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Peterson, assistant professor of anthropology and international studies.
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MIAMI,
February 9 (IslamOnline.net) - Miami University hosts the second
annual Islam Forum Thursday, February 10, focusing on “Muslims in
the Media”, according to the Miami Student Online Web site
Wednesday, February 9.
“If
there was one lesson I’d like students to take away from this
session, it is that most media representations of Muslims say as much
or more about (the people who make the movies and TV shows, our
interests and obsessions) than they say about the peoples they are
supposed to represent,” Mark Allen Peterson, assistant professor of
anthropology and international studies, was quoted as saying by the
Web site.
This
year’s theme, “Muslims and the Media”, will include
speakers like Rubina Ramji, Dan Varisco, Amir Hussain and Geneive Abdo.
The forum is a day-long event with morning and afternoon sessions.
“This
is a wonderful opportunity for the Miami community to learn more about
the Muslim world and the way it is understood and misunderstood in the
contemporary world,” said Nurten Kilic-Schubel, visiting assistant
professor in the department of history.
Hussain,
associate professor of religious studies at California State
Northridge, will hold a session titled, “A Message on the Wind:
Learning Islam through Audio and Visual Materials.”
A
recent nation-wide poll, conducted by the Cornell University, showed
that at least 44 percent of the Americans backs curbing
Muslims’ civil rights and monitoring their places of
worship.
A
May 2004 report released by the US Senate Office Of Research concluded
that Arab Americans and the Muslim community in the US have taken the
brunt of the Patriot Act and other federal powers applied in the
aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Following
Hussain’s session will be “The Visual Subjugation of One Sex:
The Invention and Exploitation of the Islamic Woman”, by Ramji.
The
status of woman
in Islam constitutes no problem. The attitude of the Noble Qur'an and
early Muslims bear witness to the fact that woman is, at least, as
vital to life as man himself, and that she is not inferior to him nor
is she one of the lower species.
Had
it not been for the impact of foreign cultures and alien influences,
this question would have never arisen among Muslims. The status of
woman was taken for granted to be equal to that of man. It was, of
course, a matter of fact, and no one, then, considered it as a problem
at all.
Ramji
is from the University of Ottawa and is a post-doctoral research
fellow in the department of classics and religious studies.
The
afternoon session begins at 2 p.m. and includes “Muslims Online,
Participant Webservation and CyberIslam”, by Varisco, a
professor and chair in the department of anthropology at Hofstra
University.
He
is also the author of several books and a former president of the
Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association.
Also
speaking is Geneive Abdo on “Representations of/by Muslims in the
US Print Media.”
Abdo
is a religion writer for The Chicago Tribune and a visiting
researcher at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at
Georgetown University.
She
has written for several newspapers including The New York Times and
The Washington Post and has been a commentator for NPR, the BBC
and CNN.
After
each of the speeches, panel discussions will be held.
Wrapping
up the event will be a dinner at Shriver Center and a film in
MacMillan Hall titled ‘My Son the Fanatic’.
Sponsoring
the event are the Altman program, the Citizens of the World
initiative, the Grayson Kirk fellowship, the Center for American and
World Cultures, and the support of eight departments and programs at
Miami.
