Halaloween

Halaloween Roundtable: Muslim Horror in the 21st Century

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On Thursday, October 28th, from 4-6 PM ET the Global Islamic Studies Center hosted a Halaloween panel discussion on Muslim horror, the use (and misuse) of Islam and the Quran in the horror genre, feminist politics in horror, and how each region differs in its creation of horror films.


This panel featureed experts and scholars: Dr. Karla Mallette, Dr. Kristian Petersen, Sena Duran, Dr. Alireza Doostdar, and Dr. Alicia Izharuddin.


The panelists offered some insight on Muslim horror, the Islamic theological and mythological figure of the jinn, women, gender, and sexuality in Muslim horror films, and a scholarly approach to understanding horror and genre films in the Muslim world.


Karla Mallette is professor of Mediterranean Studies in the Department of Middle East Studies and professor of Italian in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan. She is the author of The Kingdom of Sicily, 1100-1250: A Literary History (2005), European Modernity and the Arab Mediterranean (2010), Lives of the Great Languages: Latin and Arabic in the Medieval Mediterranean (2021). She co-edited A Sea of Languages: Rethinking the Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History (2013) and has also written numerous articles on medieval literature and Mediterranean Studies. She is a former director of the Global Islamic Studies Center and currently chair of the Department of Middle East Studies at U-M.


Kristian Petersen has written about Muslim American celebrity activism, female filmmakers, the rise of the Muslim sitcom, Hollywood depictions of Iraqis, and “Muslim cinema.” He is the editor of Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation & Harvard University Press, 2021) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge, 2021).


Sena Duran is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan. Her work considers historical and contemporary depictions of Middle Eastern Muslims in film, with specific attention to body genre films and affective responses among audiences. Her dissertation project currently identifies the genre and industry of adult film as central to the study of racial, sexual, gendered, and national discourses in U.S. visual media productions of Middle Eastern Muslims.


Alireza Doostdar is an associate professor of Islamic Studies and the Anthropology of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is the author of The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny (Princeton University Press, 2018) and is currently writing a book about the theology of Satan after the Islamic Revolution.


Alicia Izharuddin is currently a fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands where she is finishing her book on the print culture of romance in Malaysia and the formation of affective counterpublics.


This event is free and open to everyone. This event is a part of Halaloween: A Muslim Horror Film Festival, brought to you by the Global Islamic Studies Center. To watch the remaining Halaloween films, visit: watch.eventive.org/halaloween. For more events from the Global Islamic Studies Center at the University of Michigan, please visit ii.umich.edu/islamicstudies.


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Halaloween is brought to you by the Global Islamic Studies Center, and cosponsored by The Middle Eastern Studies Department, The Department of Film, Television, and Media, The Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, Arab and Muslim American Studies, the Humanities Institute, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, the African Studies Center, the Center for Arab American Studies (UM-Dearborn), the Arab American National Museum, and Shudder.

  • Year
    2021
  • Runtime
    123 minutes
  • Language
    English