The Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations Graduate Students’ Association
(NMCGSA) at the University of Toronto 18th Annual Graduate Student Symposium
Power, Patronage, and Politics: Taking Stock of Empires
Preliminary Session Schedule
Updated information can be found at: http://nmc.utoronto.ca/symposiums/
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 26th AFTERNOON – “EMPIRES”
12:00-1:45pm
SPECIAL LUNCHEON FOR SPEAKERS
SESSION A: “BUILDING” AN EMPIRE
1:45pm
Opening Remarks
2:00pm
Ayse Bike Baykara (University of Illinois Urbana Champaign), Politics of the
Arena and How did Roman Pergamon Utilize Architecture to reflect a particular
identity and ideology?
2:25pm
Candis Haak (University of Toronto), Royal Patrons of Pilgrimage: Space, Ritual,
and Reference as Subject Makers of the Vijayanagara Empire
2:50pm
Aimee Miles (Koç University), Roman civic infrastructure as pacification and
propaganda: Case studies in Lycia and Pamphylia from the 1st century B.C. to the
1st century A.D.
3:15pm
Radovan Kabatiar (University of Toronto), Life on the Periphery, Life at the
Crossroads. Subsistence strategies at Kinet Höyük (Turkey) in the Late Bronze and
Early Iron Ages
3:40pm
BREAK
SESSION B: THE NEO-ASSYRIAN EMPIRE
3:55pm
Jennifer Finn (Ludwig-Maximilians Universität), Rethinking The Sin of Sargon
within Assyro-Babylonian Imperial Discourse
4:45pm
Yan Jia (Harvard University), Opening the Imperial Doors of Assyria: A Spatial
Reading of the Neo-Assyrian Monumental Doors from Balawat
5:10pm
Amanda Lanham (Harvard University), The Art of Emulation: “Assyrianization”
at Tell Fekheriye and Carchemish
5:35pm
Tracy L. Spurrier (University of Toronto), “Alme, Akšud, Ašlula šallassunu!”
Searching for evidence of Neo Assyrian Kings sharing their glory
5:35pm
DISCUSSION PANEL – DEFINING EMPIRE
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 27th MORNING – “THOUGHT”
9:30am
BREAKFAST
SESSION C: MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC THOUGHT
10:00am
Yehia Amin (University of Toronto), Between Peripatetic and Mystic: Studying
Suhrawardi's Early Thought
10:25am
Khalil Andani (Harvard Divinity School), The Metaphysics of Tawhīd: Ismā‘īlī
and Akbarī Perspectives
10:50am
BREAK
SESSION D: REFLECTIONS ON MODERN INTELLECTUAL THOUGHT
11:05am
Dina Fergani (University of Toronto), Abdallah al-Nadim and the 19th century
Egyptian intellectual milieu: Modern, all too modern?
11:30am
Sabrina M. Guerrieri (University of Toronto), Shari’ati’s Third World
Existentialism: reconciling “anti-materialism” and “Islamic Marxism”
11:55am
Netanel Silverman (University of Toronto), What Grows from New York Concrete:
Haim Nahman Bialik’s Romantic Tidhar (Plane Tree) and Mahmoud Darwish’s
Ironic Zanbak (Lily)
12:20-2:00pm
LUNCH BREAK
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 27th AFTERNOON – “EGYPT”
SESSION E: ANCIENT EGYPT
2:00pm
Thomas H. Greiner (University of Toronto), Byblos and its Egyptian Connections
in the late 2nd Millennium BC
2:25pm
Renata Schiavo (Pisa University), Royal and non-royal ancestor worship in
Ancient Egypt: a diachronic perspective
2:50pm
BREAK
SESSION F: EGYPT IN THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES
3:05pm
Fadia Bahgat (McGill University), The Case of the Maltese Women Evaders
3:30pm
Meira Gold (University of Toronto), Victorian Egyptology in Context: The Egypt
Exploration Fund's search for the biblical exodus route
3:55pm
Eric Schewe (University of Michigan), No Photography in Military Areas: The
Imperial Origins of Egyptian Spacial Security Techniques in World War II
SESSION G: INSIDE SYRIA TODAY
4:20pm
Rasha Elendari (University of Toronto), and Joanna Kader (Gordon Kirke Q. C.),
Assad and Isis: Syrians on the horns of a dilemma
5:30pm
SYMPOSIUM RECEPTION
This year’s organizers: Meredith Brand, Janet Khuu, Usman Hamid, Tracy Spurrier