Happening @ Michigan https://events.umich.edu/list/rss RSS Feed for Happening @ Michigan Events at the University of Michigan. DISC Lecture. Political Shari‘a, Women’s Bodies and the Politics of Love in Razinat T. Mohamed’s Novel "Habiba (Beloved)." (September 13, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42227 42227-9585111@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 13, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Haven Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

By 2002, Islamic law–Shari‘a–had been introduced in several northern Nigerian states. This development took place in the context of democratization and opening up of the political space after a prolonged period of military dictatorship. Claiming to establish a new moral order, these sharia-cratic states imposed new and sometimes draconian penalties against some “sexual offenses.” In the main, these alleged offenses targeted women and other gender minorities. This state of affairs triggered strong reactions from Nigerian women and human rights activists as well as from some non-governmental organizations. Included in this momentum of activism were Nigerian women writers and more particularly Muslim women writers from states that adopted Shari‘a, using both the Soyyaya (love story) genre in Hausa language and English novels to convey their messages of protest. The primary aim of this essay, then, is to explore this literary response to the moral order imposed by sharia-cracy through an examination of Razinat T. Mohamed’s novel, "Habiba (Beloved)" (2013).

Ousseina D. Alidou is professor in the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures and the Graduate Program in Comparative Literature. She is a theoretical linguist whose research focuses mainly on the study of women’s orality and literacy practices in African Muslim societies; African Muslim women’s Agency and gender justice; African women’s literatures; Gendered discourses of identity; and the politics of cultural production in African Muslim societies.

Sponsored by the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC) with support from the African Studies Center, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Islamic Studies Program, and Women's Studies Department.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 25 Aug 2017 11:32:32 -0400 2017-09-13T16:00:00-04:00 2017-09-13T17:30:00-04:00 Haven Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Alidou
ISP Lecture. Islamotopia: American Exceptionalism and Muslim Reform (September 15, 2017 12:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/41967 41967-9497509@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 15, 2017 12:30pm
Location: Hatcher Graduate Library
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

The notion of "American Islam," signifying a uniquely American expression of Islam that either presently exists or awaits us as an attainable future, has been employed by diverse Muslim thinkers, including Salafi revivalists, progressive feminists, and even Muslim Republicans. Discourse of "American Islam" often represents this present/future as one in which American Muslims shed inauthentic cultural practices, achieve a pure and authentically textualist Islam, and then proceed to export "true Islam" to Muslims worldwide. The United States thus appears in these discourses as a sort of "umma laboratory" in which American Muslims will purify Islam on a global scale. This lecture examines the development of American Muslim exceptionalism, the exclusions and marginalizations that it performs, and calls attention to indicators of its decline.

Michael Muhammad Knight is the author of 11 books, including fiction, nonfiction, scholarship, and scholarly reflection. Knight’s work examines issues of authenticity and authority in Muslim communities, with special focus on American Muslims. He is assistant professor of religion and cultural studies at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. His 12th book, "Muhammad: Forty Introductions," is forthcoming in 2018.

Sponsors: Islamic Studies Program, Arab and Muslim American Studies, Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 08 Sep 2017 08:30:20 -0400 2017-09-15T12:30:00-04:00 2017-09-15T14:00:00-04:00 Hatcher Graduate Library Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Michael Muhammad Knight
DISC Lecture. Being Muslims: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam (September 19, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42228 42228-9585112@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 19, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Hatcher Graduate Library
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Sylvia Chan-Malik offers a previously untold story of Islam in the United States that foregrounds the voices, experiences, and images of women of color in the United States from the early twentieth century to the present. Until the late 1960s, the majority of Muslim women in the U.S.—as well as almost all U.S. Muslim women who appeared in the American press or popular culture, were African American. Thus, she argues that lives and labors of African American Muslim women have—and continue to—forcefully shaped the meanings and presence of American Islam, and are critical to approaching issues confronting Muslim women in the contemporary U.S. Focusing on the experiences of African American women in the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam in 1920s Chicago, Chan-Malikexplores how U.S. Muslim women’s identities have been consistently forged against commonsense notions of racial, gendered, and religious belonging and citizenship, and argues that desires for gender and racial justice deeply inform U.S. women’s engagements with Islam.

Sylvia Chan-Malik studies the intersections of race, gender, and religion in the United States, with a particular interest in how these categories intersect in contemporary struggles for social justice. She teaches courses on race and ethnicity in the United States, Islam in/and America, social justice movements, feminist methodologies, multiethnic literature and culture in the U.S., and 20-21st century U.S. history. She is also on the faculty of the Women’s and Gender Studies department. Chan-Malik holds a PhD in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College, and a BA in English and Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Sponsored by the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC) with support from Arab and Muslim American Studies, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Islamic Studies Program, Islamophobia Working Group, Women's Studies Department

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 07 Sep 2017 15:51:34 -0400 2017-09-19T16:00:00-04:00 2017-09-19T17:30:00-04:00 Hatcher Graduate Library Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Chan-Malik
Islamic Books Reading Group. Book Discussion: Mohsin Hamid, Exit West (October 18, 2017 6:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42230 42230-9587139@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 18, 2017 6:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Tarfia Faizullah, Delbanco Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Michigan, will lead a discussion of "Exit West," the new novel by award-winning writer, Mohsin Hamid, following his visit to the University of Michigan. This event is open to the public. Participants are encouraged to read the novel prior to the meeting. The novel is discounted (15% off) at the Literati Bookstore in downtown Ann Arbor.

