Visual Piety and the Construction of Children in the Modern Islamic World (Feb. 21, 2019)

Boston University’s Scripture and Arts Material Religion Series is pleased to present

Jamal Elias

(Professor of Religious Studies and South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania) 

Visual Piety and the Construction of Children in the Modern Islamic World

Thursday, February, 21, 2019 from 5-7 pm 

at the Eli Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, 147 Bay State Road, Room 201, Boston University, Boston MA 02215

Using a wide range of visual and written sources, Elias will investigate childhood in the modern Islamic world and explore the way concepts of innocent and cuteness influence social understandings of ethics, morality, and community. Focusing primarily on visual representations of children from modern Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, will discuss important questions of gender, virtue, and devotion, as well as community, nationhood, violence, and sacrifice. In exploring a subject that has never been studied comparatively before, Elias will attempt to extend the boundaries of our understanding of emotion, religion, and visual culture and provide unique insight into Islam as it is lived and experienced in the modern world.