Friday September 20th, 2019 from 6:00 - 8:00
Panel: Muslim Cool
Su'ad Abdul Khabeer and Sohail Dulatzai on a discussion about the intersection of Islam, hip-hop, and popular culture.
Su'ad Al Khabeer, Ph.D is a scholar-artist-activist who uses anthropology and performance to explore the intersections of race and popular culture. Su'ad is currently an associate professor of American Culture and Arab and Muslim American Studies at the University of Michigan. She received her PhD in cultural anthropology from Princeton University and is a graduate from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and completed the Islamic Studies diploma program of the Institute at Abu Nour University (Damascus). Her latest work, Muslim Cool: Race, Religion and Hip Hop in the United States (NYU Press 2016), is an ethnography on Islam and hip hop that examines how intersecting ideas of Muslimness and Blackness challenge and reproduce the meanings of race in the US. Su’ad’s written work on Islam and hip hop is accompanied by her performance ethnography, Sampled: Beats of Muslim Life. Sampled is a one-woman solo performance designed to present and represent her research and findings to diverse audiences as part of her commitment to public scholarship.
Sohail Daulatzai’s work includes scholarship, essay, short film/video/installation and the curatorial. He is the author and co-editor of several books, including of Fifty Years of “The Battle of Algiers”: Past as Prologue, Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom beyond America, and Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas’s Illmatic. He is the curator of the celebrated exhibit Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip-Hop and Histories Absolved: Revolutionary Cuban Poster Art and the Muslim International. His video/installation work includes short film essay pieces with Yasiin Bey, a ciné-geography with Zack de la Rocha, as well as an installation piece entitled cas·bah /ˈkazˌbä/noun, 1. A place of confinement for the natives, yet reclaimed. He’s written liner notes for the Sony Legacy Recordings Release of the 20th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set of Rage Against the Machine’s self titled debut album, an essay in iconic photographer Jamel Shabazz’s retrospective Pieces of a Man, as well as other writings in Artbound, The Nation, Counterpunch, Al Jazeera, Souls, and Wax Poetics, amongst others. He teaches in Film and Media Studies, African American Studies, and Global Middle East Studies at the University of California, Irvine.
Halal Metropolis explores the facts, fictions, and the imaginaries of the Muslim population(s) in Detroit and Southeast Michigan as viewed through historical/ archival research, documentation of current conditions, and explorations of future desires. The Halal Metropolis alludes to the established and growing Muslim population in Detroit and the metro area, one of the largest and most diverse Muslim populations in the U.S., whose visibility is both pronounced and extremely present in the city, yet whose narrative seems unusually silent in the larger Detroit story. The exhibition moves beyond wanting to simply illustrate or document the current state of this halal metropolis intro exploring the congruent and contradicting ideas, aesthetics and cultures working to make the halal metropolis both a real and imaginary entity.
The project is organized by CAAS director Sally Howell, photographer, activist Razi Jafri, and artist and MFA Program Director at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design Osman Khan.
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Friday August 30th - Saturday August 31st
Sneak preview during Hamtramck Labor Day Festival
Friday September 6th, 2019 from 6:00 - 9:00
Official exhibit opening night and performance
Friday September 13th, 2019 from 6:00 - 8:00
Panel: Makers and Influencers
Saturday September 14th, 2019 from 2:00 - 5:00
Detroit Month of Design Event
Design Charrette: Making Muslim Spaces
Friday September 20th, 2019 from 6:00 - 8:00
Panel: Muslim Cool
Thursday September 26th, 2019 from 6:00 - 8:00
Panel: Hamtramck in Perspective
