The fourth Critical Muslim Studies conference invites scholars, researchers and thinkers to engage with the theme of ReOrienting Resistance. This conference is a provocation as well as an invitation to conceptualise and confront the necessity and possibility of resistances in the 21st century. The current conjuncture is characterised by diminishing political imaginations of both the methods and objectives of resistances. By resistances, we refer to endeavours, orientations, experiments, and creative practices that cultivate and galvanise forms of re-imagining, escaping, and overcoming colonial regulation and objectification scenarios, with new decolonial strategies. The idea of new decolonial strategies embraces the politics of the resistances to come, with reflections on the imbrication of theory and practice underpinning the great liberation struggles of the 20th century that now seem out of time.

The logic of white supremacy finds expression and extends to other forms of ethno-nationalisms increasingly characterised by xenophobia against refugees, migrants, and minorities, with Islamophobia emerging as a key vector for apartheid and genocide. By targeting expressions of Muslimness and its various cognates, and by demonising immigration and cultural ethnicities, white supremacists and others have sought to enclose the commons within sovereign boundaries of colonial-racial policing. The liberal-democratic compact is being hollowed out; even the fictions of human and civil rights are being abandoned. The space (intellectual, cultural, economic) to build solidarities and identifications around global emancipatory horizons is under threat, necessitating the urgency of the political reimagination of the decolonial question: what is to be done that has not been done?

This conference aims to create a generative space for critically examining the challenges and exigencies of our current moment, as well as formulating counter-histories of the future. Our discussions will explore various forms of resistances, including—but not limited to—decolonial investigations, the cultivation of post-Western horizons, the overcoming of white sovereignties, and reflections on the limits and challenges of resisting the colonial-racial formations of Westernese.

This conference will be held in Istanbul, building upon the success of its three predecessors. As before, this international and interdisciplinary conference seeks to facilitate dialogue among researchers who may not explicitly identify with Critical Muslim Studies but share overlapping concerns and interests.

About Critical Muslim Studies

Critical Muslim Studies challenges the impasses of positivism, presentism, and the epistemic entrenchment of disciplines forged as part of Western world-making. It offers an orientation that is attentive to racial formations, transnational contexts, and the possibilities of decolonising practices and processes operating on a global scale. The focus of Critical Muslim Studies is not exclusively defined by territories, peoples and communities identified as Muslim or Muslim adjacent positionalities; instead, the focus is to foster a broader understanding of Muslimness and its limits across time and space.

Call for Abstracts

We invite contributions that engage with the complexities of Critical Muslim Studies and resistances, particularly those that examine the implications and tensions surrounding the decolonisation of discourses and the creation of alternative, intersectional forms of knowledge production and political practices.

Submissions extending beyond conventional framings of Muslimness and the Islamicate both substantively and theoretically are particularly welcome. We encourage perspectives that move beyond (SAMENA) South Asian, Middle Eastern, and North African contexts or their diasporic equivalents, and interrogate the hegemonic persistence of and subaltern alternatives to colonial-racial forms of political identities and institutions.

Presentation Formats
The conference invites individual presentations (15 minutes) on the conference theme from any relevant disciplinary field. These presentations should be thought as prompts for discussion and elaboration. Each session will be 90 minutes, with 30 minutes allocated for discussion and Q&A. Time will also be built into the program for networking.

• Presenter(s) Name(s) & Institutional Affiliation
• Short Biographical Note (100 words max)
• Presentation Title
• Presentation Abstract (300 words max)

Given the limited number of presentation slots, early submission is strongly encouraged.

Please Note: This is an in-person event only.

Registration: £200 (Includes accommodation and meals).

Submission Details
Send your abstract proposal to confadmin@leeds.ac.uk with the subject line: CMS4

Deadline for Submissions: 7th February 2025

For any queries, please email reorient@leeds.ac.uk with the subject line: CMS4