Events Sponsored by the Muslim Studies Endowment

7pm Tuesday February 13, 2024

Jordan Hall – Room 141

What is the difference between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, and what are their origins? How do the two groups relate, and why do their differences lead on occasion to tensions or even conflict? How do their differences inform contemporary politics in the Middle East? Dr. Ibrahim Kazerooni, Imam at the Islamic Center of America (Dearborn, Michigan), joins us to speak on these and related topics.

View the recording here.

Co-sponsored by Butler University’s Muslim Studies Endowment and the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

Tuesday November 7, 2023

Jordan Hall Room 141

Guantánamo-the-prison was established in January 2002 to detain Muslim males captured in the US “war on terror.” The process that went into its creation revealed a preexisting but unacknowledged weakness in the rule of law and its continued existence more than two decades on actively degrades the universal principle of humanity. Guantánamo has acquired an international significance that far exceeds its physical presence on the US naval base in Cuba.

View the recording here.

Sponsored by the Desmond Tutu Peace Lab and the Muslim Studies Endowment

Monday November 6, 2023      The Mauritian  – Film Screening and Q&A with Dr. Lisa Hajjar – Kan-Kan Cinema, Indianapolis

Part of the Butler Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies Movie Series

Monday, October 30 2023

Shelton Auditorium

This seminar is a collaborative effort with the Muslim Student Association to bring the Islamic and African Studies scholar Dr. Rudolph “Butch” Ware II. He will provide knowledge and insight on his research of West African Muslim communities of Senegal, Gambia and Mauritania that serve as the basis for his book The Walking Qur’an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa.

View the recording here.

Sponsored by the Center for Faith and Vocation in partnership with the Hub for Black Affairs and Community Engagement 

Thursday March 30, 2023 –  Lecture –  “Political Islam in Action”; 

Friday March 31, 2023  – Faculty workshop on Islam/Muslims, gender and sexuality

Thursday November 3, 2022 –  Lecture  “Muslims of the Heartland: How Syrian Immigrants Made a Home in the American West”

Co-Sponsored by the department of History, Anthropology & Classics

August 20, 2021 performance for faculty and staff;  October 11, 2021 with College of Communication students

Negin Farsad is a comedian, writer, actor, and director. Named one of the 10 Best Feminist Comedians by Paper Magazine, Negin Farsad was selected as a TedFellow for her work in social justice comedy. She is the author of How to Make White People Laugh, which was nominated for the Thurber Prize for Humor and recommend by Oprah Magazine. Additionally, she is the host of Fake the Nation, a political comedy podcast, and is a regular panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. She is also the director and producer of The Muslims Are Coming!

Co-Sponsored with the Office of the Provost

October 26, 2021 – As part of the Religion and Global Affairs Seminar

Author Marcia Inhorn is the William K. Lanman Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs in the Department of Anthropology and MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. She also chairs the Council on Middle East Studies. Inhorn specializes in Middle Eastern gender, religion, and reproductive health issues, and is the author of six books on the subject.

Co-Sponsored with the Center of Faith and Vocation and the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department

November 9, 2021

G. Willow Wilson is an American comics writer, prose author, essayist, and journalist. Her debut graphic novel Cairo, with art by M.K. Perker, was named one of the best graphic novels of 2007 by Publishers Weekly and Comics Worth Reading. Additionally, the paperback edition of Cairo was named as one of 2009’s Top Ten Graphic Novels for Teens by the American Library Association. Recognized globally, Wilson has also written for some comic book series, such as The X-Men, Wonder Woman, and Superman. Additionally, she has published The Butterfly Mosque (2010), Alif the Unseen (2012), and The Bird King (2019). Wilson’s work has been translated into over a dozen languages.

Co-Sponsored with the Visiting Writers Series

February 15, 2022 – As part of the Religion and Global Affairs Seminar

Juliane Hammer is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her specialization includes the study of gender and sexuality in Muslim societies and communities, and race and gender in US Muslim communities. She has written and edited six books, including Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts against Domestic Violence (Princeton University Press, 2019).

