Muslim Studies Program September 15, 2021 News and Events Please share with other faculty, students, and community. All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.
Upcoming events
Sponsored by the Muslim Studies Program
Presentation by Rebecca A. Karam onMeeting the Moral Markers of Success: Concerted Cultivation among Second-Generation Muslim Parents
Thursday, October 7, 12pm EDT
303 International Center
Concerted cultivation describes how parents reproduce middle-class status by preparing children for success through the organization of their family’s daily lives. Scholarship accounting for the potentially important role that minority religious identity plays in this process is warranted. The current study fills this theoretical and empirical niche by exploring the parenting practices of second-generation, upper-middle-class Muslim Americans. Utilizing data from two years of ethnographic fieldwork and 72 in-depth interviews with second-generation Arab and South Asian Muslim Americans in suburban Metro Detroit. Dr. Rebecca A. Karam is a Dean’s Research Associate in the Department of Sociology atMichigan State University.
Muslims and Medicine: Historical and Contemporary Contributions
Thursday, October 21, 12pm to 1:30pm.
Join us this year for another Muslim Journeys series, centered on the theme of encounters: encounters between friends, encounters between strangers, encounters between people of different faiths, and encounters between individuals and their own faith practices. Our first event, featuring the young adult novel All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney will be held in late October in a hybrid form. Look for more sessions in 2022, including an event in conjunction with the Libraries’ Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections, a talk from a literary translator, a film screening, and more.
Thursday, October 28, 2021, 7:00 pm: All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney, discussion led by Leila Tarakji (MSU). Register in advance here.
February 2022: Malcolm X directed by Spike Lee; Lissa by Sherine Hamdy and Coleman Nye, illustrated by Sarula Bao and Caroline Brewer
March: Special Collections event with speaker Jyotsna Singh
April: My First and Only Love by Sahar Khalifeh with speaker and translator Aida Bamia
The Ulama Between Democracy and Autocracy Tuesday, November 16, 12:30 pm EST
Usaama al-Azami will discuss his latest book which considers a relatively understudied dimension of the Arab revolutions of 2011: the role of prominent religious scholars. Professor al-Azami is Departmental Lecturer in Contemporary Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford. He completed his BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Oxford, his seminary training at Al-Salam Institute, and his MA and PhD in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He specialises in Islamic political thought. Register in advance for the online event here.
NAVIGATING 'SHOMOYSCAPES' AND Navigating temporality and FACULTY LIFE IN DHAKA, BANGLADESH
Thursday, November 18, 10-11:30 am EST
Drawing on interviews and participant observations with 22 faculty in Dhaka, Bangladesh, we illuminate how academics experience, contest and manipulate their time(s) amid rapid socio-economic transformations of Dhaka (a mega-city). We aim to decenter the Global North knowledge production about temporality in higher education literature by introducing and applying a culturally sustaining concept of 'shomoyscapes'. While the Bengali word 'shomoy' literally means 'time', it goes beyond 'clock time', and also refers to memories, present moments, feelings, a particular duration, and/or signier for a temporal engagement. We demonstrate the efficacy of shomoyscapes by illuminating how faculty in Bangladesh experience various temporal forces, such as: a) traffic, b) university politics, and c) the future of others. We conclude with implications about the complex temporal constraints at work within an urban Global South context and a rapidly growing HE system in South Asia.
Speakers: Dr. Riyad A. Shahjahan is an Associate Professor of Higher, Adult and Life Long Education (HALE) at Michigan State University. Ms. Tasnim A. Ema is an undergraduate student at the Department of Anthropology at University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Mr. Nisharggo Niloy completed his post-graduation from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Dhaka. Registration link coming soon.
Coming in April 2022
Muslim Journeys will host a discussion of My first and Only Love written by Safar Khalifeh. The translator, Aida Bamia, will give the opening lecture. Book synopsis: Nidal, after many decades of restless exile, returns to her family home in Nablus, where she had lived with her grandmother before the 1948 Nakba that scattered her family across the globe. She was a young girl when the popular resistance began and, through the bloodshed and bitter struggle, Nidal fell in love with freedom fighter Rabie. He was her first and only real love--him and all that he represented: Palestine in its youth, the resistance fighters in the hills, the nation as embodied in her family home and in the land.
Co-Sponsored Events
Presentation by Khatchig Mouradian, author of The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915–1918 Monday, October 4, 7pm EDT
MSU Library
The Resistance Network is the history of an underground network of humanitarians, missionaries, and diplomats in Ottoman Syria who helped save the lives of thousands during the Armenian Genocide. Khatchig Mouradian challenges depictions of Armenians as passive victims of violence and subjects of humanitarianism, demonstrating the key role they played in organizing a humanitarian resistance against the destruction of their people. Register in advance here.
