UF Launching Center for Islamic Studies

The establishment of the center was recently approved by the university and will be announced to the UF Board of Trustees when it meets this week, said Terje Ostebo, assistant professor at the Center for African Studies and the Department of Religion.
“We are very excited about this,” Ostebo told The Sun via email. “There are very few similar programs in the Southeast, and virtually none in Florida. This center will contribute to putting UF on the map.”
Ostebo has been leading the effort to establish the center for over a year, working with faculty from the departments of religion, political science, history, anthropology, and languages, literatures and cultures, as well as the Center for African Studies.
The official launch of the center will be Sept. 18-19, with a conference on “Global Islam and the Quest for Public Space,” he said.
The conference will feature John Esposito, a religion professor at Georgetown University and founding director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in the Walsh School of Foreign Service.
With Islam as the second-largest and fastest-growing religion in the world, with 1.6 billion followers, the timing is right for such a center, Ostebo said. The center will focus on research that puts Islam in a global context and give students a range of courses, he said.
“There is an urgent need for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the rich diversity and the complex dynamics of contemporary Islam,” Ostebo said.
Ostebo said he also hopes the center eventually will create a graduate certificate and an undergraduate minor in Global Islamic Studies.
Ostebo said he hopes the center will attract scholars from around the country to give their own perspectives on issues connected to Islam, such as female religious authority in Shi’a, Muslim-West relations, and Islam and politics.
“With a focus on Islam as it intersects with broader social, cultural, political and economic dynamics in the contemporary world, the center aims to produce new and much-needed knowledge through research and become an important resource in teaching and public outreach,” he said.

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