Muslim Journeys Events at Booth Library

This semester Booth Library has hosted many events as part of its ongoing program Muslim Journeys, a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities, conducted in cooperation with the American Library Association and the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. As the project scholar for Muslim Journeys series here at EIU, Professor Brian Mann participated in many of these events.  He delivered the keynote address at the series’ opening reception, gave public lectures on and led discussions of books about Islam and Islamic history,  and organized a research panel at which four EIU history majors presented their scholarship on the history of the Islamic World (blog post on this event coming soon!).

Prof. Mann delivers the keynote talk “Islam and the Monotheistic Tradition” at the opening reception in January (photo courtesy of Booth Library)

 

EIU faculty, staff, students and members of the Charleston community discuss Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan Brown (photo courtesy of Booth Library)

In February, Professor Mann delivers a lecture on pre-Islamic Arabia and the origins of Islam (photo courtesy of Booth Library)

In March, members of the EIU and Charleston community discuss The Art of Hajj by Vanessa Porter (photo courtesy of Booth Library)

Prof. Mann talks with members of the audience about the historical and religious significance of various Hajj rituals (photo courtesy of Booth Library)

While many of the Muslim Journeys events have already taken place, there is still time to take part in this innovative and informative series! There are three more Muslim Journeys events taking place in the coming weeks:

Tuesday, April 1, 7 p.m., Newman Center
Interfaith panel, moderated by Daniel Otto, Instructor of Philosophy
Panelists: Ms. Carly Froomkin Burak, Mr. Roy Lanham, Professor Jyoti Panjwani, Professor Jaysinha Shinde and Professor Duangrudi Suksang

Wednesday, April 9, 5:30 p.m., Witters Conference Room 4440, Booth Library
Book discussion, A Rumi Anthology, led by Dr. Jaysinha Shinde, Assistant Professor of Business

Tuesday, April 15, 7 p.m., Witters Conference Room 4440, Booth Library
Panel discussion, Women in Veil, moderated by Dr. Bonnie Irwin, Dean, College of Arts and Humanities. Panelists: Reham Hamdy Abou-Zaid, Huma Malik, Shannon Mavi

 

 

 

EIU History Department 10th Annual Barry D. Riccio Lecture

The History Department presents the 10^th Annual Barry D. Riccio Lecture by James T. Sparrow, Associate Professor, University of Chicago. Dr. Sparrow’s talk, “Atomic Liberty: ‘Realism’ against Planning in the American Century,” explores the intellectual roots of foreign policy debates in postwar America. Dr. Sparrow will speak on April 9 at 7pm in the Doudna Lecture Hall. The public is invited to the lecture and a reception is to follow the event.

Visit the Riccio Lecture page at http://www.eiu.edu/history/doing_history_ricciolecture.php.

 

EIU History Club Visits St. Louis

The EIU History Club recently visited a number of historical sites and museums in the St. Louis area. Some of the places visited were the Lewis and Clark State Historic Site in Hartford, IL, the Elijah Lovejoy Monument and Alton National Cemetery in Alton, IL, the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, and the Museum of Westward Expansion located underneath the Gateway Arch. The group also enjoyed some delicious Ethiopian food for lunch and some tasty gelato for desert!

Visiting the fort at Camp Dubois (the winter camp for the Lewis & Clark Expedition in the winter of 1803)

Touring the fort at Camp Dubois

Visiting the exhibits at the Lewis & Clark State Historic Site Visitors Center

Examining a replica of one of the boats used by the Lewis & Clark Expedition

Lunch at Meskerem Ethiopian Restaurant in St. Louis

Touring the Museum of Westward Expansion

Historical Administration Graduate Program Exhibit Begins April 12

TEXT & TEXTILES
CRAFTING THE LIVES OF GUY & IRENE BUZZARD

“This generation is just too busy to pay much attention to family. Perhaps that’s why I am working to complete genealogies so they will at least know each other on paper… and who knows what the threads of fate will do in making paths cross.”

Eastern’s third presidential family is back in a new textile exhibition entitled Text and Textiles: Crafting the Lives of Guy and Irene Buzzard. From April 12th to June 29th, 2014 the exhibit will be in the e-Gallery at the Tarble Arts Center. This exhibit is produced by the Tarble Arts Center in connection with the 2014 EIU Historical Administration program and graduate students.

