Dear colleagues, I am delighted to share the program of the 2021 conference Notions of Jihad Reconsidered: Perspectives on Media, Materiality, and Political Violence [1] (Online/Mainz/Mannheim 08 - 10 October 2021). The conference is organized by the Junior Research Group _Jihadism on the Internet_ [2]_: Images and Videos, their Appropriation and Dissemination_ at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Topic The symposium explores how different notions of jihad and political violence have entered and been shaped by discursive formations in academia, media, and the arts. It takes the aesthetic dimensions of images and sounds that have emerged over the last 20 years in the engagement with 9/11 and its aftermath as a starting point to rethink the various notions of jihad and its relation to political violence. Bringing together international scholars, artists, and curators, the symposium critically examines the ways in which the concept of jihad has been studied, covered, and resisted by different actors. It discusses how notions of jihad are conditioned by and manifest in practices of knowledge production of a wide range of social actors around the world. The symposium includes a joint visit of the special exhibition MINDBOMBS and an Artist Talk at the Kunsthalle Mannheim, a keynote lecture as well as four thematic panels. During the four thematic panels, renowned scholars and artists explore the visual and sonic aesthetics that have helped manifest perceptions of jihad. They critically reflect on the practices of knowledge production in different social spheres that have conditioned notions of Jihad and political violence, debating the canonization and archiving of mediations and imaginations of Jihad, as well as ethnographic case studies that show how notions, media, and materialities of Jihad are entangled with local and global structures of power. Registration and Attendance The symposium will be held in a hybrid format, considering hygiene measures then applicable at Johannes Gutenberg University or Kunsthalle Mannheim. The symposium is free to attend but you need to register (https://notions-of-jihad.uni-mainz.de/registration/). The symposium offers limited space for in-person attendance and will be simultaneously delivered online via Zoom. Delegates will receive Zoom joining instructions via email 24 hours before the symposium begins. Contact: notions-of-jihad@uni-mainz.de Programme (all times CEST) ------------------------- October 6, 2021 - Museum Kunsthalle Mannheim 13.00: Registration 13.30: Welcoming Sebastian Baden (Kunsthalle Mannheim) 13.45: Introduction Christoph Günther (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) 14.30: Curator's guided tour through the exhibition _MINDBOMBS - Visual Cultures of Political Violence_ 17.00: Artist talk: _Art and Political Violence_ with Morehshin Allahyari, Khalid Wad Albaih, Johan Grimonprez, Henrike Naumann and Wendy Shaw. Moderation: Larissa-Diana Fuhrmann (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) and Sebastian Baden (Kunsthalle Mannheim) October 7, 2021 - ReWi I (University Mainz) 12.30 - 13.30: Lunch 13.30 - 15.30: Panel 1 | Affective Archives - Enduring Sounds and Images Chair: Robert Dörre (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) Presenters: Michael Krona (University of Malmö) Kevin B. Lee (Merz Akademie Stuttgart) Donatella Della Ratta (John Cabot University, Rome) Aaron Zelin (Washington Institute for Near East Policy) 15.30 - 15.45: Coffee break 15.45 - 17.00: Keynote (Christiane Gruber / University of Michigan): From ISIS to the AfD: Ultraist Rhetoric and Visuality in Orientalist Concurrence 17.00 - 17.30: Coffee break 17.30 - 19.30: Panel 2 | Aesthetics of Jihad: Audiovisual Mediations and Formations Chair: Yorck Beese (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) Presenters: Ahmed Al-Rawi (Simon Fraser University) Martin Daughtry (New York University) Nelly Lahoud (New America, Washington DC) Simon Menner (Berlin) October 8, 2021 - ReWi I (University Mainz) 14.00 - 16.00: Panel 3 | Ethnographic Perspectives on Imaginations and Materialities of Jihad Chair: Simone Pfeifer (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) Presenters: Hamza Esmili (Centre Maurice Halbwachs Paris) Nadia Fadil (KU Leuven) Martijn de Koning (Radboud University Nijmegen) Anja Kublitz (Aalborg Universitet) 16.00 - 16.30: Coffee Break 16.30 - 19.00: Panel 4 | Notions of Jihad and the Production of Knowledge Chair: Alexandra Dick (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) Presenters: Farid Hafez (Paris Lodron University of Salzburg) Jaan Islam (University of Edinburgh) Darryl Li (University of Chicago) Nicole Nguyen (University of Illinois - Chicago) Salman Sayyid (University of Leeds) 19.30: End of the Symposium ________________ Dr. des. Robert Dörre Junior Research Group Jihadism on the Internet [3] [4] Department of Anthropology and African Studies University of Mainz Forum Universitatis 6 D-55099 Mainz Links: ------ [1] https://notions-of-jihad.uni-mainz.de/ [2] https://www.ifeas.uni-mainz.de/dschihadismus-im-internet-die-gestaltung-von-... [3] https://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb07-ifeas-eng/jihadism-on-the-internet-image... [4] https://www.jihadism-online.de/