Muslims in a Global Context is a semi-annual mini-course series for students, educators, and the broader community to learn from faculty experts and practitioners about issues of critical importance to the understanding of countries with significant Muslim populations. Each term the cluster of countries changes. Speakers for this session include: Dr. Juan Cole, University of Michigan (Monday, November 11), Dr. James Hoesterey, Emory University, Dr. Sidharth Chandra, Michigan State, Dr. Azlan Tajuddin, LaRoche College.
Back to the Square is a powerful documentary that reveals citizens' continuing struggles following the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Roughly six months after the "Facebook Revolution," Director Petr Lom explores the lives of five seemingly unrelated people and, doing so, addresses larger issues plaguing the nation. A poor, illiterate horse herdsman struggles against political manipulation. A rural woman is forced to contend with tremendous sexual discrimination. A taxi driver relays his brutal experience in prison as a victim of police corruption.
We watched the news headlines as a nation's youth took to the streets to demand justice. We added a ribbon to our Twitter defaults to show support for the protesters. This is not the story of Egypt, Libya, or Syria, but of the movement that started it all: the Green Revolution in Iran. An anonymous filmmaker living virtually in Iran tells the story of the 2009-2010 election protests by sharing with us his personal archives of YouTube videos, tweets, emails, and other brief clips of the chaos that authorities tried to shield from our eyes.
Experience the overthrow of a 30-year regime of oppression, corruption, and abuse in Stefano Savona's documentary, Tahir: Liberation Square. Savona introduces us to young Egyptians who, day by day, come to the Square, chanting, marching and discussing the bright future of a free Egypt. We feel their exhilaration during an inspirational speech by Google executive Wael Ghonim, whose Facebook page helped spark the revolution. We feel their anger as an ex-convict admits that Mubarak hired prisoners as thugs to quell the demonstrators.
The CERIS Curriculum Development Grants Program is designed to enable faculty members from CERIS institutions to pursue curricular development and enhancement projects related to Islamic Studies. Islamic Studies is understood, as expressed in the CERIS mission statement, to encompass many languages, literatures, and disciplines; and extends from the 7th century to the present, and across broad geographical areas of the world.