Please note the new date for this event: October 18.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 10 Oct 2017 08:45:35 -0400 2017-10-18T18:00:00-04:00 2017-10-18T20:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Exit West
IISS Workshop. What is Your Evidence? A Salafi Therapy in Contemporary Egypt (November 2, 2017 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/45962 45962-10341697@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 2, 2017 12:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

This article examines the notion of evidence (dalil) as it circulates in a revivalist religious therapy in contemporary Egypt to address current transformations of Islamic epistemologies, especially in relation to modern science. It focuses on Qur’anic healing, a Salafi-oriented therapy of spirit (jinn) exorcism that has become increasingly popular, visible, and debated in the public sphere beginning with the 1980s. By tracing the semantics and pragmatics of Qur’anic healing’s evidentiary regime, I show that evidence is situated and crosses two domains of knowledge, bringing together a Salafi episteme that foregrounds unmediated induction from the Qur’an and sunna and forms of reasoning and practice, like empiricism and experimentation, that pertain to modern science. In this manner, evidence functions like a hinge notion that hierarchically links the religious and scientific domains, giving precedence to the former over the latter. I argue that the centrality of evidence in this novel Salafi therapy is indicative of an epistemology that unites Islam and science under a wider theory of knowledge as transparent, egalitarian, and public. This discussion suggests new ways of understanding Salafism beyond common depictions as critical of nontextual sources and intolerant of modern formations.

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Workshop / Seminar Thu, 26 Oct 2017 16:18:30 -0400 2017-11-02T12:00:00-04:00 2017-11-02T14:00:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Workshop / Seminar Ana Vinea
ISP Lecture. The Eager Fundamentalist: Muslim Mimicry in the Caribbean (November 3, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42231 42231-9587140@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 3, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

This talk explores the application of the figure of the postcolonial “mimic man,” as conceived by V.S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott, Homi Bhabha, and others, to the Muslim Caribbean. The particular Muslim iteration of the Caribbean “mimic man” who continually imitates and fails to produce the culture of the colonizer is the fullaman, who is usually depicted in Caribbean literature as a “cultural” Muslim who as a result of geographic displacement to the New World and enslavement (of African Muslims) or indentureship (of South Asian Indian Muslims) knows very little about doctrinal Islam. Through a reading of Jan Lowe Shinebourne’s novel "Chinese Women" (2010), which explores the religious radicalization of a Guyanese Muslim man as a result of colonial plantation racism, the speaker argues that contemporary Caribbean Muslims attempt to resist cultural mimicry and hybridity with Islamic particularity, and that in some cases Muslims' metropolitan cultural referent has shifted from the British colonizer to the idealized Arab Salafist, thereby bringing the Caribbean into regional Americas discourses on terrorism and the global Muslim Other.

Aliyah R. Khan is assistant professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies (DAAS) and the Department of English Language and Literature. Her interdisciplinary research and writing focus on indigeneity, sexuality, and Islam in the postcolonial Caribbean and its diasporas. Professor Khan's current book project is a study of Islam in the Caribbean imaginary that comparatively considers Indo- and Afro-Muslim literary figuration and creolization discourses in Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica, and Suriname. Her dissertation, "Calling the Magician: The Metamorphic Indo-Caribbean," was awarded the 2011-2012 UC President's Dissertation Fellowship. Professor Khan's teaching interests include Caribbean and Muslim postcolonial literatures, critical theory, the posthumanities and animal theory, gender and sexuality, graphic novels, and creative writing (fiction). She has also taught courses on Black Britain in the U-M Center for Global and Intercultural Study's program in London, United Kingdom; co-organized the recent "Black Feminist Think Tank" and "How Sweet It Is: Conjuring the Caribbean" University of Michigan conferences; and been featured on Chicago's Radio Islam as a commentator on contemporary Muslim and Islamic literatures.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 25 Oct 2017 16:03:38 -0400 2017-11-03T16:00:00-04:00 2017-11-03T17:30:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Aliyah Khan
The Eager Fundamentalist: Muslim Mimicry in the Caribbean (November 3, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/46291 46291-10429836@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 3, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Department of English Language and Literature

This talk explores the application of the figure of the postcolonial “mimic man,” as conceived by V.S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott, Homi Bhabha, and others, to the Muslim Caribbean. The particular Muslim iteration of the Caribbean “mimic man” who continually imitates and fails to produce the culture of the colonizer is the fullaman, who is usually depicted in Caribbean literature as a “cultural” Muslim who as a result of geographic displacement to the New World and enslavement (of African Muslims) or indentureship (of South Asian Indian Muslims) knows very little about doctrinal Islam. Through a reading of Jan Lowe Shinebourne’s novel "Chinese Women" (2010), which explores the religious radicalization of a Guyanese Muslim man as a result of colonial plantation racism, the speaker argues that contemporary Caribbean Muslims attempt to resist cultural mimicry and hybridity with Islamic particularity, and that in some cases Muslims' metropolitan cultural referent has shifted from the British colonizer to the idealized Arab Salafist, thereby bringing the Caribbean into regional Americas discourses on terrorism and the global Muslim Other.

