ENSIE Call for Papers for ESSWE10

Vilnius, Lithuania — 25-28 June 2025

ENSIE is again organising panels for the biannual conference of ESSWE, which in 2025 will be at Vilnius University in Lithuania, Thursday June 26 to Saturday June 28. The theme of the ESSWE conference is "Esotericism and Rationality." Proposals are therefore invited for papers dealing with any aspect of Islam, esotericism, and rationality. ​As ESSWE is also inviting reflections on the past research that the study of esotericism has undertaken and its evolution, proposals are also invited for papers that reflect on the past research that the study of Islam and esotericism has undertaken and on its evolution and the diverse methodological paths it has explored over the years. ENSIE will then assemble proposals for papers into proposals for ENSIE sessions, and forward these to ESSWE. Each session will have three to four papers. 

ENSIE will also be holding an additional ENSIE workshop with round tables purely for ENSIE members in conjunction with the ESSWE conference, on Wednesday June 25, also at Vilnius University. This will follow the overall aims of ENSIE, not just the ESSWE theme.

Proposals for ESSWE panels and/or the ENSIE workshop should be submitted by 15 December 2024 to esswe10@ensie.site. It is possible to participate in both events, but only one paper may be submitted for each one. Please include name, title, and institutional affiliation, and then 3-5 keywords and, for paper proposals, a title and an abstract of no more than 300 words. 

For further information, see https://www.esswe.org/current-conference.

 

Entangled Late Soviet Sufism

The paper by Oleg Yarosh, “Entangled Sufism in the Late-Soviet esoteric milieu,” presented at the ENSIE meeting in Copenhagen on 25 June 2023, is now available as "Entangled Late Soviet Sufism" on the Research Blog of the German-Russian Research Project on New Age in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, at https://newageru.hypotheses.org/9971. 

The abstract reads:

The complex esoteric milieu in Soviet society, although centered around influential figures and groups in major cities of the European part of the USSR, was not homogenous. Less noticeable peripheral areas in the eastern parts of the Soviet Union also contributed to the esoteric milieu, often introducing unique teachings and practices. The dynamic interplay between these central and peripheral regions informed a multifaceted esoteric underground that developed despite the still oppressive late Soviet political climate. My focus lies on the Sufi current within this milieu, which evolved from the reciprocal entanglement process between center-periphery dynamics, encompassing Western esoteric currents, parascience, and popular Sufism in the Muslim-majority regions of the USSR.

ENSIE 2024 deadline approaching

15 February 2024 is the deadline for proposals for the 2024 Meeting of the European Network for the Study of Islam and Esotericism (ENSIE), 2-3 July 2024, University of Exeter, England.

The theme for the meeting is “Dreams and Visions in Islam”. Although we especially invite papers that engage with the meeting theme, proposals that do not relate to the meeting theme are also welcome. See http://ensie.site/conferences.html for more details.

ENSIE 2024 Call for papers (updated)

“Dreams and Visions in Islam” 

2024 Meeting of the European Network for the Study of Islam and Esotericism (ENSIE), 2-3 July 2024, University of Exeter, England.

Deadline for submissions: 15 February 2024. 

The theme for the meeting is “Dreams and Visions in Islam”. See http://ensie.site/conferences.html for more details. Although we especially invite papers that engage with the meeting theme, proposals that do not relate to the meeting theme are also welcome. 

There is no fee for attending the meeting and subsidized accommodation on campus will be provided, but the cost of travel is the responsibility of individual participants.

2023 ENSIE meeting program

The 2023 ENSIE meeting-in-conjunction with the ESSWE conference will be held at Copenhagen University on June 25, starting at 13:00.  The 2023 ESSWE conference, at which there will be two ENSIE panels, will be at Malmö University, June 26-28, starting at 09:00. There are trains between Copenhagen and Malmö every 12 minutes, and the journey takes 42 minutes. Copenhagen Airport is the best airport for Malmö. Hotels are cheaper in Malmö than Copenhagen.

The panels at the 2023 ENSIE meeting-in-conjunction will be:

Reviving Muḥyiddīn: The contemporary uses of Ibn ʿArabī’s thought and the reinventions of Islam.

