Presented By: Center for South Asian Studies
CSAS U-M Pakistan Conference Keynote | Glimpsing History through Literature's Window: Religious Sentiments, Emotional Styles, Punjabi Poets
Jamal J. Elias, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Part of the 10th U-M Pakistan Conference - Religious Landscapes
Full conference details and schedule here:
https://myumi.ch/xm2B4
Registration for this Zoom workshop is required:
https://myumi.ch/0Wn4k
Much of the discussion around Sufi poets and poetry emphasizes their appeal to a broad audience that transcends religious community, caste and class. Reading and listening audiences take this ecumenical or pluralistic message as characteristic of such poets and of Sufism at large. The purpose of my talk is to examine this premise through a focus on specific Sufi poets from the Punjab, using their work to analyze how they imagined and configured Muslim identities. Important questions emerging from such an investigation include how religious identity is configured, what purposes lie in behind choices of linguistic register, and how one expresses emotions and values in different contexts.
Jamal J. Elias is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. A recipient of many grants and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the (U.S.) Social Science Research Council (among others), he has lectured and published extensively on a broad range of subjects relevant to the medieval and modern Islamic world. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of nine books and numerous articles dealing with a range of topics in Islamic history, thought, literature, and art and his writings have been translated into at least ten languages. His most recent books are Alef is for Allah: Childhood, Emotion and Visual Culture in Islamic Societies (Berkeley, 2018); Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, Perception and Practice in Islam (Cambridge Massachusetts, 2012); and On Wings of Diesel: Trucks, Identity and Culture in Pakistan (Oxford, 2011).
Full conference details and schedule here:
https://myumi.ch/xm2B4
Registration for this Zoom workshop is required:
https://myumi.ch/0Wn4k
Much of the discussion around Sufi poets and poetry emphasizes their appeal to a broad audience that transcends religious community, caste and class. Reading and listening audiences take this ecumenical or pluralistic message as characteristic of such poets and of Sufism at large. The purpose of my talk is to examine this premise through a focus on specific Sufi poets from the Punjab, using their work to analyze how they imagined and configured Muslim identities. Important questions emerging from such an investigation include how religious identity is configured, what purposes lie in behind choices of linguistic register, and how one expresses emotions and values in different contexts.
Jamal J. Elias is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. A recipient of many grants and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the (U.S.) Social Science Research Council (among others), he has lectured and published extensively on a broad range of subjects relevant to the medieval and modern Islamic world. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of nine books and numerous articles dealing with a range of topics in Islamic history, thought, literature, and art and his writings have been translated into at least ten languages. His most recent books are Alef is for Allah: Childhood, Emotion and Visual Culture in Islamic Societies (Berkeley, 2018); Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, Perception and Practice in Islam (Cambridge Massachusetts, 2012); and On Wings of Diesel: Trucks, Identity and Culture in Pakistan (Oxford, 2011).
Co-Sponsored By
Explore Similar Events
-
Loading Similar Events...
