GLAS 9th Annual Workshop Program

The Great Lakes Adiban Society is holding its 9th Annual Workshop at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

Date: October 10–12, 2025
Location: Harris Hall, Room 108 / 1881 Sheridan Road / Evanston, IL 60208


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Friday, October 10

16:00–17:30: Keynote. Jamal J. Elias, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Humanities (University of Pennsylvania): “Dreams of Khurasan: The Lives of Persian in the Ottoman World”

Followed by a reception.

Saturday, October 11

8:30–9:00: Breakfast

Persianate Visuals: Kings, Queens, and Adab
Chair: Usman Hamid (Northwestern University)

  • 9:00–9:40: Namrata B. Kanchan (Brown University) / A Paradise of Her Own: Early Modern Indo-Persianate Images of Gardens as Spaces for Elite Female Displays of Power
  • 9:40–10:30: Omri Zemler (University of Michigan) / Painted Adab from Persianate India: An Analysis of a majmūʿa Painting from the University of Michigan’s Special Collections
  • 10:30–11:10: Ron Sela (Indiana University) / The Boy Who Would Be King: Young Timur at Play

11:10–11:40: Break

Language and Race: Lexicons and Lexicographers
Chair: Rajeev Kinra (Northwestern University)

  • 11:40–12:20: Thomas Bijan Parsa (Northwestern University) / Ancient Language and Early Modern Lexicography: Mir Jamal al-Din Husayn Inju’s Farhang-i Jahangiri and its Historical Language Project
  • 12:20–13:00: Jeson Ng (University of Chicago) / Defining and Defying Race in Medieval Arabic-Persian and Turkish-Arabic Lexicons

13:00–14:00: Lunch

Desires: Bodies, Devotion, Metaphysics
Chair: Jamal Elias

  • 14:00–14:40: Paul Losensky (Indiana University) / “To Kiss the Threshold of the King of Khorasan”: An Ode to Imam Rezā by Bābā Faghāni
  • 14:40–15:20: Nicholas Mazer Crummey (University of Michigan) / An Ottoman Manual on the Adab of Sex: Erotic Taste and Urban Distinction in Enderunlu Fazıl’s Çenginâme

15:20–15:30: Short break

  • 15:30–16:10: Farah Akhtar (University of Chicago) / From Herat to Delhi: The Metaphysics of Jāmī’s Lawā’iḥ and Khwaja Khurd’s Fawā’iḥ

16:10–16:30: Break

Narrating Place and Space
Chair: Nathan Tabor (Western Michigan University)

  • 16:30–17:10: Ardahbek Amantur (Indiana University) / Ghazat-i Dar Mulk-i Chin and the Poetics of History in 19th-Century Islamic Central Asia
  • 17:10–17:50: Aisha Valiulla (Northwestern University) / What al-Jahiz Said: Adab and Medieval Indian Ocean Arabographia

18:30: Dinner for workshop participants

Sunday, October 12

8:00–8:30: Breakfast

Arabic Poetics: Patronage and Continuities
Chair: Aisha Valiulla (Northwestern University)

  • 8:30–9:10: Jennifer Tobkin (The George Washington University) / In Search of ʿAbdallāh, the Most Sought After Nadīm in Baghdad
  • 9:10–9:50: Pamela Klasova (The University of Chicago) / Old Arabic Poetic Tradition in the New Age of Islam: Dhū al-Rumma (d. 736) and his emulation of ʿAlqama (6th cent)

9:50–10:10: Short Break

Ferdowsi and his Misattributions
Chair: Daniel Majchrowicz (Northwestern University)

  • 10:10–10:50: Modje Taavon (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) / The Many Lives of Ẓaḥḥāk
  • 10:50–11:30: Austin O’Malley (University of Chicago) / Philology and Fan Fiction: Constructing Authorship in Pseudo-Ferdowsi’s Yusof and Zolaykhā

11:30–11:50: Break

South Asia Cosmopolitanism
Chair: Jonathan Brack (Northwestern University)

  • 11:50–12:30: David Boyk (Northwestern University) / Islamicate Learning at the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library
  • 12:30–13:10: Daniel Majchrowicz (Northwestern University) / Ajeeb: Qazi Abdul Ghaffar and the Persistence of the Persianate in Late Colonial India

13:10–14:00: Lunch

The workshop is generously supported by Northwestern University’s Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program, the Middle East and North African Studies Program, the History Department, the Depart of Religious Studies, The Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, and the South Asia Research Forum.