Date: Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Time: 6:00 – 7:30 pm CT
Online Platform: Zoom
Organized by: American Islamic College and Partnership to End Gendered Islamophobia
Moderator:
Shabana Mir
Panelists:
Darakshan Raja, Sahar Pirzada, Yazan Za3za3
Description:
Building upon a history of shared values and intersecting work, the Partnership to End Gendered Islamophobia brings together HEART, Justice for Muslims Collective and Vigilant Love to build analysis, tools and power to dismantle Gendered Islamophobia. This panel discussion is specifically tailored towards community members, organizers, and scholars. We will focus on what is Gendered Islamophobia is and ways to strategically organize, advocate and build coalitions to dismantle this structural form of violence. This panel will also include a conversation with organizers and the recently launched grassroots policy platform on abolishing the War on Terror.
Moderator: Shabana Mir
Associate Professor of Anthropology and General Education Coordinator, American Islamic College
Shabana Mir is Associate Professor of Anthropology and General Education Coordinator at American Islamic College. She teaches Islamic Studies, Gender Studies, and Research Methods. 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).
Read More
Darakshan Raja
Darakshan Raja currently serves as a Co-Director of Justice For Muslims Collective and leads JMC’s power-building programming against structural Islamophobia in the Greater Washington region, and national advocacy efforts on gendered Islamophobia through the Partnership to End Gendered Islamophobia. Darakshan formerly worked at the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center on evaluating the implementation of legislation and programs for state and federal government agencies. In this capacity, she served as the Project Director for evaluating the implementation of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) nationally and a provision on payment for sexual assault forensic exams. She also led an evaluation on the impact of interventions to address sexual assault and violence within the Texas Juvenile Justice Department’s state facilities as a project funded through the Prison Rape Elimination Act. Prior to joining the Urban Institute, Darakshan worked as a Sexual Assault Response Team advocate in the Bronx. She currently serves on the DC government’s Street Harassment Advisory Committee as a religious tolerance appointee to implement the Street Harassment Prevention Act in the District of Columbia. Moreover, she currently serves on the board of Consumer Health Foundation. Darakshan holds a Masters in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and is a graduate of the Rockwood Leadership program for South Asian, Muslim and Arab women leaders. You can follow her on twitter at @DarakshanRaja.
Sahar Pirzada
Sahar Pirzada is a Pakistani-American Muslim woman from the Bay Area. She is the Advocacy and West Coast Programs Manager for HEART where she explores the intersections of islamophobia and gender-based violence and supports survivors of sexual violence in the Muslim community. She has a masters of social work from USC and is also the co-Director of Vigilant Love where she actively challenges islamophobia through arts and organizing. Sahar’s work has been featured in Teen Vogue, NPR, KPCC, Fusion’s Sex Right Now, Fusion’s Sex Right Now and #GoodMuslimBadMuslim.
Yazan Za3za3
Yazan Za3za3 is the Community Organizer at Vigilant Love, an anchor organization in the Partnership to End Gendered Islamophobia. Yazan’s work includes the development of political analysis, campaign strategy, and educational facilitation for the organization with special attention to the overlaps between gender, racialization, and surveillance. Yazan holds an MA in Women’s and Gender Studies from San Diego State University. Their research focuses on the relationship between war, migration, surveillance, and social welfare programming.
Moderator: Shabana Mir
Associate Professor of Anthropology and General Education Coordinator, American Islamic College
Shabana Mir is Associate Professor of Anthropology and General Education Coordinator at American Islamic College. She teaches Islamic Studies, Gender Studies, and Research Methods. 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).
Read More
Juliane Hammer
Associate Professor, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Trained in the study of Islam, languages, and pre-modern as well as modern Muslim societies, my scholarly trajectory has taken me from research on Palestinian women and diaspora and return experiences through a decade of work on American Muslim communities intersecting with women, gender and sexuality in contemporary Muslim contexts. I see myself in both Islamic studies and American religions, and in conversation with women’s and gender studies, sexuality studies and critical race theory. I have combined ethnographic and textual analysis methods in diverse research contexts and engage in interdisciplinary, multi-method research that does not privilege texts over lived experiences or vice versa.
Read More
Kayla Renée Wheeler
Assistant Professor of Area & Global Studies and Digital Studies, Grand Valley State University
I am an Assistant Professor of Area & Global Studies and Digital Studies at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI. I received my PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Iowa in May 2017. I have an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Iowa, an M.A. in Islam and the West from Queen Mary, University of London and an M.A. in Bioethics from Case Western Reserve University.
Read More
Kecia Ali
Professor of Religion, Boston University
Kecia Ali (Ph.D., Religion, Duke University) teaches a range of classes on Islam. Her research focuses on Islamic law; women and gender; ethics; and biography. Her books include Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (2006, expanded ed. 2016), Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam (2010), Imam Shafi‘i: Scholar and Saint (2011), and The Lives of Muhammad (2014), about modern Muslim and non-Muslim biographies of Islam’s prophet. She co-edited the revised edition of A Guide for Women in Religion, which provides guidance for careers in religious studies and theology (2014). Her research also includes gender, ethics, and popular culture.
Read More
Sajida Jalalzai
Assistant Professor, Trinity University
Sajida Jalalzai joins the Religion Department as Assistant Professor after holding an equivalent position for two years at St. Michael’s College in Vermont. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Queen’s University and a Master of Arts in Religious Studies from McGill University, and she received her Ph.D. in Religion from Columbia University. She specializes in North American Religions with a focus on Islam and is currently engaged in studying chaplaincy programs for Muslim students housed at Protestant seminaries. In addition to being a religious studies scholar, she is a musician with interests ranging from opera to digital music.
Read More
Shehnaz Haqqani
Assistant Professor of Religion, Mercer University
My specialty is religion and gender, with a strong focus on Islam. Prior to joining the Mercer faculty, I was a Dissertation Diversity Fellow in Women’s and Gender Studies at Ithaca College in upstate New York.
Teaching at Ithaca College solidified my interest in teaching. I have many passions, and teaching surpasses them all. I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to make a career out of a passion.
Read More