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Reader (Theology & Religious Studies) Islamic Studies, World Religions

Telephone : +44 (0)20 8392 3422
Email : S.Calderini@roehampton.ac.uk
Department : Humanities
Office location : Howard 209

Qualifications

PhD, Laurea

About

Dr Calderini's main areas of teaching and research are Islamic Studies including Shiism and specifically Ismailism, Islam and Gender, Religion and Human Rights. Her doctoral research (SOAS, 1991) was on medieval Ismaili cosmology and authority. She researched further the relationship between cosmology and religious hierarchies and publisehd an article on this topic "Cosmology and authority in medieval Ismailism" which was later republished and translated into Czech (2004) and French (2006). She published with D. Cortese Women and the Fatimids in the World of Islam (Edinburgh University Press, 2006). She is currently researching into classical and contemporary scholarly arguments in favour and against women imams, Ismailisn and the issue of the veil, as well as women's rights.

Research Projects Undertaken

2008 AHRC study leave for research on Female Imams: the contexts and discourses of 
arguments in favour and against female ritual leadership and religious authority in Islam 
2003-4 AHRB study leave on women of the Fatimid dynasty, project was awarded an A rating by peer review panel: outcome: Book EUP 2006. 
1995-7 Post-doctoral fellowship in “Arabic and Islamic Studies” for a research project on Cosmologies and authority structures in medieval Islam, awarded by the Department of Studies on Africa and the Arab countries, Oriental Institute, Univ. of Naples: outcome journal article (1996)

Membership of Professional Bodies

Member of the American Academy of Religion 
Member of The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) 
Member of the Royal Asiatic Society 
Member of the British Association for the Study of Religion (BASR) 
Member of the Istituto per l’Oriente (Rome).

Teaching Interests

Undergraduate

Islam 
The Qur'an 
Islam and Women 
Quranic Arabic 
Introduction to the study of religion (co-taught with Dr. Lynn Thomas) 
London asa resource for the study of religion


Postgraduate

Gender and Human Rights for the MA on Religion and Human Rights 
Islam and the media

Publications

(2010) “Contextualizing Arguments on Women Imams in medieval legal Islamic Sources in special issue on Fiqh and Gender of Comparative Islamic Studies, edited by Marcia Hermansen), in print
(1996) “Cosmology and authority in Medieval Ismailism”, Diskus (The on-line Journal of International Religious Studies), 4,1, pp. 11-22 
(1994) “Quranic exegesis of ‘alamin, in rabb al- ‘alamin”, BSOAS, LVII, 1, pp. 52-8 
(1993) “ ‘Alam al-din in Ismailism: world of obedience or world of immobility?”, BSOAS, LVI, 3, pp. 459-69. 
(2011) chapter in edited volume “Female seclusion and the veil: two issues in political and social discourse. The reforms of Sultan Muhammad Shah (b.1877-d. 1957), 48th imam of the Nizari Ismailis”, in Theodore Gabriel and Rabiha Hannan (eds) Islam and the Veil: theoretical and regional contexts, London: Continuum, pp.48-62.
(2009) chapter in edited book “Women and trade during the Fatimids” in Pellitteri, A and I. Magdud (eds) I Fatimidi e il Mediterraneo, AlifBa, 22, 2008, Palermo/Tripoli, pp. 71-80
(2011) “Classical sources on the permissibility of female imams: an analysis of some hadiths about Umm Waraqa”, in Verena Klemm et alia (eds), Sources and Approaches across Near Eastern Disciplines, Leuven: Peeters, in print 
(2011) “Sources and evidence for the architectural patronage of Durzan”, in Talmon, D. (ed) Material Evidence and Narrative Sources, Interdisciplinary Studies for the History of Islamic Societies, Leiden: Brill, in print
(2006, 2007) (co-authored with Dr. D. Cortese) Women and the Fatimids in the world of Islam, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Reprinted by Oxford University Press Pakistan in paperback in 2007 for distribution in Asia ISBN: 9780195474640 
(2007) “The portrayal of the Ismaili da‘i and of his roles according to some Ismaili and early Fatimid authors” in U. VERMEULEN & K. D’HULSTER (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras V. (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 169), Leuven: Peeters, 2007 , in print ISBN: 978-90-429-1945-7
(2007) "Sayyida Rasad: a royal woman as “ gateway to power” during the Fatimid era” in U. VERMEULEN & K. D’HULSTER (eds.), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras V. (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta), Leuven: Peeters, 2007
(2008)“Wealth and women at the Fatimid courts” in K. D’HULSTER & J. VAN STEENBERGEN (eds.), Traditions and Changes in the Realms of Islam. Studies in honour of Professor Urbain Vermeulen (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 171), Leuven: Peeters 2008 in print 978-90-429-1991-4
(2008)"Islam, Gender an Human Rights", in the edited book by A. Rippin, The Islamic World, Routledge 
(2008) “Two Radical Hair Cuts in Medieval Egypt: Gendering Politics in Times of Trouble” Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean,
(2008) “Islam” chapter in Oxford University Press second edition of Atlas of the World’s Religions, (1st ed. 1999) 
(Jan 2008)”Fatima bint Muhammad” “Queen Arwa” “ Egypt: 700-1500” Encyclopedia of Women in World History, New York: Oxford University Press proofs approved 
(2008) 'Islam and Diversity: Alternative Voices within Contemporary Islam” New Blackfriars(Blackwell Publishing) 
(2004) “Cosmology and authority in Medieval Ismailism” (in Czech), in Petr Fiala, Jiri Hanus and Jan Vybiral (eds.) Religious and political authority in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Brno: CDK (The Centre for Democracy and Culture Studies), pp. 108-118. 
(2003) "Lord (and lord)" in J.D. McAuliffe (ed) Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an Leiden: Brill, vol 3, pp. 229-231.
(1999) "Islam" in Smart .N. (ed.) Atlas of the World's religions, Oxford: OUP, pp. 168-195.
(1998) “Woman, sin and lust: the fall of Adam and Eve according to classical and modern Muslim exegesis”, in Hayes, Porter and Tombs (eds.), Religion and Sexuality, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, pp. 49-63
with Hala Kaleh (1993) The Intifada: a bibliography, Oxford: Melcom, 109 pp.
with D. Cortese and J.L.A. Webb (1992) Mauritania, Oxford: Clio Press, World Bibliographical Series, 165 pp
(2006) "Cosmologie et autorite dans l’Ismaelisme medieval " in Klesis: on line-Revue Philosophique in 
http://www.revue-klesis.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=39