Dear Global Islamic Studies Affiliates:
Welcome back! We hope you have enjoyed a restful, productive, and healthy summer. We also recognize that the past year of the COVID-19 pandemic and online instruction and work have been unprecedentedly difficult for our university and world communities. Many global and local uncertainties continue, and we especially acknowledge with dismay the catastrophic hardships of the people of Afghanistan, particularly women and children, after decades of Cold War proxy involvement, U.S. intervention, and now, renewed civil conflict and displacement.
I am the new director of the Global Islamic Studies Center, with specific expertise in the field of Islam in the Americas, including the Caribbean and Latin America, and immigrant Muslim communities in North America. I am pleased to take on the directorship with a renewed vision of the breadth of Islamic Studies across the worldwide Muslim ummah, including and outside of the Middle East, and with a focus on intersectional issues of religion, race, gender, transnational, cross-border identities, and migration.
We are planning an exciting lineup of programming this year, featuring, among others, lectures on Afghanistan, and the (virtual) return of Halaloween, our October Muslim horror film series with films from around the world; and various media speakers. Our events in the Fall 2021 semester will be primarily virtual, for greatest accessibility, involvement, and safety. Stay tuned to our newsletter and website for all our event announcements!
The Global Islamic Studies Center also continues to fund undergraduate, graduate, and faculty research and projects, and collaborate with the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies and the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum at the International Institute on Muslim and Islamic Studies cluster events at the University of Michigan.
We wish you a successful semester and academic year, and look forward to seeing you at our events!
Aliyah Khan
Director, Global Islamic Studies Center
