Dr. Shabana Mir, Associate Professor of Anthropology at American Islamic College has been awarded a prestigious grant by the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religion.
The grant supports the pioneering workshop on “Teaching Islam and Gender” that Dr. Mir has conceptualized and organized. It’s the first of its kind; the event generates pedagogical development, mentoring, networking, critique, and supportive cultures, and centers higher education pedagogy in the context of gendered Islamophobia and a charged political climate.
Attendance at this historic Workshop is by invitation only, and it will feature academics from both the US and Canada who are engaged in cutting edge scholarly work. It will feature presentations and discussions regarding creative pedagogies for difficult classroom conversations. For example, one topic to be covered is Using Community Engaged Pedagogy to teach Muslim Women’s Stories and Muslima Theology in the Classroom. The workshop will be held this Spring.
Adam Zucker is an independent filmmaker and editor. His most recent documentary is American Muslim (2019), chronicling five diverse Muslim Americans in New York City dealing with a changing landscape in the Age of Trump. Previous films are The Return (2014), a film about young Jews in Poland today rediscovering their Jewish identity, which was shot over a four year period in Poland, Israel and the U.S. The film has screened at over 75 film festivals, community centers, synagogues and universities in the U.S., and in 13 other countries. Prior to that, Zucker released Greensboro: Closer to the Truth (2007, about the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission held in the U.S), which received the Audience Award for Best Feature at the Rome International Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Dead Center Film Festival. Its associated Audience Engagement campaign, The Closer to the Truth Project, ran workshops and study sessions in dozens of American communities looking to re-examine their own parallel, deep-seated social problems.
Shabana Mir is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of Undergraduate Studies. She teaches Islamic Studies, Gender Studies, Research Methods, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and Muslim American and Muslim World Literature. She is the author of the award-winning book Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity, published by the University of North Carolina Press (2014). The book has received the Outstanding Book Award from the National Association for Ethnic Studies and the Critics’ Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association (2014). Shabana taught at Millikin University, University of Southern California online, Oklahoma State University, Indiana University, Eastern Illinois University, and the International Islamic University (Islamabad). She received the Outstanding Dissertation Award for her doctoral dissertation from the American Anthropological Association’s Council on Anthropology and Education (2006). She conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the Washington, DC area, as Visiting Researcher at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. She also has an M.A. in English Literature from Punjab University, Pakistan and an M.Phil. in Education from Cambridge University (U.K.). Dr. Mir has lived, studied, and taught in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Pakistan. She has worked as a curriculum designer, residence hall director, retreat leader, faculty development expert, and research consultant in a variety of settings. Shabana has written academic chapters, journal articles, children’s literature, a blog, and, of course, her book. She is an international public speaker on gender, religion, education, and politics. She speaks English, Urdu and Punjabi, and some Arabic and Farsi.
