Mary Elaine Hegland had a very active research year! She began learning about Muslim reformism at a conference on “Islamism and Post-Islamism: Religious and Political Transformation in Muslim Societies” in March 2015 at Queen’s University, School of Religion, Kingston, Ontario, Canada where she gave a paper on “Political Islam: Engagement and Disengagement in an Iranian Settlement.”
In early September, she delivered a paper on “Moharram Rituals: Transformation in Politics and Meanings in a Settlement near Shiraz” at the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies conference held at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University on the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey, September 8-11, 2015. She flew on to St. Petersburg to present her paper on “Women’s Religious Practices in an Iranian Settlement—1978-2014” at the Societas Iranologica Europaea’s 8th Conference of Iranian Studies held at the State Hermitage Museum and The Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, September 15-19.