Venue: London, UK

Date: June 12, 2020

Organizer: The Governance Program at the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC)

Filmmakers have always engaged in the production of meanings that shape what Islam means. Through the lens of film as a modern form of popular culture and artistic experience of Islam, this one-day workshop examines the ways in which filmmakers explore Islam as a human and historical phenomenon characterized and constituted, not merely by immense variety and diversity, but by the prodigious presence of outright contradiction shaped by Muslims and Non-Muslims.

While the workshop will focus primarily on films from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, relevant submissions that deal with other regions are welcome. Papers are encouraged on such questions as:

– What roles Muslim filmmakers play in shaping diverse film industries
– How the construction of Islam in film critiques norms or values
– How Muslim filmmakers negotiate the question of “innovation” in the context of Islamic discourses of censorship
– How film explores the ways in which Islam advances or restricts the mobility of bodies, institutions, or communities
– How film deals with the ways in which dominant cultures frame Islam
– How film depicts Islam in relation to war, migration, climate change, sexual harassment, and freedom of expression
– How changing are the images of Muslim women on the screen
– How film critiques legal mediation in the context of Islam and modernity
– How film deals with fabricated realities within Islam and /or Muslim communities
– How film deals with politics of Islamic reform/reformation, secularization and state neutrality
– How film represents Islamic art and architecture

Source: Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations