Browsing by Author "Curtis, Edward E., IV"

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    African American Muslim Congregations, 1913–2013
    (Oxford University Press, 2014) Curtis, Edward E., IV
    For nearly a century, African American Muslims have gathered for religious purposes in local voluntary religious associations that, like other American religious congregations, are a basic building block of U.S. society. Charting their long history, this article surveys the growth of Sunni, Ahmadi, Moorish, and other congregations from World War I until the present. The article argues that black-majority, black-dominant Muslim American congregations are affected by and respond to the same racial divide that shapes American religion as a whole.
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    African-American Islamization Reconsidered: Black History Narratives and Muslim Identity
    (Oxford University Press, 2005) Curtis, Edward E., IV
    Utilizing recent anthropological and historical approaches to Islamization (here meaning the various historical processes by which humans become Muslims), this article offers a new model for understanding African-American conversion to Islam. The article proposes that the creation, dissemination, and disputation of ‘black history narratives’ have been central elements in black conversion from the 1920s until the present. Showing how African Americans have appropriated various Islamic figures, place names, texts, events, and themes in crafting black Islamic historical narratives, the article asserts that African-American Muslim identities have often reflected, if not revolved around, the idea that the historical destiny of black people as a whole is linked to the religion of Islam.
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    An analytical approach to human rights violations in Egypt from the start of the revolution to present day
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2012-04-13) Bickel, Susana S.; Gelic, Matea; Curtis, Edward E., IV
    There are so many current issues that are in violation of Human Rights around the world and the purpose of my research is to address the ones being violated specifically in Egypt from the beginning of the protests to what is currently taking place. Not only will we attempt to find out the numerous human violations in Egypt, but also try to explain why action was not taken and what should have been done instead. Egypt is one of the countries in the Middle-East that has had the most progression through the Arab Spring, but whether the outcome is good or not is still too early to tell. We hope to begin our research with the examination and better understanding of the country’s internal politics and its treatment of human rights throughout history. We plan to utilize a multitude of sources such as international law documents, domestic and foreign articles from the time period of the revolution, interviews with participants of the revolution and experts on Egypt, and multimedia sources including Facebook and Twitter. With this research, our goal is to achieve a better understanding of the human rights situation during the Egyptian revolution and its impact on the country’s progress.
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    Black History, Islam, and the Future of the Humanities Beyond White Supremacy
    (Duke University, 2016-02-16) Curtis, Edward E., IV
    Interpreting Islam as a form of Black history offers a scholarly framework for reimagining the humanities beyond white supremacy. This paper theorizes such a framework first by showing how modern Black people in Africa and the African diaspora constructed Islam as a religion and civilization of resistance to Euro-American imperialism and anti-Black racism. Second, and more importantly for the future of the humanities as a whole, it argues that reading Islam as Black history undermines regnant disciplinary maps of global culture and civilization that locate human normativity in white chronoscapes. Philosophy, comparative religion, and general education courses on Western civilization are in need of emancipation from their nineteenth-century racialist ontologies. Islam as Black history offers one means to free these fields from their white supremacist bonds. The final half of the paper provides humanities instructors with African and African diasporic primary and secondary sources that can help to inspire a humanities renaissance beyond white supremacy.
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    Blood Sacrifice and the Myth of the Fallen Muslim Soldier in US Presidential Elections after 9/11
    (New York University Press, 2019) Curtis, Edward E., IV
    One ultimate sign of political assimilation is the willingness of citizens to sacrifice themselves in battle for their nation. This chapter reveals the promise and limits of US liberalism by examining how the blood sacrifice of two fallen soldiers—Kareem Khan and Humayun Khan—was imagined in mythic terms during the US presidential elections of 2008 and 2016. The chapter argues that in focusing on the incorporation of foreign Muslim blood into the nation, American politicians offered a partial, ambiguous acceptance—one that both included and excluded Muslims from the American body politic. It explains how the racialization of Muslim Americans render even sacred acts of assimilation ineffective in the struggle for political assimilation.
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    Debating the origins of the Moorish Science Temple: Toward a new cultural history
    (Indiana University Press, 2009) Curtis, Edward E., IV
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    Embodying the Nation of Islam
    (Cambridge University Press, 2018-06) Curtis, Edward E., IV
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    Integrating Islam and Muslims into the U.S. History Survey
    (Oxford University Press, 2008) Curtis, Edward E., IV
    By some estimates, there are only two to three million Muslims in the United States, and yet their vulnerability to state surveillance and mob violence, their symbolic importance to the so-called clash of civilizations between Islam and America—and their remarkable stories and lives—demand coverage in the U.S. history survey. Though no one lesson plan can cover an entire religious group, this teaching strategy suggests how instructors can build on students' own experiences and knowledge of key events and themes in the history of ethnic and religious groups and U.S. foreign policy to integrate Islam and Muslims into the survey. Many scholars of Islamic studies and history believe that, due to overwhelmingly negative news coverage associated with Islam and Muslims, teachers need to begin any lesson on Islam and Muslims with some discussion of the stereotypes and cultural baggage that color most American discourse on the subject. This teaching strategy goes a step further, asking students to think comparatively about the stereotyping of religious and ethnic minorities in U.S. history and to locate some of the historical roots of stereotypes about Islam and Muslims in the twentieth century. It concludes with suggestions and resources geared toward introducing students to the diversity of Islam and Muslims in the contemporary United States.
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    Islam
    (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2010) Curtis, Edward E., IV
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    Islam in New York City
    (Archives Partnership Trust, 2011) Curtis, Edward E., IV