The department of Islam, Politics and Society hosts its annual research seminar. Each year the department's staff present their ongoing research. Please find the full programme below.
Registration
We invite both staff and students to attend the seminar. Admission and lunch are free but registration is required.
Please karin.vannieuwkerk [at] ru.nl (send an email to Karin van Nieuwkerk) to register for the seminar.
Keynote address - Pieter Coppens - 'Biographies as a Source for Islamic History of Dying'
12:00 - 13:00 hrs.
A separate genre of ars moriendi – works with clear instructions for the dying, as known to European Christian history – is difficult to locate in Islamic history. How were norms of dying defined and disseminated, then? The genre of biographies of exemplary pious figures may have played an important role in that. Through some examples to be found in this genre, I will show how biographical works may be helpful to construct a longue durée history of dying in Islam.
About the speaker
Pieter Coppens (1983) is an associate professor at the School of Religion and Theology, VU University Amsterdam. His recently granted NWO-Vidi research project focuses on the art of dying in Islamic traditions (600-1800). Before that he mainly worked on Salafi hermeneutics and the history of Sufi eschatology.
