Related Posts

America to Zanzibar Opening

I am proud to announce the opening of the exhibit America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. I served as the lead academic advisor the exhibit, and it is stunning. Below is a link to my Flickr album of the space, which I will continue update as the exhibit goes on for the year.

Review: Domestic Crusaders

I have to imagine that writing fiction about Muslim-Americans is a thankless task. People from outside the community are already pre-disposed to like it or hate it. Unless you’re Rizwan Manji, Aasif Mandvi, or Aziz Ansari, you can’t quite draw the crowds to be able to change minds. Of course, you also get heat from inside the community. People will invariably say “it doesn’t represent me,” “it’s not my experience.” These same people will simultaneously identify with Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and support Umrao Jaan Ada, but will not have empathy with Muslim-American characters because it is not exactly their experience.…

Sacred Space: Islamic Architecture 2.0

Sacred Space: Islamic Architecture 2.0. Maryam Eskandari, an architect at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT, currently has a traveling exhibit on American Mosques. Her exhibit, Sacred Space: (Re) Constructing the Place of Gender in the Space of Religion is touring the nation.