‘Black Muslim Atlantic’ Symposium
Thursday, January 30, 2020 | 6:00 pm
Friday, January 31, 2020 | 9:00 am
Thursday and Friday, January 30-31
Rubenstein Arts Center, Rm. 102
Free and open to the public
A two-day symposium co-sponsored by the Duke Islamic Studies Center, African and African American Studies Department, Forum for Scholars and Publics, Franklin Humanities Institute, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Department, Religious Studies Department, Duke Performances, and Trent Foundation.
Black Muslim Atlantic was envisioned and organized with Imam Abdul Hafeez Waheed to honor the Black Muslim community in North Carolina and beyond — its culture, literature, history, and legacy from slavery until the present. Black Muslim Atlantic pays tribute to the work and writings of Omar ibn Sayyid through a pioneering project by Professors Carl Ernst (UNC Chapel Hill) and Mbaye Lo (Duke) to translate his writings and create a digital archive. The symposium showcases the work of these professors and their students from their course “Arabic and the Writings of Enslaved Muslims.”
The term “Black Muslim Atlantic” was coined by Margari Aziza, the co-founder and program director of the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, as “an endeavor of transnationalism through literature, intellectual exchange, visual and performance art.” This work expands Paul Gilroy’s understanding of the Black Atlantic toward acknowledging the powerful role played by Islam in forging cultural and political solidarities across the global south.
Program
THURSDAY, January 30th @ 6 p.m.
WELCOME WORDS
Brother Joshua Salaam, Muslim Chaplain
Center for Muslim Life, Duke University
KEYNOTE
“Islam and the Blues”
Sylviane Diouf, Visiting Professor, Brown University, Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice
Author of: Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (1998); Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies (2003); Dreams of Africa in Alabama: Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America (2007); Slavery’s Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons (2014)
RESPONDENT:
Omar Ali, Dean of Lloyd International Honors College and Professor of Comparative African Diaspora History, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
Author of: In the Lion’s Mouth: Black Populism in the New South, 1886-1900 (2010); Malik Ambar: Power and Slavery across the Indian Ocean (2016); Islam in the Indian Ocean World: A Brief History with Documents (2016)
Poetry Reading
Marvin X Jackmon
—
FRIDAY, January 31st
9:00 a.m. Coffee & Breakfast
9:30 a.m. to 11
WELCOME WORDS
Mrs. Lucy Lincoln,
C. Eric Lincoln’s widow
THE ATLANTIC
“Islam and Race”
Zain Abdullah, Associate Professor of Religion, Temple University
Author of: Black Mecca: The African Muslims of Harlem (2010); A God of Our Own: Malcolm X and His Battle for the Soul of America (forthcoming); Temple 25: Black Religiosity and the Rise of American Islam (forthcoming)
“A Sea Without Shore”
Youssef Carter, College Fellow, Social Anthropology, Harvard University
Author of: The Vast Oceans: Remembering God and Self in Mustafawi Sufi Order (in progress)
& Rashida James-Saadiya, Arts and Culture editor for Sapelo
RESPONDENT:
Candis Watts Smith, Associate Professor of Political Science, Penn State
Author of: Black Mosaic: The Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Diversity (2014); Black Politics in Transition: Immigration, Suburbanization, and Gentrification (2018)
With Christina M. Greer
Author of: Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter (2019)
11 a.m. to 11:15 BREAK
11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
MUSIC & SOUND
“Islam and Jazz”
Richard Brent Turner, Professor of African American Religious History, University of Iowa
Author of: Islam in the African American Experience (1997); Jazz Religion, the Second Line, and Black New Orleans (2009)
“Performing the Islamic Black Atlantic:
Afro-Diasporic Muslim Hip-Hop, Embodied Ethics, and Redefinition of British Islam”
Jeanette Jouili, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Pittsburgh
Author of: Pious Practice and Secular Constraints: Women in the Islamic Revival in Europe (2015);
Embodying Black Religions in Africa and its Disaporas: Memory, Movement, and Belonging
Through the Body with Yoland Covington-Ward (forthcoming); The Islamic Artistic Scene in the UK: Between Religious Ethics and State Discipline (new project)
RESPONDENT:
Mark Anthony Neal, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor and Chair of African and African American Studies, Duke
Author of: What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1998); Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (2002); Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation (2003)
12:30 p.m. to 2
JUMAA “Muhammed: The Living Quran,” led by Imam Abdul Hafeez Waheed & LUNCH
THE ARCHIVE
2 p.m. to 3:30
“Ahmad Karim & the Black Consciousness Movement at Morehouse:
Black Women Scholars Archiving Their Radical Parents”
Dr. Jamillah Karim, Professor of Religious Studies emerita, Spelman College
Author of: American Muslim Women (2008); Women of the Nation: Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam (2014) with Dawn-Marie Gibson
“Omar ibn Sayyid: Arabic and the Writings of Enslaved Muslims”
Professor Carl Ernst, Religious Studies, UNC
Professor Mbaye Lo, Asian and Middle East Studies, Duke
RESPONDENT:
Juliane Hammer, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, UNC Chapel Hill
Author of: American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism (2012); A Jihad for Justice: Honoring the Work and Life of Amina Wadud (2012); Cambridge Companion to American Islam, co-edited with Omid Safi (2013); Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts Against Domestic Violence (2019)
3:30 p.m.
CLOSING WORDS
Imam Ronald Shaheed
Assistant Imam, Masjid Ash Shaheed
Charlotte, NC