Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture

Columbia University scholar Dabashi to keynote ‘Religion in Scholarship’ symposium April 9

Thursday, April 1, 2010, By News Staff
Share
College of Arts and Sciencesspeakers

The Syracuse University Humanities Center will present “Religion in Scholarship,” an interdisciplinary symposium exploring the changing relationship between religion and scholarly study, on Friday, April 9. The all-day symposium will take place in Room 304 of the Tolley Humanities Building and will be keynoted by Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University.

The symposium is free and open to the public. For more information, call 443-7192.

The symposium is being organized by Jonathan Singleton as a 2009-2010 SU Humanities Center Fellow. According to Singleton, this symposium aims to bring the problem of religion in scholarship into sharper focus. “In recent years, the impact of religion on global politics makes it seem almost irresponsible not to take religion into account in any scholarly discipline,” he says. “But how we should deal with religion raises difficult problems. Do our assumptions of ‘secularization’ need to be reconsidered? Where does a critical analysis of religion slip over into bias? And how detached and objective can any humanistic enquiry be in an increasingly corporatized academy? The symposium invites scholars from many different fields to talk about the changing ways religion impinges on their scholarship.”

Dabashi, a committed teacher, public speaker and current affairs essayist, and a staunch anti-war activist, was born in Ahvaz in the Khuzestan province of Iran. He received his college education in Tehran before moving to the United States and earning a dual Ph.D. in sociology of culture and Islamic studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 1984, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. He is currently the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, the oldest and most prestigious chair in his field.

Dabashi is the author of 20 books and more than 100 essays, articles and book reviews in major scholarly and peer-reviewed journals, on subjects ranging from Iranian Studies, medieval and modern Islam to comparative literature, world cinema and the philosophy of art (trans-aesthetics). A selected sample of his writing, “The World is My Home: A Hamid Dabashi Reader” (Transaction, 2010) is co-edited by Andrew Davison and Himadeep Muppidi. His books and articles have been translated into numerous languages.

In the context of his commitment to advancing transnational art and independent world cinema, Dabashi is the founder of Dreams of a Nation, a Palestinian Film Project dedicated to preserving and safeguarding Palestinian cinema. He is also chiefly responsible for opening up the study of Persian literature and Iranian culture at Columbia University to students of comparative literature and society, breaking away from the confinements of European Orientalism and American area studies.

The symposium program will also include two panel discussions featuring faculty from fields such as literature, history, religion, philosophy and anthropology. Panelists include:

  • Singleton, an English doctoral student in The College of Arts and Sciences;
  • Thomas Brockelman, professor of philosophy at Le Moyne College;
  • John S. Burdick, professor of anthropology at the Maxwell School;
  • Craige B. Champion, associate professor of ancient history and classics at the Maxwell School;
  • M. Gail Hamner, associate professor of religion in The College of Arts and Sciences;
  • Jason R. Wiles, assistant professor of biology in The College of Arts and Sciences; and
  • Corri Zoli of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at SU.

Singleton was one of two doctoral students awarded a 2009-10 Syracuse University Humanities Center Dissertation/Thesis Fellowship.  He is working on a dissertation project, “The Suspension of (Dis)Belief: Novel and Bible in Victorian Society,” which is a historical analysis of the politics of biblical quotation in Victorian literature and culture and the manner in which writers capitalized on the unacknowledged instabilities of contemporary religious discourse. Dissertations selected for the SU Humanities Center graduate fellowship show evidence of strong humanistic content and contribute to advancing one of the disciplines of study and/or creative work associated with the humanities.  Fellows meet regularly during the year to discuss their projects, lead colloquia for graduate students and faculty around their dissertation research, and participate actively in other Humanities Center research activities and events.

  • Author

News Staff

  • Recent
  • Newhouse Creative Advertising Students Win Big at Sports and Entertainment Clios
    Friday, May 30, 2025, By News Staff
  • Syracuse University Libraries’ Information Literacy Scholars Produce Information Literacy Collab Journal
    Thursday, May 29, 2025, By Cristina Hatem
  • Syracuse Spirit on Display: Limited-Edition Poster Supports Future Generations
    Thursday, May 29, 2025, By News Staff
  • Timur Hammond’s ‘Placing Islam’ Receives Journal’s Honorable Mention
    Tuesday, May 27, 2025, By News Staff
  • Syracuse University, Lockerbie Academy Reimagine Partnership, Strengthen Bond
    Friday, May 23, 2025, By News Staff

More In Arts & Culture

Syracuse Stage Hosts Inaugural Julie Lutz New Play Festival

Syracuse Stage is pleased to announce that the inaugural Julie Lutz New Play Festival will be held at the theatre this June. Formerly known as the Cold Read Festival of New Plays, the festival will feature a work-in-progress reading and…

Light Work Opens New Exhibitions

Light Work has two new exhibitions, “The Archive as Liberation” and “2025 Light Work Grants in Photography, that will run through Aug. 29. “The Archive as Liberation” The exhibition is on display in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery at Light…

Spelman College Glee Club to Perform at Return to Community: A Sunday Gospel Jazz Service June 29

As the grand finale of the 2025 Syracuse International Jazz Fest, the Spelman College Glee Club of Atlanta will perform at Hendricks Chapel on Sunday, June 29. The Spelman College Glee Club, now in its historic 100th year, is the…

Alumnus, Visiting Scholar Mosab Abu Toha G’23 Wins Pulitzer Prize for New Yorker Essays

Mosab Abu Toha G’23, a graduate of the M.F.A. program in creative writing in the College of Arts and Sciences and a current visiting scholar at Syracuse University, has been awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for a series of essays…

School of Architecture Faculty Pablo Sequero Named Winner of 2025 Architectural League Prize

School of Architecture faculty member Pablo Sequero’s firm, salazarsequeromedina, has been named to the newest cohort of winners in the biennial Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers, one of North America’s most prestigious awards for young practitioners. “An…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.