Texts and Textiles focuses on the lives of Robert Guy Buzzard and Irene Couchman Buzzard, exploring the ways in which they crafted their lives together for over fifty years. Irene and Guy Buzzard shared a passion for handicrafts and textile arts. The objects they collected and produced also reflect many of the great changes of the twentieth century. The exhibit highlights both the text and textile aspects of this remarkable family, drawing on materials from the Buzzard Textile Collection within the Tarble Arts Center and from the EIU Archives in Booth Library. Follow the exhibit’s progress at the following:
Website: http://www.eiu.edu/ha/exhibits/2014/home.html
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Textandtextiles2014
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/buzzard2014
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/textandtextiles/
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtWOFohjb8IrKGlpBGhoXlg

Dr. Young and Dr. Reid Awarded President’s Fund for Research and Creative Activity Grant

Dr. Bailey K. Young and Dr. Debra A. Reid have been awarded a PFRCA grant to support their collaborative project, “Walhain: Landscape of Domination. The Origins and Transformations of a  Medieval Lordship,”  which will expand the Walhain archaeological site into a major site for investigation into agrarian and rural history.

Dr. Bailey Young has managed an international project to document an early medieval farming estate on the south side of Walhain-Saint-Paul, Belgium since 1998. The project has involved 110 undergraduate and 8 graduate students from 62 universities, including 12 undergraduate and 6 graduate students from EIU, over these years. These students have worked on excavations led by faculty from at least four universities, but Dr. Bailey Young has provided intellectual direction as well as instruction to students through study abroad experiences for all 15 years. The international partnership has allowed students unique opportunities to engage with faculty through archaeological field work, artifact stabilization and documentation through lab work, coursework in medieval history and culture, and research into written evidence of the early middle ages. The project has continued due to Dr. Young’s commitment, diversified fundraising, and international networks, all critical to sustaining the project.

The Walhain Project, since its inception in 1998, has pursued two linked goals: to provide a unique, interdisciplinary study abroad experience in medieval archaeology, and to conduct an innovative international research program centered on the excavation of Walhain Castle (near Louvain-la-Neuve, Brabant Wallon).  It has been largely financed, through 2012, through the fees paid by the American students signed up for the Summer Archaeology Program in Belgium, administered by the School of Continuing Education at
Eastern Illinois University (EIU).  The Centre de Recherches d’Archéologie Nationale (CRAN), based at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Louvain-la-Neuve, our principal partner in this project, has contributed its infra-structure, expertise, and personnel to make the four-week excavation which is at the heart of the academic program possible. UCL students have also worked regularly alongside the American students, further enriching the Study Abroad experience.

The 2014 study abroad experience marks an expansion in goals that will enhance the site’s prestige by showcasing evidence of agriculture as practiced by the pre-modern peasants on an early lordship. It will also build on the local initiative to protect the property with a feasibility study to launch an interpretive center and institute to study pre-modern
agriculture.

The European Rural History Organization (Eur-Ho) began in 2010, dedicated to European rural and agricultural history. The second conference, convened in Bern, Switzerland in September 2013, provided a forum for medieval scholars to converse about diverse definitions of the uneven origins of lordships in the middle ages, and the factors that affected the ways lords and other religious or political units administered the landscape that fed the population. Dr. Reid has been involved in this organization from the beginning, and the board has selected Louvain, Belgium, as the site of the 2017 meeting. This will be the perfect opportunity to feature the by then twenty-year international partnership that preserved, documented, and interpreted what is a relatively rare early medieval site. This conference will provide the opportunity to engage in an international dialog about the history of food and politics, the consequences to the landscape and environment, and to the evolution of agricultural markets and market systems over time

Booth Library to Host the ISHS History Symposium

EIU’s Booth Library will host the Illinois State Historical Society’s 2014 History Symposium on March 27-28. The symposium is co-sponsored by the History Department, Booth Library, the Coles County Historical Society, and the Illinois State Genealogical Society. The symposium commemorates the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Civil War, and specifically, the infamous Charleston “copperhead” riot of March 28, 1864.

Several students and professors from the History Department are participating as speakers. Visit the Illinois State Historical Society  website and click on “2014 Illinois History Symposium” for details. The best part? Registration is free for EIU students!