Aliyah R. Khan is assistant professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies (DAAS) and the Department of English Language and Literature. Her interdisciplinary research and writing focus on indigeneity, sexuality, and Islam in the postcolonial Caribbean and its diasporas. Professor Khan's current book project is a study of Islam in the Caribbean imaginary that comparatively considers Indo- and Afro-Muslim literary figuration and creolization discourses in Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica, and Suriname. Her dissertation, "Calling the Magician: The Metamorphic Indo-Caribbean," was awarded the 2011-2012 UC President's Dissertation Fellowship. Professor Khan's teaching interests include Caribbean and Muslim postcolonial literatures, critical theory, the posthumanities and animal theory, gender and sexuality, graphic novels, and creative writing (fiction). She has also taught courses on Black Britain in the U-M Center for Global and Intercultural Study's program in London, United Kingdom; co-organized the recent "Black Feminist Think Tank" and "How Sweet It Is: Conjuring the Caribbean" University of Michigan conferences; and been featured on Chicago's Radio Islam as a commentator on contemporary Muslim and Islamic literatures.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 27 Oct 2017 11:33:26 -0400 2017-11-03T16:00:00-04:00 2017-11-03T17:30:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Department of English Language and Literature Lecture / Discussion Khan
DISC/WCED Panel. Unraveling the Arab Spring: Egypt Since 2011 (November 7, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42661 42661-9622484@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 7, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Moderator: Pauline Jones, DISC director. Panelists: Samer Ali, CMENAS director, U-M; Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, U-M; Jean Lachapelle, Weiser Emerging Democracies Postdoctoral Fellow, U-M; Bassem Youssef, satirist.

"Unraveling the Arab Spring: Egypt Since 2011" examines the aftermath of Egypt's Arab Spring, the revolution that shook the country six years ago. This panel features the renowned Bassem Youssef, an Egyptian surgeon turned comedian, who fled his homeland after the government forced him to terminate the production of his show "Al-Bernameg" - the first political satire show in the Middle East. Youssef will join U-M distinguished scholars Juan Cole and Samer Ali, as well as Jean Lachapelle, Weiser Emerging Democracies Postdoctoral Fellow, to discuss the shifting relationships between Egyptians, their government, and freedom of expression in an Egypt that attempts to thrive beyond the Arab Spring.

Organized by the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC) and Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies, with support from the University Musical Society and Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 08 Nov 2017 09:02:04 -0500 2017-11-07T16:00:00-05:00 2017-11-07T18:00:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion By Sherif9282 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
Islamic Books Reading Group. Book Discussion: Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan (November 15, 2017 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42646 42646-9622470@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 15, 2017 7:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Karla Mallette, director of the Islamic Studies Program and professor of Italian and Near Eastern Studies, will lead a discussion of the wonderful classic of Islamic thought, "Hayy Ibn Yaqzan." Written by the 12th-century Andalusian genius, Ibn Tufayl, the Hayy is a philosophical novel that examines the human condition through the eyes of a child as he is raised by a doe on a desert island.

This event is open to the public. Participants are encouraged to read the novel prior to the meeting. We will be reading the translation by Lenn Goodman (http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo25938805.html), published by Chicago University Press, which will be discounted (15% off) at Literati Bookstore in downtown Ann Arbor.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 24 Aug 2017 21:05:57 -0400 2017-11-15T19:00:00-05:00 2017-11-15T20:30:00-05:00 Museum of Art Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Hayy Ibn Yaqzan
ISP Lecture. Entangled Histories of Translation: German Ottoman Literary Relations across the 19th Century (November 30, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/43903 43903-9854863@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 30, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Large-scale translation movements were central to the discursive production of both German and Turkish national-cultural identities prior to the establishment of a nation state, yet intersections between these two traditions remain largely underresearched. Due to both a dominant French influence in the late Ottoman literary sphere and the incompatibility of Ottoman with the dominant paradigms of German Orientalistik, literary translations between German and Ottoman have been treated as either insignificant or exceptional. This talk argues on the contrary, that instances of German Ottoman translational contact in the 19th century attest to complex interconnections that cut across time periods and traditions.

