Who Are We?
The Muslim Protagonist is an annual literary symposium of Muslim and minority writers, artists, and thinkers at Columbia University, hosted by the Columbia Muslim Students Association (MSA) and opened to participants of all backgrounds, ages, faiths, and cultures as a means of facilitating dialogue, networking, and inspirational as well as practical tools for pursuing “literature as an agent of social, intellectual, and spiritual change.” The event is not an event exclusively for Muslims, “minorities,” or Columbia students/faculty — everyone is welcome.
What Do We Do?
The symposium is a two-day event consisting of an open mic and speaker performances, a main day of panels and talks, and workshops and seminars taught by esteemed speakers. The Muslim Protagonist has received coverage from The Huffington Post to Pakistan’s Express Tribune and has been lauded by speakers and attendees as “groundbreaking.”
Why Attend?
In its fourth year, The Muslim Protagonist will build on the previous years’ remarkable successes and delve deeper into the issue of marginalized narratives in and outside of Muslim communities in a unique and thoughtful way, bringing together writers from diverse communities in America. This year’s theme, “(Re)Writing Home: Shifting Sites of Belonging,” will discuss the myriad connotations of home and discuss the question, “How does the Muslim Protagonist build their home?”
Friday, April 15
08:00 PM - 10:30 PM Open Mic NightThis evening’s theme will be “Shifting Sites of Belonging”. In the performances of this evening, let’s EXPLORE the idea of home as a site of transformation, refuge, trauma, healing, and growth, BRING UP themes of belonging, alienation, and migration, and ANSWER how does the Muslim Protagonist build their home? Sign up to perform here.
See more on our Facebook page.
Saturday, April 16
08:45 AM - 09:30 AM Doors OpenCheck in for attendees begins at this time. Breakfast will also be served.
Doors close. Qur’an recitation and Welcome from The Muslim Protagonist Organizers.
This panel will interrogate the impact of the past on our narrative identities. Providing the texture for the fabric of our memories, the past continues to be produced and modified everyday. As we archive and curate our memories we create our own visions of the past. Memories are given power within these visions and the multitude of variation and tone. In this space we create and empower our own prisons through self-generated oppression. We will seek to explore the facets of nostalgia and memory that both constrain us and empower us. Through this exploration we hope to uncover the makers and markers of memory.
SPEAKERS: Hisham Aidi, Lena Khan, Abdi Latif Ega, & Mark Gonzales
There will be one workshop at this time for the whole audience.
- Healing Through Art with Tasleem Jamila el-Hakim
Sign up for the workshop here.
Remarks from the Office of the University Chaplain. Lunch will be served at this time and we will have Dhuhr prayer.
This panel turns the conversation to the act of writing/creating/producing art. In a Eurocentric world/Western context, it is easy for the work of minority artists to be fetishized, essentialized, and received under the rubric of “Third World Art” and Multiculturalist rhetoric. Artists in the present are often forced to consider or otherwise navigate these possibilities. They must negotiate between exotifying and normalizing identities. Instead, how can/do artists remain honest in their explorations of the subject matter of their work? How does the artist as producer conceive of their audience? What is the value of their work for the present?
SPEAKERS: Sharbari Ahmed, Zia Haider Rahman, & Tariq Toure
There will be two workshops at this time.
- Creating a Home for Writing with Project As[I]Am founder, Jordan Alam
- Theatre Workshop with Bina Sharif
Sign up for the workshops here.
We will have a short break for book signings and Asr. We will also have snacks and beverages for attendees.
In a world that always “looking ahead,” saturated with notions of progress and forward-thinking, it has become our burden and duty to exist in the future. In this panel, we want to think about the future as a site of envisioning home, of understanding the past, and of imagining alternative potentials. We want to explore links between future and past, utopia and nostalgia, technology and trauma. In a world of data visualization and systematic analyses, it has become difficult to imagine alternative futures outside of the realm of virtual reality. How do we write the future? Does the Muslim Protagonist have a “home” in the future? How do we reimagine/re-write/and re-visualize communities, borders, boundaries, and different spaces of belonging.
SPEAKERS: Haris Durrani, Hind Makki, & Ayesha Siddiqi
Ayesha A. Siddiqi is a writer and editor at The New Inquiry, her work
focuses on ideology production in popular culture.
Mark Gonzales (M.Ed) has many value adds that he brings to the world: storytelling, design thinking, power literacy, and other change making technologies.
Haris A. Durrani (@hdernity) is an M.Phil. candidate in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. He holds a B.S. in Applied Physics from Columbia University, where he minored in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies and cofounded the Muslim Protagonist Symposium.
Born in Bangladesh, Zia emigrated as a child. He was educated in England, Germany and the United States, and has lived and worked in several countries. Zia is the 2015 winner of Britain’s oldest literary award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
Hind Makki is an interfaith educator who focuses on interfaith action, anti-racism education and youth empowerment, leading workshops on interfaith cooperation and civic integration in the United States, Western Europe and the Middle East.
Sharbari Ahmed was born in Dhaka Bangladesh. She received her MA in creative writing from NYU in 1997. Currently Sharbari is one of the writers for ABC’s “Quantico” TV series.
Tariq Touré is a Muslim essayist, poet, educator and public speaker from Baltimore, Md. He uses prose as medium for shedding new light on issues such as social justice, racial inequality, black culture and Black Muslim narratives.
Hisham Aidi is a lecturer at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and Institute for African Studies. His research interests include cultural globalization and the political economy of race and social movements.
Lena Khan is a young writer and director who allows her work to be an organic blend of her varied experiences, the multi-faceted elements of her identity, a witty outlook on life, and a continuous exploration of the emotions and vulnerabilities behind prevalent issues.
Abdi Latif Ega is a long-time resident of Harlem, New York. He loves and plays jazz that he studied in the late eighties and early nineties. Abdi has had an abiding love affair for the history, literature and research of the new world African. He is heavily influenced by writers of African decent from all […]
A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the City College of New York, her acting, directing and producing credits range from the stage to the screen. This native New Yorker founded Salaam Theatre, the first South-Asian-American performing arts institution in the world. She currently serves as Salaam’s Artistic Director.
Jordan Alam is a Bengali American writer working on her first novel. She is the founder of the Asian American social justice publication, Project As[I]Am.
Tasleem Jamila is an author, inspirational speaker, Holistic Lifestyle Consultant and interdisciplinary artist working primarily as a poet, performance artist and fashion designer.
