{"id":12605,"date":"2022-08-09T10:42:27","date_gmt":"2022-08-09T14:42:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.brown.edu\/libnews\/?p=12605"},"modified":"2022-08-09T10:42:27","modified_gmt":"2022-08-09T14:42:27","slug":"islamic-pasts-futures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/islamic-pasts-futures\/","title":{"rendered":"The MIT Press and Brown University Library release A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures by Shahzad Bashir"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Enter A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures<\/em> by Shahzad Bashir<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discover more about the publication including an interview with Shahzad Bashir<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Announcement of the publication from the MIT Press news site<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An interactive, open-access born-digital publication, this groundbreaking book\u2019s interface encourages engagement with rich visual material and multimedia evidence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The MIT Press\u00a0<\/a>and Brown University Library\u2019s\u00a0Digital Publications Initiative<\/a>\u00a0announce the publication of\u00a0A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Shahzad Bashir. An interactive, open-access born-digital work, this groundbreaking book decenters Islam from a geographical identification with the Middle East, an articulation through men\u2019s authority alone, and the assumption that premodern expressions are more authentically Islamic than modern ones. Aimed at a wide international audience, the book consists of engaging stories and audiovisual materials that will enable readers at all levels to appreciate Islam as an aspect of global history for centuries. The book URL is\u00a0islamic-pasts-futures.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures, <\/em>Bashir discusses Islam as phenomenon and as discourse\u2014observed in the built environment, material objects, paintings, linguistic traces, narratives, and social situations. He draws on literary genres, including epics, devotional poetry and prayers, and modern novels; art and architecture in varied forms; material culture, from luxury objects to cheap trinkets; and such forms of media as photographs, graffiti, and films. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIdeas pertaining to Islam and other matters of social significance are enmeshed in structures of power. Understandings of history, including our own, are changeable; they appear and dissolve in tandem with particular human circumstances,\u201d explains Bashir, Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Humanities and Professor of History and Religious Studies at Brown University. \u201cThis book urges us to see pasts and futures as fields of unlimited possibility that come alive through a combination of close observation and ethical positioning.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through multimedia enhancements and an interactive navigation system, A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures <\/em>allows for an exploration of and engagement with rich visual material and multimedia evidence not possible in a printed volume. The book encourages readers to enter Islam through a diverse set of doorways, each leading to different time periods across different parts of the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe MIT Press has a long and rich history of publishing books that give unique form to unique arguments,\u201d says Amy Brand, Director and Publisher of the MIT Press. \u201cWe are thrilled to partner with Brown University Library\u2019s Digital Publications Initiative<\/a> on this book, which creates exciting new opportunities to share knowledge.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures<\/em>, Professor Bashir not only advances new ways of conceptualizing time as a human construct, but also puts theory into action within a dynamic digital structure that breaks free of the linearity that has always seemed an inescapable given in history writing,\u201d says Joseph Meisel, Joukowsky Family University Librarian at Brown University. \u201cTo realize this reimagining of historical analysis in four dimensions, Professor Bashir has also enlarged how we can think about the possibilities and practices of digital scholarly publication.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The publication of A<\/em> New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures<\/em> brings together the MIT Press\u2019s global publishing experience and the Brown University Library\u2019s digital publication expertise. This cross-institutional collaboration extends to the recently announced On Seeing<\/a> series, an experiment in multimodal publishing that will explore how we see, comprehend, and participate in visual culture. The series will center the lived experience and knowledge of diverse authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The publication of A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures <\/em>is supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the MIT Press, and the Brown University Library\u2019s Digital Publications Initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the MIT Press<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Established in 1962, the MIT Press is one of the largest and most distinguished university presses in the world and a leading publisher of books and journals at the intersection of science, technology, art, social science, and design. MIT Press books and journals are known for their intellectual daring, scholarly standards, interdisciplinary focus, and distinctive design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the Brown University Library<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Brown University Library is central to Brown\u2019s academic mission to support teaching and learning at the highest level, and in a spirit of free and open inquiry. The Library is home to the Center for Digital Scholarship, a hub for the creation of new scholarly forms and other innovations in scholarly communication, including the Mellon- and NEH-supported Digital Publications Initiative<\/a>. An area of distinction for the Library and Brown, the Digital Publications Initiative is helping to set the standards for the future of scholarship in the digital age. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enter A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures by Shahzad Bashir Discover more about the publication including an interview with Shahzad Bashir Announcement of the publication from the MIT Press news site: An interactive, open-access born-digital publication, this groundbreaking book\u2019s interface encourages engagement with rich visual material and multimedia evidence The MIT Press\u00a0and Brown … The MIT Press and Brown University Library release A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures by Shahzad Bashir<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,33,35,155,158,15,16,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements-special-collections","category-digital-projects","category-general-interest","category-home-page","category-media","category-new-resources-services","category-publications","category-special-collections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}