A case study will be presented showing how the multiple, late Ottoman translations of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s "The Sorrows of Young Werther" (1886-1894, novel first published in 1774) enact a debate in practice regarding 19th-century Ottoman modernization discourse; widely differing translational decisions reveal the agency of Ottoman translators and place the authenticity of Goethe’s “western” source text into question. In turn, Goethe’s incorporation of Ottoman texts into his "West-östlicher Divan" (1819) earlier in the century counters a late Ottoman devaluation of its own tradition of Divan poetry, and engages in diverse translation practices that undermine the concept of fidelity as an ultimate goal.

Marked by omnidirectional processes of transcultural exchange, these diverse translations complicate the contrapositions of self-identity and alterity, original and translation. In a century when distinct understandings of German- and Turkishness were beginning to emerge—in part via translations from diverse other national literatures—individual translations between Ottoman and German pose a challenge to the ethnocentric structure of national cultures, and an easy division between East/West or Ottoman/German.

Kristin Dickinson’s research on contemporary German and Turkish literature examines the potential of translation, as both a formal and a social medium, to intervene in nationalist language ideologies and nationally structured areas of study. Her teaching and publications have focused on questions of world literature, translation theory in practice, cross-linguistic remembrance, linguistic purity, and critical monolingualism. Her current book project, "Translation and the Experience of Modernity: A History of German Turkish Connectivity," traces the development of a German Turkish translational relationship from the early 19th century to the present. Her additional projects examine performances of translation at the 2008 Frankfurt Book Fair, “Turkey in All Its Colors;” the transnational significance of the early Turkish Republican author Sabahattin Ali; and the cartographies of non-arrival, disruption, and deferral in the works of Franz Kafka and Bilge Karasu.

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 02 Oct 2017 16:38:30 -0400 2017-11-30T16:00:00-05:00 2017-11-30T17:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Kristin Dickinson
IISS Workshop. The Long-Term Impact of Religious Institutions on Development (November 30, 2017 5:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/46905 46905-10670087@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 30, 2017 5:30pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

How do religious institutions affect development? While religious institutions are frequently depicted and studied as part of history, their long-run role in affecting politics and economy today remains uncharacteristically understudied in the scholarship. Religious institutions around the world have historically commanded political and economic resources. Outside of the limited scholarship on the Church however, religious institutions are little understood for their political and economic impact. I will address this question by researching if and why the Sufi Khanaqah affects long-term development. Development being indicated by contemporary public goods and inequality—the two dependent variables. District is the unit of analysis at which Khanaqahs and development will be analyzed. To identify the mechanism and estimate the effect more comprehensively, I will also examine the effect of covariates measuring Khanaqah patronage and trade routes. The study will constitute districts of India and Pakistan between 1858-2011.

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Workshop / Seminar Fri, 17 Nov 2017 17:03:06 -0500 2017-11-30T17:30:00-05:00 2017-11-30T19:00:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Workshop / Seminar Weiser Hall
Beyond East and West: Space and Simultaneity in Post-Millennial Western Sufi Auto-Biographies (December 4, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47042 47042-10776995@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, December 4, 2017 4:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

Lecture by Professor Marcia Hermansen.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 29 Nov 2017 09:42:44 -0500 2017-12-04T16:00:00-05:00 2017-12-04T17:30:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Department of Middle East Studies Lecture / Discussion Event poster
DISC Lecture. Religion, Ethics, and Climate Change (January 17, 2018 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47387 47387-10888277@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, January 17, 2018 7:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Pope Francis is a lonely voice in pushing for action on climate change; why are other religious leaders so slow to respond to this ethical challenge? This talk will look at two ways that religions interact with science: either a totalizing view ("religion has all the answers") or a contingent view ("religious answers may be revised"). How do these views interact with the problem of climate change? The speaker will suggest that climate change is more than a challenge to energy policy, it also undercuts the way that many people regard religion.

Jonathan Brockopp, associate professor of history and religion at Penn State University, specializes in the literary remains of early Islamic cultures, including the Qur’an, hadith, legal and theological texts. In his most upcoming book, "Muhammad’s Heirs: the Rise of Muslim Scholarly Communities," he focuses on the question of how early Islamic scholars construct their notion of religious authority. Professor Brockopp is the convener for the Penn State Society for the Study of Religion and the director of the Rock Ethics Institute Initiative in Religion and Ethics.

This lecture will be live-streamed from Michigan State University.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 09 Jan 2018 13:10:53 -0500 2018-01-17T19:00:00-05:00 2018-01-17T20:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Jonathan Brockopp
ISP Lecture. Interpreting Islam in China (January 22, 2018 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47385 47385-10888270@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, January 22, 2018 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

A distinctive Chinese Islamic intellectual tradition emerged during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Chinese Muslims established an educational system, scripture hall education (jingtang jiaoyu 經堂教育), which utilized an Islamic curriculum made up of Arabic, Persian, and Chinese works. The Han Kitab, a corpus of Chinese language Islamic texts developed within this system, reinterpreted Islam through the religio-philosophical lens of Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian terminology. Several Han Kitab texts were produced by a group of self-identified “Confucian Muslim” scholars (Huiru 回儒). This presentation traces the contours of the Sino-Islamic intellectual tradition and serves as an introduction to Kristian Petersen’s book, "Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab" (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Kristian Petersen is an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies and co-director of the Islamic Studies Program at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He specializes on two main areas of research 1) the development of Islam in China, and 2) Muslims in Cinema. He is currently working on a monograph entitled "The Cinematic Lives of Muslims." He also serves as host of the New Books in Islamic Studies podcast.

