A conference co-hosted by the Association of Bahá’í Studies (Southern Africa), the International Centre of Nonviolence, Durban University of Technology and MIET Africa.

For more information, please visit www.icon.org.za.

Audio recordings (mp3 format on CD) of the plenary sessions at the 2012 ABS Conference are available for sale.
If you missed this year's ABS Conference, take advantage of this opportunity! To order, visit our online store or call 613-233-1903 (9am-5pm EST).

Video recordings of the same sessions will be posted on our website as soon as possible and will be available for free viewing and downloading.

       Professor Hoda Mahmoudi is the new incumbent of the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace within the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland. The Bahá’í Chair—whose founding in 1993 was inspired by the Universal House of Justice’s statement entitled The Promise of World Peace—is an endowed academic program dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary study of, and discourse on, major issues of global peace.
       The first two holders of the Bahá’í Chair were Professor Suheil Bushrui (1993-2006) and Professor John Grayzel (2006-2011).
       Prior to assuming the Bahá’í Chair professorship in July 2012, Dr. Mahmoudi—who holds a Ph.D. in Sociology, an M.A. in Educational Psychology, and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Utah—was head of the Research Department at the Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa, Israel, where she served since 2001.
       Previously, Professor Mahmoudi was Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, Illinois. She was also a member of the faculty in the Department of Sociology at the same institution. Prior to her appointment as Dean at the Northeastern Illinois University, Professor Mahmoudi served as a Vice President and Dean of Olivet College, where she was instrumental in the institutional transformation that brought national recognition to Olivet.
       In an official message to the University of Maryland community, Dr. John Townshend—dean of the college that the Chair reports to—praised Professor Mahmoudi as “a proven leader dedicated to scholarship and research and a distinguished member of the Bahá’í community.”
       For her part, Professor Mahmoudi said that she looks “forward to building on the strong international reputation of the Bahá’í Chair, while also moving it in new directions.” “The Chair’s affiliation with an outstanding flagship university,” she continued, “combined with its location in close proximity to the nation’s capital, places it in an excellent position to influence both scholarly and policy discussions.”
       Following a period of deliberation and reflection, Professor Mahmoudi will announce a new program of research as well as at least one new undergraduate course offering.
       Professor Mahmoudi’s research interests have included comparative civilizations, social change, modernity, and gender equality. In her published works she has engaged Bahá’í topics and themes in the context of established scholarly methodologies and debates. Her publications include: “Obligation and Responsibility in Constructing a World Civilization” (in The Bahá’í World, 2002-2003); “Altruism and Extensivity in the Bahá’í Religion” (in Embracing the Other: Philosophical, Psychological and Historical Perspectives on Altruism, eds. Samuel and Pearl Oliner); and “The Permanence of Change: Contemporary Sociological and Bahá’í Perspectives on Modernity” and “Resilience in Children: Within a Spiritual, Social and Neurobiological Framework” (both in The Journal of Bahá’í Studies).