Upcoming events
(not organized by the Muslim Studies Program)
that might be of interest
MSU's Captain Fadly Keynote address in recognition of the Near and Middle East Heritage Month
Recap of events
Sponsored by the Muslim Studies Program
Organized by the MSU Muslim Studies Program and co-sponsored by MSU Asian Studies Center, Center for Gender in Global Context, College of Arts & Letters, College of Social Science, Department of English, Department of Political Science, Department of Religious Studies, Global Studies in the Arts & Humanities, Institute for Global Health, James Madison College, and Peace & Justice Studies
Additional videos from the Muslim Studies Program may be viewed on our YouTube Channel.
Upcoming Classes
that might be of interest
Call for Abstracts
Call for Abstracts 14th Annual Muslim Mental Health Conference March 25-26, 2022 Theme: Fragilities Unmasked: Emerging from Social Isolation, Social Inequalities and COVID
Hybrid event - in person at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA and online via Zoom
The unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent global lockdowns continue to unmask our fragilities, long existing social inequalities, and have had a profound impact on society and our mental health as life continues to transition and shift. Our knowledge of the impact of the pandemic is evolving, will continue to expand, and the lessons for how we have adapted need to be highlighted. In this year’s conference, we invite conversations on how COVID-19 has impacted your practice: what insights have you gained, how has your practice shifted, what is emerging from the research, and what visions do we have for the future of the mental health field in the era of COVID-19? We welcome insights from practitioners, community organizations, researchers, and religious leaders, thus seeking diverse perspectives of the ways in which COVID-19 has served as a mirror for our vulnerabilities, and the ways in which we have responded and risen to the occasion.
For the full description and application form, click here.
Awards/Research Funding/Grants/Job Opportunities
Michigan State University (MSU) invites nominations and applications for the position of Associate Dean for Research and Strategic Partnerships in International Studies and Programs (ISP). With its long history of international engagement, MSU is recognized as a top global research university. Aligned with the university’s mission and goals and informed by ISPs Strategic Framework, the ISP Associate Dean for Research and Strategic Partnerships is a member of the senior leadership team and will provide the strategic vision and collaborative leadership necessary to further MSU’s global engagement, with a particular emphasis on MSU’s outstanding research capabilities in the areas of food and agriculture; the environment, energy and water; education; and health and nutrition.
Opportunities for Community-Engaged Health Research with Arab American Communities
Thursday, September 23, 2021 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. | Register here for the Zoom link
Are you looking for opportunities to get involved in community-engaged health-related research? Then join us for this webinar on opportunities for conducting health-related research in partnership with the ACCESS Community Health and Research Center in Dearborn, Michigan.
The Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) Community Health and Research Center (CHRC) is the largest and most comprehensive Arab community-based health and mental health center in North America. The CHRC is a fully integrated community health "one-stop service center" comprised of medical programs, public health and research programs, and mental health and environment programs. The CHRC's mission is to provide public health programs and research opportunities that focus on the needs of Arab Americans locally and nationwide. The CHRC has a long history of collaborating with U.S. and international researchers. ACCESS is pleased to announce its 9th Arab Health Summit, October 19-21, 2021.
The State News is looking for Board Members from among the MSU student population
The board of directors is not involved in the day-to-day operations of the newspaper, website, State News organization, or SNworks. The board works with the general manager to ensure the financial and editorial independence of the organization by:
Setting broad policy, strategic planning and long-term goals
Review final report from an annual financial audit
Approving annual budget and capital plan
Selecting the Editor-in-Chief
Recruitment and selecting the general manager (if vacant)
Bowdoin College has an opening for a tenure-track position for a scholar of modern Middle Eastern and North African history. For more information, see: https://careers.bowdoin.edu/postings/7731
Global IDEAS Funding Opportunities Update
Funding opportunities with international dimensions curated by Global IDEAS in the weekly Funding Opportunities Update are now also available online as a searchable database. Anyone with an msu.edu email address has access to this new database.
New funding opportunities will continue to be disseminated through the weekly Global IDEAS Funding Opportunities Update email. Faculty, staff, and students can sign up to receive these emails on the Global IDEAS website.
Here are a few listings related to Muslim-majority countries:
Muslim Studies Core Faculty Achievement Submissions
To Muslim Studies core faculty:
As the new spring semester begins and despite the challenging times we are in, we wish you the best and hope that you are positioned to put your best foot forward.
The Muslim Studies Program seeks to continue to support your work in research, teaching, and outreach. One form of support we would like to provide is by showcasing your recent achievements.
We invite you to share your latest achievements (e.g. publication, external funding and awards, promotion, etc.) through the Faculty Achievements Submission page (or by clicking below). With your permission, we will promote and highlight these successes in our social media and bi-weekly e-newsletter, circulated among MSU Mulsim Studies faculty, MSU administrators, as well as academic and professional colleagues outside of MSU with interest in Muslim studies.
The submission portal is permanently open, and submissions are accepted at any time. Thank you and have a great semester.