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 18 Dec 2017 14:21:50 -0500 2018-01-22T16:00:00-05:00 2018-01-22T17:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Kristian Petersen
ISP Film. New Muslim Cool (January 24, 2018 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47768 47768-11012539@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, January 24, 2018 7:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

New Muslim Cool is a 2009 documentary film directed and produced by Jennifer Maytorena Taylor. The film follows the life of Hamza Perez, a Puerto Rican American Rap artist who converted to Islam after he decided to quit his life as a drug dealer. Hamza spends his time on the streets and jail cells spreading the message of Islam to at-risk youth and communities. The film also features the hip-hop group M-Team, a musical collaboration between Hamza and his brother Suliman Perez. The duo utilize the medium of hip-hop to spread their faith and religious message to other young people. In the midst of his journey to establish a new religious community and a new family in the North side of Pittsburgh, Hamza is forced to face the reality of being an active Muslim in a post 9/11 America when the community’s Mosque gets raided by the FBI.

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Film Screening Wed, 24 Jan 2018 09:18:07 -0500 2018-01-24T19:00:00-05:00 2018-01-24T20:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Film Screening Hamza Perez and his brother Suliman, in a scene from New Muslim Cool
Islamic Books Reading Group. Book Discussion: Attar's Conference of the Birds (January 31, 2018 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/48659 48659-11265184@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, January 31, 2018 7:00pm
Location: Michigan Union
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Join us to discuss the amazing epic poem, "Conference of the Birds," by Sufi poet, Attar! The conversation free and open to the public. The discussion will be led by Professor Cameron Cross, of the University of Michigan. Participants should read the book prior to the meeting. We will discuss the new translation by Sholeh Wolpé, published by Norton. It is on sale at Literati Bookstore in downtown Ann Arbor.

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Social / Informal Gathering Fri, 12 Jan 2018 16:08:11 -0500 2018-01-31T19:00:00-05:00 2018-01-31T20:30:00-05:00 Michigan Union Global Islamic Studies Center Social / Informal Gathering Conference of the Birds
DISC Lecture. In His Own Voice: What Hatayi Tells Us about Shah Ismail’s Religious Views (February 5, 2018 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47757 47757-11004745@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 5, 2018 4:00pm
Location: Hatcher Graduate Library
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

This talk will look at religious views of Shah Ismail, the founder of the Safavid Empire, as reflected in his poetry. The speaker will argue that in Shah Ismail’s poetic corpus, we are faced with a peculiar combination of divinization of ‘Ali, monism, and a firm focus on the salvific community united with the love of ‘Ali and allegiance to the Safavid shaykh/pir. Shah Ismail’s bid on sovereignty, therefore, can be interpreted as a clear instance of the strategy of equating royal and sacred authority which became popular in the post-Mongol age: his sacred power, understood as the distillation of ‘Ali’s authority into his person as the Safavid Sufi master, elevates him to the position of royal authority, the sovereign king.

Ahmet T. Karamustafa is professor of history at the University of Maryland, College Park. His expertise is in the social and intellectual history of Sufism in particular and Islamic piety in general in the medieval and early modern periods. His publications include "God’s Unruly Friends" (University of Utah Press, 1994) and "Sufism: The Formative Period" (Edinburgh University Press & University of California Press, 2007). He is currently working on a book project titled "Vernacular Islam: Everyday Muslim Religious Life in Medieval Anatolia" (co-authored with Cemal Kafadar) as well as a monograph on the history of early medieval Sufism titled "The Flowering of Sufism."

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 18 Dec 2017 16:57:30 -0500 2018-02-05T16:00:00-05:00 2018-02-05T17:30:00-05:00 Hatcher Graduate Library Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Ahmet T Karamustafa
DISC Lecture. Situating Rumi in Islam (February 7, 2018 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/49323 49323-11417467@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, February 7, 2018 5:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Rumi has been the best-selling poet in North America for twenty years, but most readers do not seem to be aware of his background and the mystical tradition which he belonged to. This talk will shed light on these subjects to facilitate a more nuanced understanding of his message.

Jawid Mojaddedi is professor of religion at Rutgers University. His area of research is early and medieval Sufism. Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and raised from the age of five in Great Britain, he completed his studies under the supervision of the late Norman Calder at the University of Manchester, receiving his PhD in 1998. He served for two years as assistant editor for Encyclopaedia Iranica, before taking up his current position at Rutgers, where he teaches courses in the general field of Islamic studies.

This event is simultaneously broadcast from the University of Minnesota and shared virtually with the University of Michigan and Rutgers University. Ann Arbor and New Brunswick audiences will be able to participate live with both the speaker and the two distance audiences.

