2025 news archive

The symposium, held on 19-21 June 2025, was an opportunity to bring together 30 academics, journalists and artists from across the world to discuss urgent issues related to the Maghreb region and North Africa in general. The discussion covered topics related to artistic production and censorship, linguistic diversity and policy-making, immigration and intergenerational memory, decolonial thought in the Maghreb, humour and different forms of collective identity in the region.

This was the motivating question behind a NetIAS debate organized by and staged in the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Studies (HIAS) on 5 June 2025. Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Alex South travelled to Germany to participate.

The one-day workshop on 22 May 2025 titled Insights on Sleep, Rest, and Dream Experiences: Perspectives from the Arts and Humanities brought together scholars from different disciplines working sleep experiences and our relationship to sleep and rest. Additionally, it created a forum for discussion and reflection, combining more standard academic presentations with hands-on experience sessions.

A guest blog by Dr Yarong Xie, Research Fellow 2022-24.

Dr [M] Dudeck is a performance artist and queer theologian whose work explores the role played by art and the speculative imaginary in the construction of new belief systems. For the past fifteen years they have devoted themselves to the invention and dissemination of a fictional queer religion and gnostic space opera called RELIGIONVIRUS (http://religionvir.us), whose transmedial episodes have been performed, screened and exhibited in over 35 countries worldwide.

IASH has been awarded the 2025 Public Humanities Award for Leadership in Practice and Community by the CHCI Public Humanities Network, for our work on the Institute Project on Decoloniality (IPD) between 2021 and 2024. The Public Humanities Network Award for Leadership in Practice and Community recognizes and celebrates exemplary public humanities work engaged with communities.

What does it mean to be a woman who dares to challenge the status quo? Whether by wielding power in patriarchal societies or rallying for peace, fighting for change has always put women in danger, but also led to remarkable stories of resistance. Gathering 46 essays from writers around the globe, this collection explores the twin themes of women and daring through the lives of monarchs, prophets, suffragists, soldiers, scientists, activists and artists. From the infamous to the forgotten, these trailblazers have much to tell us about the dynamics, conflicts, identities and power relations with which women live today.

Isabel Dalhousie, the eponymous heroine of the best-selling series of books by Sir Alexander McCall Smith and regular (fictional) visitor to IASH, may soon be making her way to the screen. Variety reports that the series has been optioned by Synchronicity Films, with Andrea Gibb expected to adapt the novels for television.

Former Fellow Dr Anna Pilz has written a piece for the Institute for Academic Development blog, titled Giving your research and network a boost through short-term or visiting fellowships. The blog highlights IASH Fellowships as a means of "bring[ing] the benefit of enabling you to work in a supportive and interdisciplinary environment, give you access to library resources and archives, and allow you to build your international network." Testimonials from three recent Fellows give insights into their experiences while in Edinburgh.