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The Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath—the week that started with deadly explosions and ended with a manhunt— left us with unanswered questions about home-grown terrorism, religious extremism, the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle, the legal system, and political struggles as far away as Chechnya.   UNC faculty met on May 6 for a Think Fast Forum to discuss these issues.  Global Research Institute Director Peter Coclanis moderated the panel, with participants Tamar Birckhead (School of Law) Jim Hefner (School of Journalism and Mass Communication), Louise McReynolds (Dept. of History), David Schanzer (Public Policy, Director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security), and Omid Safi (Dept. of Religious Studies).  The Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations is proud to have sponsored this Think Fast Forum with the General Alumni Association and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies.  Watch the video of the panel discussion here.

This February (2013), the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies took on the politically charged topic of veiling  at its annual conference with several goals in mind: to examine the persistence of stereotypical representations of the veil; to understand the veil and its multiple meanings, styles, and practices; and to recognize Muslim women as subjects rather than dehumanized objects or icons. Dr. Banu Gokariksel, from the Department of Geography at UNC-Chapel Hill, explains why the veil often appears a convenient symbol of the Muslim Other to be feared, or alternatively, of the Muslim ideal to be upheld. As Dr. Gokariksel explains,  “veiling-fashion, then, is also part of how Muslim women navigate the everyday geopolitics of ‘Islamic threat.’ By wearing lighter colors and more ‘pleasing’ styles, Muslim women not only attempt to dispel the negative associations of the veil, but also to position themselves as fashion-conscious consumers, integrating into ‘modern’ society –as a profitable niche market, no less.” To read Dr. Gokariksel’s full article, see here.

The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation is pleased to announce that Natalia Suit, a student member of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations, has been named a 2013 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellow. Ms. Suit is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is exploring the cultural impact of technological changes in the way the Quran in published and used in Egypt in her dissertation Qur’anic Matters: Mushaf as Object in Cairo. The Newcombe Fellowship is the nation’s largest and most prestigious such award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences whose dissertations address questions of ethical and/or religious values. Each 2013 Newcombe Fellow will receive a 12-month award of $25,000. For more information on the Fellowship and the 2013 competition, please see here.

Gain Knowledge about Islamic civilizations, including religion, history, politics, culture, and society, from 7^th century Mecca to Islam in 21^st century America; Learn about the diversity of interpretations and expressions of Islam that exist among Muslims;  Be exposed to Muslim cultures from around the world through multimedia, art, and literature; Understand problems related to the study of religion and history; Develop critical thinking, reading, and writing skills.

Instructor: Rose Aslan, Department of Religious Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill. For more information and to register online, see here.

In the UNC Honors program, each semester students meet in the Dunlevie Honors Colloquium to discuss a broad interdisciplinary topic of their own choosing.  The Spring 2013 topic is “Perspectives on the Arab Spring [link to site].” Faculty presenters from Duke University, NC State University, and Carolina include:  Cemil Aydin, Akram Khater, Sarah Shields, Andrew Reynolds, Bruce Jentleson, Abdeslam Maghraoui, Carl Ernst, Charlie Kurzman, and Miriam Cooke.

For more information, click here.

On February 22-23, the 2013 Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies conference was held at the FedEx Global Education Center, UNC-Chapel Hill.  “ReOrienting the Veil” focused on Muslim women’s veiling practices in transnational contexts, and featured lively, interdisciplinary discussion of the headscarf.  Presenters included Elizabeth Bucar, Todd Drake, Carla Jones, Typhaine LeServot, Ellen McLarney, and Marilia Marchetti, as well as UNC professors Sahar Amer, Martine Antle, Banu Gökariksel, Juliane Hammer, and Duke professors miriam cooke and Claudia Koonz.  Over two hundred attended, including faculty, students, K-12 and community college educators, and other community members.

Amer and Gökariksel discussed the conference theme on WUNC’s “The State of Things” before the conference.  Listen to their conversation here.

See photos from the conference here.

The 2013 Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies conference will be held at the FedEx Global Education Center, UNC-Chapel Hill, Feb. 22-13, 2013, and will focus on Muslim women’s veiling practices in transnational contexts.  The one and a half day conference is a forum for an interdisciplinary discussion of the cultural, religious, historical and political meanings of the Muslim headscarf.  The goal of this conference is to provide a scholarly forum where nationally and internationally renowned scholars and artists will present their most recent research on veiling in the Middle East, in Europe and the USA. For a detailed description of the conference, please visit here.

The 10th annual Duke-UNC Islamic Studies Graduate Conference will be held on February 16-17, 2013, at Duke University (The Franklin Center).  We have 15 papers this year, with participants attending from all over the country and a few international students as well. The theme is “(De-)Centering Islam and the Question of Authenticity.”  The keynote speaker for the conference this year is Alireza Doostdar, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies and the Anthropology of Religion at University of Chicago.  His talk is entitled, “Islam, Authenticity, and the Vicissitudes of Abstraction.”   His talk will begin at 4:30 Saturday February 16. All are welcome to attend; you can see a more complete schedule and info here.

The new WRAL Documentary “Faith, Fear and Freedom” explores the lives of Muslims living in our state and examines the anti-Islamic prejudice and discrimination that is fueled by the actions of Islamic extremists. “Faith, Fear and Freedom,” hosted by WRAL News anchor David Crabtree, aired Thursday, Dec. 20 at 7 p.m.

Click here to watch the documentary.

Organizations using fear and anger to spread negative messages about Muslims have moved from the fringes of public discourse into the mainstream media since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to new research by Christopher Bail, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sociologist. The work appears in the December issue of the American Sociological Review. Using plagiarism detection software, Bail tracked the influence of 1,084 news releases about Muslims from 120 organizations on more than 50,000 television news program transcripts and newspaper articles aired or published from 2001 to 2008. To read more about Christopher Bail’s research, click here