• Hadi Fakhoury (Harvard Divinity School) "Ibn ʿArabī between 'East' and 'West': Tradition, orthodoxy, and the meaning of Islam."
• Gregory Vandamme (Université catholique de Louvain), "Akbarian Anarchism: The influence of Ibn ʿArabī’s thought in the modern West and the limiting case of Ivan Aguéli."
• Ricarda Stegmann (​​Université de Fribourg), "Re-spiritualizing the world: Ibn ʿArabī in the thought of Faouzi Skali."
• Marcia Hermansen (Loyola University Chicago), "Healing with the Divine Names: Western Sufi practices derived from Ibn ʿArabī’s Emanationist Metaphysics."

Spiritism and Esotericism from Nahḍa Egypt to the USSR

• Mariam Elashmawy (FU Berlin), “Seances, societies, and periodicals: Egyptian spiritism contextualized.”
• Mattias Gori Olesen (Aarhus University), “Perennial bonds: Esotericism and Egyptian-Indian nationalist solidarity in the early 20th century.”
• Oleg Yarosh (National Academy of Science of Ukraine), “Entangled Sufism in the Late-Soviet esoteric milieu.”

For joining instructions for the meeting-in-conjunction, contact secretary@ensie.site.

The ENSIE panels at the 2023 ESSWE conference will be:

Practical Esotericism in Islam, Ancient and Modern, West and East, and In Between.

• Liana Saif (University of Amsterdam), “The Astral Craft in the Arabic Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica.”
• Lisa Alexandrin (University of Manitoba), “Sufi Graphology in the Manuscript Traditions of Sa‘d al-Dīn Ḥamūyeh and Sitt ‘Ajam bint al-Nāfis al-Baghdadiyya.”
• Francesco Piraino (Ca' Foscari University, Venice), “Photography as a Spiritual Practice: The Metaphysical Art of Maïmouna Guerresi.”
• Ricarda Stegmann (Université de Fribourg), “Transmitting the Untransmittable: Sufi Teaching Practices in Twentieth- and Twenty-first-Century Europe.”

Core Esoteric Practices of the Sufis

• Simon Stjernholm (Copenhagen University), “Dhikr, the Body and the Senses.”
• Makhabbad Maltabarova (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena), “Mevlevi Sufi Whirling Practice in the Works of Western Esoteric and Dance Teachers of the Early 20th Century.”
• Michele Petrone (Università di Napoli "l'Orientale"), “The Multiple Lives of the Verse: Ethiopian Sufi Mawlid between Manuscripts and YouTube.”
• Mark Sedgwick (Aarhus University), “Esoteric and Exoteric Practice: Sufi Approaches to the Sharia.”

For details of the ESSWE program, see 

https://sv-se.eu.invajo.com/event/departmentofsociety,cultureandidentity/esswe9.

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Contact: info@ensie.site

Postdoctoral fellowship in Spirituality and the Arts

The Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School invites applications for a one-year paid postdoctoral fellowship in Spirituality and the Arts, in collaboration with the Warburg Institute, the Giorgio Cini Foundation, and the Centre for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam. This is a benefits-eligible position. The candidates will work under the supervision of the Director of the Center, Professor Charles Stang, as part of the Center’s initiative on “Transcendence and Transformation.” 

Application deadline April 7. 2023.  See https://academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/12280 and https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/about/transcendence-and-transformation.

Art, Aesthetics and Islamic Mysticism

From Fachbereich Interreligiöser Dialog, Akademie der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart:

During the 20th and 21st centuries, Islamic mysticism, or Sufism, spread extensively throughout Western society. Today’s Sufis, whilst still practicing the traditional arts, also express themselves through plastic and visual arts, performing arts, architecture, music and other forms of artistic conceptualizations.

This conference will focus on the aesthetic engagement of contemporary artists with Sufi practices, rituals, and discourses in the two-day international interdisciplinary online Conference Art, Aesthetics and Islamic Mysticism: Contemporary Perspectives on March 30th - 31st 2023

The Conference will bring together international scholars as well as artists, and will include the screening of two movies, “Light upon Light” und “Wajd Sufi (Sufi Ecstasy)”. The conference language will be English. You can register via our online form here.