Tentative Program (Updated March 18, 2008) 3rd Annual Muslim Studies Conference
Muslims, Race and the Public Sphere
Michigan State University International Center, 3rd Floor
Keynote Speakers Thursday April 3, 2008 4:00-5:30
Blasphemy and Bigotry in contemporary Freedom of Speech Debates Inaugural Keynote: Mahmood Mamdani
Mahmood Mamdani is the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University. He is the author of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror (2004), When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and Genocide in Rwanda (2001), and Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Colonialism (1996) Friday April 4, 2008 4:00-5:30
The Dark Matter: What’s New About Race in the 21st Century Keynote: Howard Winant
Howard Winant is a professor of sociology at the University of California-Santa Barbara and is the Director of the Center for New Racial Studies. He is the author of The New Politics of Race: Globalism, Difference, Justice (2004), The World is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy since WW 11 (2001), and Racial Conditions (1994)
7:30-9:00 Between Faith and Country: Muslims in America After 9/11 Keynote: Geneive Abdo
Geneive Abdo is a journalist and political analyst who has worked for the United Nations. She is the author of Mecca to Mainstreet: Muslim Life in America (2006), Answering Only to God: Faith and Freedom in Iran (2004), and No God But God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam (2000).
Thursday April 3, 2008
3:30 Welcome and Introductory Remarks Mohammed Ayoob, Director of Muslim Studies Program
4:00-5:30 Inaugural Keynote “Blasphemy and Bigotry in contemporary Freedom of Speech Debates” Mahmood Mamdani
5:30-6:30
Reception
Friday April 4, 2008
8:30-9:00 Coffee 9:15-11:00
Panel 1 Re-Visiting Orientalist Discourses
Chair: Safoi Babana-Hampton, Assistant Professor, French, Classics, Italian, MSU Representations of the ‘Others’: The Image of Muslim Turks on the Restoration Stage Ayca Ulker Erkan, Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Minnesota Justifying the scramble for Africa: the opponent of colonization as « fanatical Muslim » Catherine Vigier, Faculty Member, Commonwealth Civilisation, University of Rouen, France “Rather a Geographical Expression than a Country”: Victorian Afghanistan and the Liberal Limits of the British Empire Zarena Aslami, Assistant Professor, English, MSU “Molestation and Authority” in the New Orientalist Narrative Fiction and Memoir: Said and Keshavarz as Possible Responses Coeli Fitzpatrick, Philosophy, Grand Valley State University
11:15-1:00
Panel 2: Mapping Muslims: Race in Overlapping Diasporas
Chair: Najib Hourani Assistant Professor, Anthropology, MSU “Shape of the Muslim Body: Racial Terror and the US War on Immigration” Junaid Rana, Assistant Professor, American Studies and Anthropology, U of Illinois “‘They are Orientals and They Love the East’: Locating Muslims in the Immigrant Hierarchies of Detroit, 1920-1937” Sally Howell, PhD Candidate, American Cultures, U of Michigan “Ambiguous Relations? Race, War and Iranians in America” Nina Farnia, Law School, UCLA 1:00-1:30 Lunch 1:45-3:30
Panel 3: Muslims and Racial Politics
Chair: Zakia Salime, Assistant Professor, Sociology MSU “Latinos and the Ethnic Muslim” Michael Perez, PhD Candidate, Anthropology, MSU “Minding the Sympathy Gap: Situating the Race with No Name in the American Racial Hierarchy” Maryam S. Griffin, Law School, UCLA “Transnationality as Methodology” Arshad Ali, PhD Candidate, Education, UCLA Yousef Baker, PhD Candidate, Sociology, UC-Santa Barbara Arash Davari, PhD Candidate, Rhetoric, UC-Berkeley 3:30-4:00 Coffee Break
4:00-6:00 Keynote “The Dark Matter: What’s New About Race in the 21st Century” Howard Winant 7:30-9:00 Keynote “Between Faith and Country: Muslims in America After 9/11” Geneive Abdo
Saturday April 5, 2008
8:30-9:00 Coffee 9:15-11:00
Panel 4: Islamophobia
Chair: Norm Graham, Director of the Center for European and Russian/Eurasian Studies “Bridging the Gaps: Orientalism Then and Now” Tala Khanmalek, Student in Ethnic Studies and French, UC-Berkeley “Elite Discourse and Islamophobia in Italy” Marco Scalvini, Ph.D. Candidate, New York University “Norman’s Muslim Problem—and Ours: A Colorblind Genealogy of the ‘Long Struggle against Islamofascism’ ” Keith P. Feldman, Flanagan Fellow, Department of English, University of Washington
11:15-1:00
Panel 5: Muslims, Islam and State Discourses
Chair: Emine Evered, Assistant Professor, History, MSU “Reporting 7/7: Race and the Limits of Multiculturalism” Peter Morey, Faculty, University of East London, UK “Inside the Harem, Outside the Nation: Normalizing the Transmational Muslim Subject” Amina Yaqin, Faculty, SOAS, University of London “From Repression to Accommodation: Snapshots of State Islam in Turkey” Hatem Ete, PhD. Candidate, METU, Ankara “Unveiling Laicité and Religious Neutrality: A Comparative Examination of Liberal Policies Against the Headscarf in France and the United States” Khaled A. Beydoun, LL.M Candidate/Fellow, University of Toronto Faculty of Law.
1:00-1:30 Lunch
1:45-3:30
Panel 6: Muslims on Display
Chair: David Robinson, Professor, History, MSU
“Representation Matters: Muslim Women’s Exclusion from Public Spaces” Hilal Elver, Faculty in Global Studies, UC-Santa Barbara “Making a Spectacle of Itself: Western Media on Muslim Body Politics” Catherine Kroll, Assistant Professor, English, Sonoma State University “Black American Perceptions of Muslims and Film” Fatima Bahloul, Features Editor Islamica Magazine
3:30-4:00 Coffee Break 4:00-6:00
Plenary Session
Salah D. Hassan (English MSU), Chair “Contextualizing Muslims and Race: Lessons from Muslims in Chicago” Louise Cainkar, Marquette University “From Harlem to Algiers: Black Internationalism and the Orient: Myth & Counter-Myth” Hisham Aidi, Columbia University's Institute for Research in Afro-American Studies “Islam, Towards Another Conquest of Europe: the Experiences of Italy” Rita El-Khayat, Universita degli Studi Gabriele D'Annunzio, CHIETI-PESCARA “The Race is On: Muslims in the American Imagination” Moustafa Bayoumi, CUNY Brooklyn
Organized by the Muslim Studies Program at Michigan State University and co-sponsored by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. The conference would not have been possible without the generous support of International Studies and Programs, the College of Social Sciences, the Office of Inclusion, the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, Global Literary and Cultural Studies and the Residential College for the Arts and Humanities. The following Departments and Programs also supported the conference: the American Studies Program, the Department of Anthropology, the Department of English, the Department of History, the Department of Linguistics and Languages, the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Political Science, and the Department of Sociology.