While on sabbatical Jaffer Sheyholislami has been busy travelling and presenting at conferences among other things. In September, Jaffer presented at the 4th International Conference of Kurdish Linguistics that was held in Rouen, Normandy. Jaffer presented a paper entitled, “Serious messages, innocent minds: Exploring ideology in elementary school textbooks.” The paper is co-authored with Lisa Armstrong, a PhD candidate in ALDS. In October, Jaffer traveled to Kurdistan-Iraq to deliver a keynote at the international conference The National Identity of the Kurds in a New World Order held at University of Sulaimani. Jaffer talked about the importance of language in constructing Kurdish identity.
In November, Jaffer was invited to be a plenary speaker at the Fourth International Conference of Kurdish Studies held at Zakho University and Koya University. Jaffer shared the stage with another Canadian Dr Fernand de Varennes, who is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on minority issues. Building on de Varennes’ call for linguistic rights for minorities Jaffer talked about how language use and status issues are connected to socio-cultural, economic and political issues of societies like Iran, Iraq and Kurdistan.
Finally, Jaffer was invited to the College of Languages at Duhok University where he discussed possible academic collaborations with the Dean and other faculty members.