Sponsors: Islamic Studies Program, Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum, University of Minnesota Religious Studies Program, University of Minnesota Center for Medieval Studies, University of Minnesota Department of Asian Languages and Cultures

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 30 Jan 2018 16:12:52 -0500 2018-02-07T17:00:00-05:00 2018-02-07T18:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Jawid Mojaddedi
Writing Aware (February 9, 2018 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/49112 49112-11375495@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, February 9, 2018 1:00pm
Location: Angell Hall
Organized By: University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers' Program

HZWP community discussion forum on issues of identity and intersectionality and the craft of writing.

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Workshop / Seminar Mon, 22 Jan 2018 14:07:57 -0500 2018-02-09T13:00:00-05:00 2018-02-09T15:00:00-05:00 Angell Hall University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers' Program Workshop / Seminar
ISP Lecture. A Fiction Reading with Saladin Ahmed (February 13, 2018 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/49783 49783-11532475@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 13, 2018 4:00pm
Location: Angell Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Join us for a literary reading with acclaimed science fiction and comic book writer, Saladin Ahmed. Ahmed will read from his work, which combines Muslim and sci-fi themes.

Saladin Ahmed is the author of the Hugo and Nebula-nominated "Throne of the Crescent Moon," praised by George RR Martin as "a rollicking swashbuckler." His essays, poetry, and fiction have appeared in The New York Times, Salon, the Boston Globe, Slate, NPR, and BuzzFeed. He is currently writing "Black Bolt" and "Exiles" for Marvel Comics and "Abbott" for BOOM! Studios.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 06 Feb 2018 10:47:14 -0500 2018-02-13T16:00:00-05:00 2018-02-13T17:30:00-05:00 Angell Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Saladin Ahmed
ISP Workshop. Belief and Action: The Subjects of Islamic Studies (February 16, 2018 9:30am) https://events.umich.edu/event/48666 48666-11265195@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, February 16, 2018 9:30am
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Presenters: Zaid Adhami, assistant professor of religion, Williams College; Kathryn Babayan, associate professor of history, U-M; Sarah Eltantawi, assistant professor of religion, Evergreen State College; Hussein Fancy, associate professor of history, U-M; Juliane Hammer, associate professor of religion, University of North Carolina; Rudolph Ware, associate professor of history, U-M

Over the past generation, Islamic studies in North America has undergone a dramatic shift. In nineteenth-century Europe, Orientalism embraced the study of the histories, cultures, and religions of lands from the southern and eastern Mediterranean through Central Asia and into the Indian subcontinent. Orientalist scholars typically were not themselves natives of any of these regions; nor were they themselves Muslims. In the course of the last two centuries, Orientalism has been atomized: divided into distinct fields of regional and disciplinary studies. At the same time, the study of Islam—the religion, the culture, and the civilization—has gone global; scholars today study the history, current state, and future of Islam and Muslims worldwide. And today, students and teachers of Islamic studies are much more likely to come from within the tradition: born to Muslim families or in Muslim-majority regions, or converts to the faith. Yet in the field of Islamic studies—as in other religious studies disciplines—scholars struggle to account for the subject of their inquiry. They debate the focus of Islamic atudies: societies, cultures, or religion itself. They seek a scholarly vocabulary to talk about belief, and to think together about the relationship between belief, scholarship, and pedagogy. And they debate the role that action and activism plays for scholars in the field.

At this workshop, we will convene a group of scholars from U-M and other North American universities to discuss the genealogy, current state, and future of Islamic studies in North American universities. How has Islamic studies evolved over the last two centuries? How has the rising number of Muslim scholars in the field changed the nature of our scholarship? What changes must still happen, in order to provide leadership within American universities and in American society at large? How does scholarship intersect with action, activism, and advocacy? How can Islamic studies serve as a model for programs of religious studies in general? This workshop will consist of a series of roundtable discussions, structured in order to facilitate discussion. Each roundtable will pair two scholars working in disparate regions, disciplines, and historical periods. Each participant will speak for about ten minutes, followed by a conversation among scholars and attendees. The workshop is designed to facilitate free-ranging, creative discussion, and to integrate the audience in all discussions, in order to take stock of the field and generate a productive discussion of our future.

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Workshop / Seminar Mon, 05 Feb 2018 13:53:33 -0500 2018-02-16T09:30:00-05:00 2018-02-16T16:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Workshop / Seminar Belief and Action workshop
IISS Symposium Keynote Address. Black Islam in the Americas (February 16, 2018 5:15pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/49784 49784-11532476@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, February 16, 2018 5:15pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

This keynote address by leading scholar of Islam and Muslims in the U.S. and Europe, Dr. Aminah Al-Deen, will inaugurate the Interdisciplinary Islamic Studies Seminar symposium, "Black Islam in the Americas." The symposium will follow on February 17-18, 2018. Please see ii.umich.edu/isp for details.

