In partnership with the Duke Islamic Studies Center and Duke Arts, MIPSTERZ is proud to present a panel discussion exploring Muslim Futurism and the academic and creative disciplines that support the dreaming of alternate futures. Panelists include Dr. Youssef Carter (UNC-Chapel Hill), Dr. Priscilla Layne (UNC-Chapel Hill), and Dr. Omid Safi (Duke).

2:00 pm Opening Remarks
2:05 pm Youssef Carter “Black Muslim Futures”
2:30 pm Priscilla Layne “Sci-Fi, the Environment and Intersectionality”
2:55 pm Omid Safi “Ms. Marvel and the post-9/11 Muslim imagination”
3:15 pm Discussion moderated by Abbas Rattani

About the Panelists:

Youssef Carter is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Kenan Rifai Fellow in Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is currently writing a book called “The Vast Oceans: Remembering God and Self on the Mustafawi Sufi Path” which is a multisite ethnography of a transatlantic spiritual network of African-American and West African Muslims.

Priscilla Layne is Associate Professor of German and Adjunct Assistant Professor of African and African American Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Layne is the author of White Rebels in Black: German Appropriation of Black Popular Culture (Michigan, 2018). Dr. Layne is currently working on her second book, Out of this World: Afro-German Afrofuturism, which focuses on Afro-German authors’ use of Afrofuturist concepts in literature and theater.

Omid Safi is a Professor of Islamic Studies in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University. He served as Director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center from 2014-2019. A selection of Dr. Safi’s works includes: “Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism” (Oneworld, 2003), “Memories of Muhammad: Why the Prophet Matters” (HarperOne, 2009), “The Cambridge Companion to American Islam” (Cambridge, 2013) and “Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition” (Yale, 2018).