Sunday, June 14, 2009

12-04-09 : East West Encounters- Gulen

12-04-09 : East West Encounters- Gulen Movement
Conference in Los Angeles, CA

July 15 - deadline for paper submission

Invitation to a conference on "East and West Encounters: The Gulen
Movement"
www.gulenconference.net

Sponsors:
Office of Religious Life at the University of Southern California,
Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University,
Santa Monica College International Education Center
Pacifica Institute

Editorial Board:
Dean Varun Soni - University of Southern California
Prof. Juan Campo - UC Santa Barbara
Prof. Reza Aslan - UC Riverside
Prof. Jill Carroll - Rice University
Prof. Reuven Firestone - Hebrew Union College
Prof. Amir Hussain - Loyola Marymount University
Prof. Daniel Skubik - California Baptist University
Prof. Jon Paulien - Loma Linda University
Prof. John Olsen - University of Arizona
Prof. Richard Penaskovic - Auburn University
Prof. Thomas Burns - University of Oklahoma
Prof. Alan Godlas - University of Georgia

Dear Dr. X,

We are pleased to announce the International Conference on East and West
Encounters: The Gülen Movement, to be held December 4 to 6, 2009 in Los
Angeles, California, USA. This conference follows a series of very
successful conferences on the Gülen movement that are held at Georgetown
University (2008), House of Lords & London School of Economics (2007),
University of Oklahoma (2006) and Rice University (2005).

During the past several years, over 300 academics like yourself around
the world studied and presented the impact of Gülen movement over
religious, cultural, social spheres of the world. The growing interest
in this new exciting field led us to focus attention on this emerging
research area and thus, we are convening the International Conference on
"East and West Encounters: The Gülen Movement", to be held December 4-6,
2009 at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California,
USA. The abstract deadline for presentations is July 15, 2009.

Topics include:

. Impact of Gülen movement in the encounter between East and West
. Democracy and dialogue: Gülen's contributions
. Gülen inspired educational institutions
. Structure, development and finance in the Gülen movement
. Women and gender roles in the Gülen movement
. Humanistic vision of Gülen
. Gülen's contributions to Islamic theology
. Gülen's impact on the youth

/The Editorial Board is especially interested to the contributions
regarding the following topics: /

. Contributions of the Gülen movement to the dialogue between East and West
. Gülen's view of the challenges facing Muslim citizens in the western
democracies
. Gülen's view on Zimmi's: status of non-Muslims in the Muslim world
. Violence in the name of God: Gülen's fight with violence
. Gülen's view of the clash of civilizations
. Gülen's view on Islamic theocracies
. Gülen's perspective on Muslim and non-Muslim thinkers and philosophers
. Gülen's understanding of humanism
. Social sciences and arts in Gülen inspired schools
. The impact of the Environment and Energy Olympiads by Gülen inspired
schools and organizations
. Educational transformation of African youth by Gülen inspired schools
. Character education in Gülen inspired schools
. Recruitment and fundraising in the Gülen movement
. Gülen's role in the movement
. Post-Gülen survival of the Gülen Movement
. Advantages and disadvantages of the lack of central coordination in
the Gülen movement
. Is a Gülen inspired insurance company, Iþýk Sigorta, a new concept in
modern Islamic finance?
. Mobilization of the young generation by Gülen's ideals
. Gülen's views on women rights
. Gülen's view on roles and rights of the family members
. Gülen's view on inheritance, equality and divorce rights of Muslim women

The authors should submit an abstract (approximately 250 words) and
biography (approximately 150 words) at the conference website by July
15, 2009. The editorial committee will review the abstracts and respond
by July 31, 2009. The selected authors should then submit papers of
minimum 3000 and maximum 6000 words to the Editorial Board by September
20, 2009. Electronic submission via the conference web page is
preferred. Authors who choose to submit hard copies are responsible for
the timely delivery of their submissions by the same deadlines. The
editorial board will evaluate and ask the authors to revise the papers
(if needed) and resubmit camera ready copies by November 1, 2009. The
conference organizers reserve the right to remove from the proposed
program papers not received by the published deadlines or that fail to
respond to the comments of the editorial board. The accepted papers will
be published at the conference webpage and as conference proceedings.
The coverage of the conference will be publicized on the conference web
page: www.gulenconference.net .

Travel and accommodation expenses of the invited presenters including
airport pickups, meals, and organized sightseeing trips will be met by
the organizing committee. Please inquire for scholarships for
non-presenting participation.

We look forward to your participation. Please do not hesitate to contact
the Editorial Board at coordinator@gulenconference.net
.

Attachments: Conference flyer and call for papers

1 comment:

Iftikhar Ahmad said...

Muslim parents teach their children to respect their teachers. From a very young age, we are taught that Islam teaches us that after our parents, our teachers are most deserving of respect.
It must be an extremely confusing time for the Muslim parent in Leytonstone, London. For up to 30 parents may face prosecution for withdrawing their children from school, disobeying the teachers in the school, simply to secure a decent moral upbringing for their children. The school had decided to have a week of lessons about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history. Part of this was a special adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet retitled Romeo and Julian as well as fairytales and stories changed to show men falling in love with men. Rather than filling the heads of impressionable boys and girls with fatuous drivel about gay penguins, schools should be ashamed of the fact that they are sending children out into the world barely able to read, write and add up properly. Muslim children are leaving schools without learning their cultural roots and linguistic skills.

The action was being taken against the parents as part of a policy of ' promoting tolerance'. So why not tolerate parents, who, for sincerely-held reasons, consider their children too young to be taught about gay relationships? This isn't education, its cultural fascism. A record numbers of pupils persistently played truant in 2006-07, with around 272,950 pupils persistently absent in 2007, missing more than 20% of school. We rarely see councils prosecute the parents of these persistent truants. Yet, the parents who removed their children as a one-off to protect their morality may be prosecuted!

If the local council does decide to go through with a prosecution, it would be in line with the government's approach to the Muslim community. Muslims who believe homosexuality is a sin would be labelled as extremists. Liberal totalitarianism is a growing phenomenon in Britain and the west in general but many people will be shocked that the school can override a parent's view of what's appropriate or inappropriate to teach their children.

This latest episode should be a wakeup call for Muslim parents. Muslim parents MUST explain our moral standards to schools and be prepared to take steps to protect our children’s morals and values from a growing agenda to impose liberal values upon them. This is an eye opening for those Muslim parents who keep on sending their children to state schools to be mis-educated and de-educated by non-Muslim monolingual teachers.

The solution of all the problems facing Muslim children is state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers. Those state schools where Muslim children are in majority may be designated as Muslim community schools. Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods.
Iftikhar Ahmad
www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk