Deadline: 1 July 2012
Call for Papers for a special issue for the Journal of Muslims in Europe: “Europe with or without Muslims – narratives of Europe”
Guest editors:
- Göran Larsson, University of Gothenburg
- Riem Spielhaus, University of Copenhagen
We are seeking papers for a special issue of the new double blind-peer reviewed Journal by BRILL on Muslims in Europe to come out in Spring 2013. This special issue seeks to take up tensions in conflicting stories about and different perspectives on Europe’s history and identity that present Europe without Muslims or contrastingly portray Muslims as part of Europe’s past and present.
Under the headline “Europe with or without Muslims – narratives of Europe” we aim to bring together a number of perspectives from multiple disciplinary fields such as history, religious studies, cultural anthropology, political science and sociology in an analysis of diverging accounts and notions of Europe over time and places throughout the continent, open as well to external perspectives. The initial question thereby is, what role Islam and Muslims have played and still play in the imagining of what Europe means.
This way we aim to direct our view at the nexus between constructions of Europe and developments within contemporary European Islam providing space both for a critical review of academic approaches and the development of new impulses for future research.
Besides empirical papers we strongly encourage theoretical papers that challenge current research on Islam and Muslims in Europe and reflect on the own position of the researchers and his or her contributions to the construction of Europe and the role and function of Islam and Muslims.
We invite papers that address one of the topics of two sessions described below. Deadline for sending your abstracts: July the 1st, 2012. Accepted participants will be notified by July 20, 2012. If your paper is accepted, you must submit the final paper (max 10,000 words inclusive of footnotes) by 20 October 2012.
Applications to submit a short paper should include: 1. Proposer’s name and affiliation, 2. a title for the paper, 3. a ca. 500 word abstract.
All abstracts and paper should be written in English.
Time frame:
- Deadline for abstracts (ca. 500 words) 1.July 2012
- Deadline for sending final papers 20.October 2012
- Publication 15.March 2013
For this special issue we invite papers on the narratives imagining Europe with and without Muslims analyzing contents, actors and setting of those narratives that relate to one or several of the following questions:
1. Localizing debates connecting Europe and Islam:
In what way are debates about Europe and its identity mentioning the European past with reference to Muslim’s presence in Europe on the local, regional, national or European Union level? How do these different levels (local, regional, national, transnational) intersect?
2. Imagining Europe without Muslims:
What are the main patterns of the dominant constructions of Europe’s heritage like notions of a Judaeo-Christian heritage? Where and by whom are these narratives told? To what extent are they embedded in European integration or projects of community or nation-building?
3. Narratives of Europe inclusive of Muslims:
In what cases is the Muslim history of Europe used as counter narrative to question the construction of Europe as a Christian continent? What groups of people insist on an imagination of Europe with Muslims? How are these narratives used to strengthen a feeling of belonging and responsibility of current Muslims?
4. Contextualizing Islam debates in European history of thought:
Is it possible to make any comparison between current debates about Islam and Muslims and previous debates about ties between religions and national identities e.g. different Christian denominations in early modern Europe?
5. Imagining Europe from outside:
How is the relationship between Europe and its Muslim inhabitants viewed beyond the Mediterranean? Do accounts of European history and presentations of the contemporary Europe from within and without bear considerable differences?
CONTACT INFORMATION:
For submissions: paper proposals should be send electronically in Microsoft Word formats to Göran Larsson, University of Gothenburg: goran.larsson@religion.gu.se and Riem Spielhaus, University of Copenhagen: rsp@teol.ku.dk.
Website: http://www.brill.nl/publications/journals/journal-muslims-europe