The conference is organized by the Interdisciplinary Islamic Studies Seminar (IISS) with support from the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 05 Feb 2018 15:38:13 -0500 2018-02-16T17:15:00-05:00 2018-02-16T18:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion IISS Conference 2018
IISS Symposium. Black Islam in the Americas (February 17, 2018 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/49785 49785-11532477@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, February 17, 2018 9:00am
Location: Lurie Biomedical Engineering
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

The Black Islam in the Americas Symposium endeavors to foster contemplation of the geographies and politics of Black Islam configured in diasporic historical connections between Africa and the Americas. The seminar will begin with a keynote lecture by Aminah McCloud, professor of religious studies at DePaul University on Friday, February 16 at 5:15pm. Please see ii.umich.edu/isp for details.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17
9:00-10:30 Panel 1: Black Muslims and US Geopolitics
10:45-12:15 Panel 2: Narratives of Black Muslim Trajectories
1:15-2:45 Panel 3: Black Atlantic Muslim Dialogues and Exchanges
3:00-4:30 Panel 4: New World Muslims and the African Past

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18
9:00-10:30 Panel 5: Community Activism and Black Muslim Lives
10:45-12:15 Closing Remarks, Su’ad Abdul Khabeer

The conference is organized by the Interdisciplinary Islamic Studies Seminar (IISS) with support from the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.

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Conference / Symposium Mon, 05 Feb 2018 15:38:32 -0500 2018-02-17T09:00:00-05:00 2018-02-17T16:30:00-05:00 Lurie Biomedical Engineering Global Islamic Studies Center Conference / Symposium IISS Conference 2018
IISS Symposium. Black Islam in the Americas (February 18, 2018 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/49785 49785-11532478@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, February 18, 2018 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

The Black Islam in the Americas Symposium endeavors to foster contemplation of the geographies and politics of Black Islam configured in diasporic historical connections between Africa and the Americas. The seminar will begin with a keynote lecture by Aminah McCloud, professor of religious studies at DePaul University on Friday, February 16 at 5:15pm. Please see ii.umich.edu/isp for details.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17
9:00-10:30 Panel 1: Black Muslims and US Geopolitics
10:45-12:15 Panel 2: Narratives of Black Muslim Trajectories
1:15-2:45 Panel 3: Black Atlantic Muslim Dialogues and Exchanges
3:00-4:30 Panel 4: New World Muslims and the African Past

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18
9:00-10:30 Panel 5: Community Activism and Black Muslim Lives
10:45-12:15 Closing Remarks, Su’ad Abdul Khabeer

The conference is organized by the Interdisciplinary Islamic Studies Seminar (IISS) with support from the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.

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Conference / Symposium Mon, 05 Feb 2018 15:38:32 -0500 2018-02-18T09:00:00-05:00 2018-02-18T12:15:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Global Islamic Studies Center Conference / Symposium IISS Conference 2018
DISC Lecture. The Lost Gender Egalitarian Voice of the Qur’an (February 19, 2018 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47392 47392-10891048@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 19, 2018 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

How can a book that--allegedly--openly advises husbands by saying, “Strike them” in cases of marital conflict have any possible gender-egalitarian interpretation? Does the Qur’an really reflect a misogynist ideology? What can the analytic, linguistic, and critical approach to the Qur’anic text reveal when it comes to women’s issues? Could the hermeneutical investigation of the Qur’an end by the reconquest of a lost humanitarian and gender egalitarian richness of a text that has gone poorly and loosely handled for centuries? What does the Qur’an relay say about gender equality, polygamy, minor marriage, women’s right to education and work, women’s right to public authority positions, and women’s right to Prophethood?

Abla Hasan is assistant professor of practice of Arabic language and culture at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She earned her MA in philosophy as a Fulbright grantee and PhD in philosophy of language from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and holds a BA and Diploma of High Studies from Damascus University. At the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, she is Women’s & Gender Studies program faculty, Arabic Studies faculty and undergraduate adviser, and E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues program committee member. Hasan is a native speaker of Arabic. Her current teaching and research interests include Islamic feminism, Islamic studies, and Quranic studies.

This lecture will be live-streamed from Rutgers University.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 07 Dec 2017 14:04:15 -0500 2018-02-19T16:00:00-05:00 2018-02-19T17:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Weiser Hall
Islamic Books Reading Group. Book Discussion: Mohja Kahf's Hagar Poems (March 7, 2018 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/48661 48661-11265191@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 7:00pm
Location: Michigan Union
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Join us to discuss American Muslim poet, Mohja Khaf's "Hagar Poems!" The conversation is free and open to the public. The discussion will be led by Professor Samer Ali, of the University of Michigan. Participants should read the book prior to the meeting. It is on sale at Literati Bookstore in downtown Ann Arbor.

