The IIS co-sponsored a workshop, held in conjunction with the American Academy of Religion (AAR), in Chicago, Illinois, in late October 2008. 
The workshop, a series of round-table discussions, focused on the subject of commentaries on the Qur’an. It brought together experts in the field of Qur’an commentaries with an audience of interested scholars.
It was the first time that the Institute has collaborated on such a programme with a working group from the AAR, which is the major international organisation for scholars of religion. The workshop was co-sponsored by the AAR’s Qur’an group. This event highlighted the increasing scholarly interest in Qur’an commentaries, and the critical importance of the work being undertaken by the IIS in the area of Quranic studies.
The workshop’s participants included pre-eminent scholars of Qur’an commentaries, such as Jane Dammen McAuliffe (president of Bryn Mawr College) and Andrew Rippin (Dean, University of Victoria). The event was well attended, with an audience of 60 scholars from institutions around the United States and Canada. It was organised by Karen Bauer, who is a Research Associate at the IIS.
Complete at the Source: http://iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=110112#
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