[Air-L] Conference Notions of Jihad Reconsidered

[Robert Dörre]

Dear colleagues,

I am delighted to share the program of the 2021 conference Notions of 
Jihad Reconsidered: Perspectives on Media, Materiality, and Political 
Violence [1] (Online/Mainz/Mannheim 08 - 10 October 2021). The 
conference is organized by the Junior Research Group _Jihadism on the 
Internet_ [2]_: Images and Videos, their Appropriation and 
Dissemination_ at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at 
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

Topic

The symposium explores how different notions of jihad and political 
violence have entered and been shaped by discursive formations in 
academia, media, and the arts. It takes the aesthetic dimensions of 
images and sounds that have emerged over the last 20 years in the 
engagement with 9/11 and its aftermath as a starting point to rethink 
the various notions of jihad and its relation to political violence. 
Bringing together international scholars, artists, and curators, the 
symposium critically examines the ways in which the concept of jihad has 
been studied, covered, and resisted by different actors. It discusses 
how notions of jihad are conditioned by and manifest in practices of 
knowledge production of a wide range of social actors around the world.

The symposium includes a joint visit of the special exhibition MINDBOMBS 
and an Artist Talk at the Kunsthalle Mannheim, a keynote lecture as well 
as four thematic panels. During the four thematic panels, renowned 
scholars and artists explore the visual and sonic aesthetics that have 
helped manifest perceptions of jihad. They critically reflect on the 
practices of knowledge production in different social spheres that have 
conditioned notions of Jihad and political violence, debating the 
canonization and archiving of mediations and imaginations of Jihad, as 
well as ethnographic case studies that show how notions, media, and 
materialities of Jihad are entangled with local and global structures of 
power.

Registration and Attendance

The symposium will be held in a hybrid format, considering hygiene 
measures then applicable at Johannes Gutenberg University or Kunsthalle 
Mannheim. The symposium is free to attend but you need to register 
(https://notions-of-jihad.uni-mainz.de/registration/). The symposium 
offers limited space for in-person attendance and will be simultaneously 
delivered online via Zoom. Delegates will receive Zoom joining 
instructions via email 24 hours before the symposium begins.

Contact: notions-of-jihad at uni-mainz.de

Programme (all times CEST)

-------------------------

October 6, 2021 - Museum Kunsthalle Mannheim

13.00: Registration

13.30: Welcoming
Sebastian Baden (Kunsthalle Mannheim)

13.45: Introduction
Christoph Günther (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)

14.30: Curator's guided tour through the exhibition _MINDBOMBS - Visual 
Cultures of Political Violence_

17.00: Artist talk: _Art and Political Violence_ with Morehshin 
Allahyari, Khalid Wad Albaih, Johan Grimonprez, Henrike Naumann and 
Wendy Shaw. Moderation: Larissa-Diana Fuhrmann (Johannes Gutenberg 
University Mainz) and Sebastian Baden (Kunsthalle Mannheim)

October 7, 2021 - ReWi I (University Mainz)

12.30 - 13.30: Lunch

13.30 - 15.30: Panel 1 | Affective Archives - Enduring Sounds and Images

Chair: Robert Dörre (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)

Presenters:
Michael Krona (University of Malmö)
Kevin B. Lee (Merz Akademie Stuttgart)
Donatella Della Ratta (John Cabot University, Rome)
Aaron Zelin (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)

15.30 - 15.45: Coffee break

15.45 - 17.00: Keynote (Christiane Gruber / University of Michigan): 
 From ISIS to the AfD: Ultraist Rhetoric and Visuality in Orientalist 
Concurrence

17.00 - 17.30: Coffee break

17.30 - 19.30: Panel 2 | Aesthetics of Jihad: Audiovisual Mediations and 
Formations

Chair: Yorck Beese (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)

Presenters:
Ahmed Al-Rawi (Simon Fraser University)
Martin Daughtry (New York University)
Nelly Lahoud (New America, Washington DC)
Simon Menner (Berlin)

October 8, 2021 - ReWi I (University Mainz)

14.00 - 16.00: Panel 3 | Ethnographic Perspectives on Imaginations and 
Materialities of Jihad

Chair: Simone Pfeifer (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)

Presenters:
Hamza Esmili (Centre Maurice Halbwachs Paris)
Nadia Fadil (KU Leuven)
Martijn de Koning (Radboud University Nijmegen)
Anja Kublitz (Aalborg Universitet)

16.00 - 16.30: Coffee Break

16.30 - 19.00: Panel 4 | Notions of Jihad and the Production of 
Knowledge

Chair: Alexandra Dick (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz)

Presenters:
Farid Hafez (Paris Lodron University of Salzburg)
Jaan Islam (University of Edinburgh)
Darryl Li (University of Chicago)
Nicole Nguyen (University of Illinois - Chicago)
Salman Sayyid (University of Leeds)

19.30: End of the Symposium

________________

Dr. des. Robert Dörre

Junior Research Group Jihadism on the Internet [3] [4]
Department of Anthropology and African Studies
University of Mainz
Forum Universitatis 6
D-55099 Mainz

Links:
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[1] https://notions-of-jihad.uni-mainz.de/
[2] 
https://www.ifeas.uni-mainz.de/dschihadismus-im-internet-die-gestaltung-von-bildern-und-videos-ihre-aneignung-und-verbreitung/
[3] 
https://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb07-ifeas-eng/jihadism-on-the-internet-images-and-videos-their-appropriation-and-dissemination/
[4] https://www.jihadism-online.de/