Our Shared Future

FIRST ISLAM IN THE WEST CONFERENCE THOMPSON ROOM, BARKER CENTER HARVARD UNIVERSITY Friday, December 2, 2005 8:30-9:00 Breakfast Welcome by Prof. Roger Owen, Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies Introductory Remarks by Prof. Roy Mottahedeh, Center for Middle Eastern Studies 9:00-9:45 Prof. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons (University of Florida) – Introductory remarks “The New Hijab: Negotiating Tradition and Identity through Dress, Presentation of Fieldwork among Muslim Women in the Greater Boston Area” Presented by Danna Weiss, Center for Middle East Studies, FAS Session Commentary by Prof. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons 9:45-10:30 Prof. Ali Asani (Harvard University) – Introductory Remarks “Between…

In anticipation of a panel I’m on on diversity, here are two quotes from Diana Eck on the topic. (Thanks to one of the other panelists, Emily Ronald, for finding and supplying them.) “What then, is pluralism? The word has been used so widely and freely as a virtual synonym for such terms as relativism, subjectivism, multiculturalism, and globalism that we need to stop for a moment and think clearly about what it does and does not mean. Pluralism is but one of several responses to diversity and to modernity. It is an interpretation of plurality, an evaluation of religious…