Description:

Guest Lecturer Professor Edward E. Curtis IV will discuss his recently published book, Muslims of the Heartland.  The American Midwest is often thought of as uniformly white, and shaped exclusively by Christian values. However, this view of the region as an unvarying landscape fails to consider a significant community at its very heart. Muslims of the Heartland uncovers the long history of Muslims in a part of the country where many readers would not expect to find them. Its story-driven approach places Syrian Americans at the center of key American institutions like the assembly line, the family farm, the dance hall, and the public school, showing how the first two generations of Midwestern Syrians created a life that was Arab, Muslim, and American, all at the same time.  Professor Curtis is in the Africana Studies, American Studies, and Religious Studies Departments at IUPUI.  Join us via zoom at https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/99565169022