Call for Papers King’s College London, Institute of Middle Eastern Studies Conference, London, 6 October 2020

King’s College London, Institute of Middle Eastern Studies Conference, London, October 6, 2020

Theme: “North Africa in 2020 - Current Challenges and Opportunities, Dominating Narratives, and New Perspectives”

Call for Proposals

The convenors, Inga Kristina Trauthig and Negah Angha, MA intern Aicha El Alaoui and senior academic patron, Professor Jonathan Hill invite proposals for October 6, 2020 Symposium - under the theme “North Africa in 2020 - Current Challenges and Opportunities, Dominating Narratives, and New Perspectives.”

We invite especially early career researchers and PhD students to submit proposals for presentations on North Africa in the aims to identify and discuss the cross-cutting themes amongst the different realities of the five countries as well as to provide insights into the current challenges and dominating narratives. We are interested in proposals that can speak to one of the three panels. 

The schedule of the conference will consist of three panels: 

1. Political Islam Across North Africa: Withered to Irrelevance or Continuous Influencer?
2. Religious Voices and Peace: From Grassroot Peacebuilding Movements to Leading Religious Leaders and their Impact
3. Trans-regional Threats and Challenges: Terrorism, Migration and Smuggling 

We look forward to proposals for papers on a broad range of international and transnational history topics, including not only traditional state-to-state relations, but also the flow of people, goods and ideas between states and/or non-state actors, the role of transnational organisations, and the importance of culture, religion, identity, race, and gender in international and transnational history, to name just a few. Interdisciplinary approaches with a strong historical focus are also welcome.

The conference is open to King’s College London and non-KCL speakers and attendees alike. Presentations are expected to last between 10 – 15 minutes and are followed by Q&A and feedback from the senior academic chair. We will offer an opportunity to contribute to a special-edition publication by KCL to those interested in submitting their full paper.

Those interested in presenting are invited to send a provisional title, an abstract no longer than 300 words, and a short biographical note to menakcl2020@gmail.com by 1 April 2020. Any queries are also welcome, to the same address.

More information on the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at KCL can be found here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/imes.

Further information about the MENA Research Group, including details of our programme of recent events, is available on our Twitter feed (@MenaKcl).