Studies in Shiʿi Materiality, the Sensorium, and Ritual
Studies in Shiʿi Materiality, the Sensorium, and Ritual
Proposed Book Series, Edinburgh University Press
Series Editors: Karen Ruffle (University of Toronto) and Babak Rahimi (University of California, San Diego)
The goal of this proposed book series is to provide a forum for innovative works that contribute to new studies of Shiʿi traditions that are in conversation with and contribute to broader scholarly discussions on everyday life and sensory experiences while bringing attention to lived traditions and understudied locations and temporalities. Studies in Shiʿi Materiality, the Sensorium, and Ritual welcomes books that make bold claims, present fine-grained studies, explore theories and concepts related to material culture, the sensorium, its related rituals, practices, and relation to architecture, literature, the body, and more.
With the aim of inclusivity of wide historical contexts and geographies of Islam, Studies in Shiʿi Materiality, the Sensorium, and Ritual attempts to expand the line of critical enquiry to reconceptualize Shiʿism beyond the normative models of text/scripture, Twelver Shiʿism, and the Iranian world. Projects that reframe these models are encouraged. The series aims to foster approaches that engage with the body and memory, and by and large sensory and material practices that shape lived Shiʿism. The series also embraces empirical methods within the humanities and the social sciences ranging from ethnography to discourse analysis. While the geographical focus of the series is on the Shiʿi world between the Balkans and Southeast Asia, we also welcome research that focuses on often-overlooked regions such as China and sub-Saharan Africa. In broad scholarly terms, the series aims to publish diverse disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches ranging from anthropology, art history, history, media studies, urban studies, philosophy, religious studies and sociology.
More specifically, we encourage submissions for innovative research that include:
- Studies on Zaydi, Ismaʿili, Alevi, Bektashi, Bohra, and other communities of ʿAlid devotion, including Sufi-oriented
- Ritual, theater, and performative studies
- Qualitative methodological approaches such as ethnography, including autoethnography
- Urban, space and critical border studies
- Comparative historical studies from the medieval to modern periods
- Technology and mediated practices
Series Editors: Karen Ruffle (University of Toronto) and Babak Rahimi (University of California, San Diego)