Project: "The Socio-Cultural Life of Sociological Concepts: Arab Contributions to Global Theory"

After several rounds of preparation, we are pleased to announce the formal launch of the collaborative project “The Socio-Cultural Life of Sociological Concepts: Arab Contributions to Global Theory”, housed at the Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies (BGSMCS), funded by the Einstein Foundation Berlin and in partnership with the Arab Council for Social Sciences (ACSS). Please see the attached brochure for more details. 

We herewith are calling for contributions to the project’s first workshop on Political Concepts, to be held on March 26–27, 2026 in Berlin.

We invite researchers to think about concepts related to politics, how they developed historically in the Arab region in Arabic and/or the two colonial languages French and English, as well as how they are used and understood currently in Arab-speaking societies. Researchers could answer the following questions about political concepts among others:

• What were formative moments or periods for the concept under consideration in the Arab-speaking world?
• Who were the main actors coining novel meanings?
• What is the relative importance of classical Arabic meanings and terminologies and that of European and colonial semantics?

• What is the relation between the concept's historical usages and its present analytical usages?

Travel and lodging will be covered by the Einstein Foundation Berlin.

In order to participate, please send an abstract of 500 words on the concept you will write about. You can choose from the attached list of concepts or propose another one.

Please send the abstract by September 19, 2025 by filling this form. 

Once selected to participate in the workshop, participants will be asked to write a 3-8 page draft synopsis of the history and/or current uses of the selected concept (including relations to neighboring concepts) in one or more of the project’s three languages (Arabic, English, French). The synopsis should be sent by March 10, 2026.

Please also already note our future workshops in the upcoming years. The 2027 workshop (in Beirut) will focus on social concepts (specifically, those related to social organization); and the 2028 workshop (in Berlin) will be devoted to cultural concepts (specifically, those connected to the question of values). Feel free to already indicate whether you are interested in joining one of these two upcoming workshops.

If you have any questions or inquiries, please contact us: 

- Prof. Mohammed Bamyeh, mab205@pitt.edu 

- Prof. Florian Zemmin, florian.zemmin@fu-berlin.de 

- Dr. Nayera Soliman, n.soliman@fu-berlin.de

Website: https://arabicsociology.net/