MIAMI – The Miami Dade College (MDC) Homestead Campus library has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA) to host a five-part lecture series titled Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys.
It is one of only 125 libraries and state humanities councils nationwide selected to participate in the project, which seeks to familiarize the public with the people, places, history, faith and cultures of Muslims in the United States and around the world. The Muslim Journeys theme the MDC Homestead Library will explore is Pathways of Faith.
“We are pleased to host this timely lecture series for our community,” said Jeanne Jacobs, president of the Homestead Campus. It is an opportunity to learn about Muslim history, literature and culture with a distinguished scholar.”
A five-part reading and discussion series will be held at the campus’s library during the Spring 2014 semester. Iqbal S. Akhtar, assistant professor of Religious Studies and Politics and International Relations at Florida International University will lead the discussion at each session.
A Fulbright Fellow, Akhtar has worked in various community outreach and advocacy roles and presented widely on Islamic history and culture.
The books to be discussed in the series are part of the Bridging Cultures Muslim Journeys Bookshelf.
The books and films comprising the Bookshelf were selected with the advice of librarians and cultural programming experts, as well as scholars in the fields of anthropology, world history, religious studies, interfaith dialogue, the history of art and architecture, world literature, Middle East studies, Southeast Asian studies, African studies and Islamic studies.
The Bridging Cultures Bookshelf is a project of NEH, conducted in cooperation with the ALA Public Programs Office, with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Additional support for the arts and media components was provided by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Arts.
The Homestead Campus is also the home of the college’s renowned Holocaust and Genocide Education Program, which like the program above, aims to create cultural awareness and enrichment.
For more information or to register for an upcoming discussion, visit mdc.edu/main/library, call 305-237-5245 or email lschrift@mdc.edu
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