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Social / Informal Gathering Fri, 12 Jan 2018 16:07:47 -0500 2018-03-07T19:00:00-05:00 2018-03-07T20:30:00-05:00 Michigan Union Global Islamic Studies Center Social / Informal Gathering Hagar Poems
Affirming Muslim Student Identities on College Campuses (March 14, 2018 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/49847 49847-11552206@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, March 14, 2018 10:00am
Location: Michigan League
Organized By: National Center for Institutional Diversity

Shafiqa Ahmadi, JD, is an associate professor of clinical education at the Rossier School of Education and the co-director for the Center for Education, Identity, and Social Justice at the University of Southern California. She is an expert on diversity and legal protection of underrepresented students, including Muslims, bias and hate crimes, and sexual assault survivors. Prior to joining the Rossier faculty, she taught at the Gould School of Law and was a visiting researcher at the Center for Urban Education at Rossier. She has also served as a research associate at the Research Institute at Rossier, where she assisted with grant proposals and worked on a grant awarded by the Department of Education (DOE) designed to prevent and reduce on-campus sexual assault. Prior to joining USC Rossier, she worked for the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission, where she investigated alleged violations of civil rights and discrimination in areas such as employment, housing, and access to state and state-funded services.

Ahmadi received her Doctor of Jurisprudence from Indiana University Maurer School of Law at Bloomington, Indiana. While in law school and graduate school, she focused on employment law, corporate international law, Middle Eastern languages and cultures, and Islamic law (Shari‘a). She is fluent in five languages. She is a native speaker of Persian (Dari & Farsi) and her second language is English. She also speaks Hindi and Urdu.

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The National Center for Institutional Diversity Research and Scholarship Seminar Series features scholars who have furthered our understanding of historical and contemporary social issues related to identity, difference, culture, representation, power, oppression, and inequality — as they occur and affect individuals, groups, communities, and institutions. The series also highlights how research and scholarship can be applied to address current and contemporary diversity, equity, and inclusion issues in higher education and society.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 07 Feb 2018 11:53:13 -0500 2018-03-14T10:00:00-04:00 2018-03-14T11:30:00-04:00 Michigan League National Center for Institutional Diversity Lecture / Discussion
Writing Aware (March 15, 2018 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/49112 49112-11375496@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 15, 2018 1:00pm
Location: Angell Hall
Organized By: University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers' Program

HZWP community discussion forum on issues of identity and intersectionality and the craft of writing.

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Workshop / Seminar Mon, 22 Jan 2018 14:07:57 -0500 2018-03-15T13:00:00-04:00 2018-03-15T15:00:00-04:00 Angell Hall University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers' Program Workshop / Seminar
Restructuring Academia and Student Life (March 22, 2018 6:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/50975 50975-11930609@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 22, 2018 6:30pm
Location: Hatcher Graduate Library
Organized By: Arab and Muslim American Studies (AMAS)

The Islamophobia Working Group is comprised of faculty, staff, and students who strategize on how to create an inclusive campus environment for those impacted by anti-Arab and anti Muslim sentiments. Come learn about this group's DEI work of the last two years. Student panelists will discuss campus climate concerns that include advocating for a Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) identity checkbox, more reflection rooms on campus, and changing the Arabic language textbook.

Food will be provided at 6:30, followed by the panel beginning promptly at 7.

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 12 Mar 2018 17:45:32 -0400 2018-03-22T18:30:00-04:00 2018-03-22T20:30:00-04:00 Hatcher Graduate Library Arab and Muslim American Studies (AMAS) Lecture / Discussion Poster
Compendium as Archive? Muslim Ethical Thought and its Circulation in Colonial India (April 3, 2018 12:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/49588 49588-11476295@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, April 3, 2018 12:30pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Institute for the Humanities

“Compendium as Archive?” considers two compendiums of Muslim ethical thought produced in colonial India: Makhzan-i-Hikmet (A Treasury of Wisdom) by Mufti Ghulam Sarwar, and Makhzan-i-Akhlaq (A Treasury of Ethics), by Rahmatullah Subhani. Published in 1871 and 1932, respectively, both compile the sayings of an eclectic group of eminent men, and/or kernels of their wisdom. Those included are Muslim and non-Muslim, and date from classical antiquity to contemporary times. This talk considers both texts in their religious and historical context, asking whether we can read them as archives of popular religious sentiment? While taking up the religious and cultural history of late colonial India, the talk will also address the broader methodological concern of how print culture can serve as historical archive, giving particular attention to the compendium as a genre.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 29 Mar 2018 12:39:34 -0400 2018-04-03T12:30:00-04:00 2018-04-03T13:30:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Institute for the Humanities Lecture / Discussion 202 S. Thayer
Writing Aware (April 9, 2018 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/49112 49112-11375497@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, April 9, 2018 1:00pm
Location: Angell Hall
Organized By: University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers' Program

HZWP community discussion forum on issues of identity and intersectionality and the craft of writing.

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Workshop / Seminar Mon, 22 Jan 2018 14:07:57 -0500 2018-04-09T13:00:00-04:00 2018-04-09T15:00:00-04:00 Angell Hall University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers' Program Workshop / Seminar