Royce Hall 306
The 2026 Giorgio Levi Della Vida Award presentation and conference will take place on Thursday, November 5, 2026, at UCLA. The award will be presented to Professor Richard Eaton of the University of Arizona, in recognition of his contributions to the field of Islamic Studies. The conference is part of a tradition established by CNES first director, Gustave E. von Grunebaum, to encourage research in the field of Islamic studies and to honor outstanding scholars in the field, beginning with the scholar for whom the award is named.
The 2026 conference focuses on the topic of Sufis in premodern Persianate society and politics, addressing the following questions: By what processes did Sufis (or Sufi institutions) act as cultural mediators, or contribute to the Islamization of non-Muslim societies? What factors shaped Sufis’ various relationships with regional economies? What stances did Sufis take vis-à-vis political power; under what circumstances did they take these stances; and with what consequences? How did the various positions above change over time; and what factors or forces might explain those changes? Finally, to enrich our understanding both of Islamic history and of social history, how might case studies of individual Sufis or Sufi orders be placed into a larger comparative analysis?
Conference organizers: Nile Green (UCLA History) and Choon Hwee Koh (UCLA History).
Conference presenters:
Said Amir Arjomand (Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, State University of New York)
Kameliya Atanasova (Independent Scholar)
Shahzad Bashir (Dean, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations, Against Khan University)
Devin DeWeese (Professor Emeritus, Indiana University at Bloomington)
Carl Ernst (William R. Kenan Jr., Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Peyvand Firouzeh (Assistant Professor, University of Cambridge)
Carlos Grenier (Postdoctoral Fellow, Florida International University)
Jo-Ann Gross (Professor Emerita, The College of New Jersey)
Ayesha Irani (Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Boston)
Ahmet T. Karamustafa (Associate Professor, Washington University in St. Louis)
Bruce Lawrence (Professor Emeritus, Duke University)
Shankar Nair (Associate Professor, University of Virginia)
Conference program will be shared soon.
The conference is organized by the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, and is co-sponsored by the Ibn Khaldun Endowed Chair in World History, the UCLA Islamic Studies Program, and the UCLA Iranian Studies.
Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, Iranian Studies, Islamic Studies, Ibn Khaldun Chair in World History
