 PM - 5:00 PM

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Chair: Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Princeton University 

 

Mohammad Nakhshab and the Invention of Socialist Theism

Babak Rahimi, University of California, San Diego

 

Muslim Democracy as Realistic Utopia: Reading Ali Shariati’s Ummat va Imāmat in a Bandung Spirit

Arash Davari, Whitman College

 

Shariati’s Quandary: An Ideal Islamic Government

Ali Rahnema, American University of Paris & Maryam Rabiee, University of Melbourne

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SUNDAY APRIL 28

 

Roundtable Discussion: Could/Should Freedom, Social Justice, and Civil Spirituality Coexist in Muslim Societies?

8:30 AM - 10:30 AM

 

Chair: Mojtaba Mahdavi, University of Alberta

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Afshin Matin-Asgari, California State University, Los Angeles

Arash Davari, Whitman College

Babak Rahimi, University of California, San Diego

Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Princeton University

Fatemeh Sadeghi, Fellow at McGill University

Mojtaba Mahdavi, University of Alberta

Peyman Vahabzadeh, University of Victoria

Reza Alijani, Writer and Journalist

Shahla Talebi, Arizona State University

Siavash Saffari, Seoul National University

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Break

10:30 AM -10:45 AM

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Panel 5: Gendering Democratic Socialism in Muslim Contexts

10:45 AM -12:30 PM

 

Chair: Fatemeh Sadeghi, Fellow at McGill University

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Revisiting Ali Shariati on Women’s Question

Reza Alijani, Writer and Journalist

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Modalities, Influences and Trajectories of Shariati and Marxists’ Views on Women, Gender and Sexuality in Iran

Shahla Talebi, Arizona State University

 

Iran: Imagining Gender in an Indigenous Democratic Socialism

Esha Momeni, University of California, Los Angeles

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Lunch 

12:30 PM -1:30 PM

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Panel 6: Muslim as an “Emancipated Critical Subject”?

1:30 PM -3:00 PM

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Chair: Siavash Saffari, Seoul National University

 

Who is an Emancipated Critical Subject? Reading Ali Shariati’s “Kaviriyat” in Today’s Context

Sara Naderi, University of Victoria

 

I Bear Witness, therefore, I am a Muslim: Shahada as Muslim Witnessness in Shariati’s Thought         

Sajad Soleymani Yazdi, University of Alberta       

 

Ali Shariati and the Question of National Identity: A Decolonial Narrative

Ehsan Kashfi, University of Alberta

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Concluding Remark 

3:00 PM -3:15 PM

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