Co-Sponsored with the Center of Faith and Vocation and the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department

April 12, 2022 – A Conversation between Martin Nguyen and Brent Hege

Dr. Martin Nguyen is a professor at Fairfield University, in which he teaches classes on Islam. He obtained his Master of Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School and then obtained his PhD from Harvard’s University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Prof. Nguyen is also the author of several books, including his most recent book Modern Muslim Theology: Engaging God and the World with Faith and Imagination (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).

Brent Hege is a professor in the Department of Philosophy, Religion, and Classics at Butler University. In 2017, he received the Outstanding Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching from Butler’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He was appointed Center of Faith and Vocation (CFV) Scholar in Residence in 2017, which included working with the CFV Scholars on issues of interfaith engagement and vocational discernment. In 2020, Prof. Hege was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Religion and currently holds affiliate faculty status in the programs of Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Science, Technology, and Environmental Studies. He has been teaching at Butler since 2008.

Watch the conversation

March 25, 2022  – Islamic Illuminations (campus and community)

March 26, 2022 – Introduction to Illuminations Workshop

Islamic Illumination, tazhib, is an art practiced in many parts of the Muslim world for over a millennium. Tazhib is derived from zahab, which means gold in Arabic. Tazhib was primarily used to decorate manuscripts, a practice which still continues today in parts of the Islamic world. Nowadays, tazhib is usually practiced in conjunction with calligraphy. Illuminators use small brushes to create a wide variety of motifs from crushed gold, gouache, watercolor, and natural pigments. In this workshop, students will be introduced to the material and techniques of this traditional art.

Artist Behnaz Karjoo was born in Tehran, Iran, but later moved to the United States at a young age. She studied jewelry design and photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Karjoo would later pursue training in the traditional Islamic art, as she was influenced by her early memories of Iranian mosque architecture, illumination, and calligraphy.

Co-Sponsored with the Jordan College of the Arts

April 6, 2021

Dr. amina wadud is a world-renowned scholar and activist with a focus on Islam, justice, gender and sexuality. This talk will provide historical background, development and epistemology to highlight the most dynamic aspect of Islamic reform, the reform of gender as a knowledge building project achieving more inclusive ethics, culture and policies.

Watch Dr. amina wadud’s talk

Co-Sponsored with the Hub for Black Affairs and Community Engagement; and the Race, Gender, and Sexual Studies Program

February 23, 2021

Dr. Nabil Echchaibi, Associate Director of the Center for Media, Religion & Culture at the University of Colorado-Boulder, uses examples from popular culture and art to discuss how to speak as Muslims and of Muslims away from the paranoia of terror and the politics of suspicion imposed by demands of strategic transparency.

Watch Dr. Nabil Echchaibi’s discussion

Co-Sponsored with the College of Communication.

October 23, 2019

Omar Offendum is a Syrian-American rapper/poet living in Los Angeles. Known for his unique blend of Hip-Hop and Arabic poetry, he is featured on prominent world news outlets, lectured at a number of prestigious academic institutions, collaborated with major museums and cultural organizations, and helped raise millions of dollars for various humanitarian relief groups. A graduate of the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture, he has carved a distinct path for himself as a thoughtful entertainer/activist able to speak to a multitude of relevant issues and diverse global audiences over the course of his decade-long career.

Co-sponsored with Global and Historical Studies and the Center for Faith and Vocation

October 29, 2019 – As part of the Religion and Global Affairs Seminar

Many of America’s prisoners have embraced Islam while incarcerated, and Muslims have also been active in caring for the social and religious needs of ex-offenders. In this session of the Center for Faith and Vocation’s Seminar on Religion and Global Affairs, we explored what Islam has to say and what Muslims are doing about incarceration in America with guests from Chicago’s Interfaith Muslim Action Network, Dr. Harriet Lewis and Nasir Blackwell, and experts engaged in similar work locally, Kareem Bilal and Judge David Shaheed.

Watch video recording

Co-sponsored with the Center for Faith and Vocation; the NEH/Frederic M. Ayres Fund; the Desmond Tutu Peace Lab; and the Department of Philosophy, Religion, and Classics

March 2, 2020

An evening with Leila Fadel, National Correspondent on the race, identity and culture beat for National Public Radio.

Co-sponsored by Butler University’s Muslim Studies Endowment, The Global and Historical Studies Program, College of Communication, and Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies

Watch Leila Fadel’s talk