Call for paper proposals for the proposed panel on “Islam and International
Relations: Mutual Perceptions” for the 2011 MESA Conference (1-4 December
2011, Washington DC).
Dear Colleagues,
Greetings!
I would like to invite you to contribute a research/study paper for the panel on
“Islam and International Relations: Mutual Perceptions” for the coming MESA
annual conference. The deadline for submission of panel proposals is on 15
February 2011. Please read the abstract of the panel below.
For a very long time, the Muslim world was regarded as an outsider from the
cultural and normative pretext and state relations of the West. Even during the
reign of the Ottoman Empire, scholars of International Relations (IR) excluded
her as a subordinated non-ally or stealth ally of major European powers. It is
now apparent that there is an imperative motivation why Islamic discourses
gradually dominate contemporary international relations and events, e.g.
Palestinian question, Iranian nuclear issue, Arab oil, gas and Turkish water
resources, rise of extremist movements, terrorism, post-war Afghanistan and
Iraq, tensions in the Maghreb countries, Sudanese conflict, Muslim rebels in
Southeast Asia, and how all of these events affect the West in a theory-praxis
spectrum.
If IR scholars and members of the English School of International Relations
were able to associate and converge their thoughts on conceptualizing
International Relations with Christianity, this is of course majority of them
are Christians. Then, it is a precedent and an indication that along the strand
of the Abrahamic Faiths Islam is putatively feasible and probable to understand
and interpret IR.
The objectives of the panel are to show juxtaposed positions of mutual
perceptions between Islam and IR based on conceived notions of sensitive
conceptions like sovereignty, state, human rights, gender, and etcetera, to
eliminate deplorable and pejorative (mis)conceptions of IR scholars towards
Islam and vice versa, and add or put Islam in the epitome of global discourse of
international relations as a major causal factor that affects the behaviors of
every actors in the international community particularly those which have
interest and peculiar relations with the Muslim world. The panel will examine
two outstanding inquiries that will guide the panel in hoping to find, discover
or create patterns of tangency. Questions below magnify the totality of where
the panel will lead at and to what extent it is presented and analyze.
1. How International Relations scholars perceived the field of
Islam?
2. How Islamic scholars (Muslims or non-Muslims) perceived the field
of IR?
The organizer humbly hopes that through this panel, we may able to add to
the realm of literature on how human races and civilizations are linked through
intellectual, cultural, economical, and social exchanges particularly on the
relations between the East (Islam) and the West (International Relations).
Kindly please send your abstract (200 to 400 words) and a short one-page CV to
nassef.adiong@yahoo.com before 13 February 2011.
Sincerely,
Nassef Adiong
PhD student in International Relations
Middle East Technical University,
Ankara, Turkey