Halaloween Roundtable: Muslim Horror in the 21st Century

Halaloween Roundtable: Muslim Horror in the 21st Century

Dr. Ali Olomi, Dr. Ekky Imanjaya, Dr. Rubina Ramji, and Dr. Karla Mallette

Join us on Thursday, October 27th, from 6-8 PM ET as we wrap up Halaloween with a 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. RSVP: http://bit.ly/halaloween22

This panel will feature experts and scholars: Dr. Ali A. Olomi, Dr. Ekky Imanjaya, Dr. Rubina Ramji, and Dr. Karla Mallette.

The panelists will offer 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.

Dr. Ali A Olomi is an assistant professor of history at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California and an affiliated scholar with the Rutgers Center for Security, Race, and Rights. He is a historian of the Middle East and Islam researching, writing, and publishing on medieval and modern Muslim thought. He studies how Muslims imagined the “Islamic world” at the intersection of religion, science, and empire. Dr. Olomi's research examines the Muslim imagination of the monstrous through the djinn/jinn, the early history of astronomy and its role in empire-building, and Islamic apocalypticism and cosmology.

Dr. Ekky Imanjaya is a faculty member of Film Department, Bina Nusantara (Binus) University, in Jakarta. In 2018, He finished his doctoral studies in Film Studies at University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. Previously, Ekky got his masters degree majoring Philosophy at Universitas Indonesia (2003) as well as in Film Studies at Universiteit van Amsterdam (2008). Ekky is also a film critic specializing in Indonesian cinema, and a board member of the Madani Film Festival and Jakarta Film Week. He is also a film critic and has published his articles in many popular magazines and newspapers as well as academic journals, including Cinemaya, Colloquy, Plaridel and Asian Cinema. He published some books regarding Indonesian films, pop culture, and Islamic culture issues, including _Mencari Film Madani: Sinema dan Dunia Islam_ (2019) and _Mujahid Film: USmar Ismail_ (2021), "99 Film Madani" (2022, with Hikmat Darmawan) and the Indonesian translation of his doctoral thesis. Ekky is currently the chairperson of Film Committee at Jakarta Arts Council (2021-2023).

Dr. Karla Mallette is a Professor of Italian in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and a Professor of Mediterranean Studies in the Department of Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author, most recently, of Lives of the Great Languages: Latin and Arabic in the Medieval Mediterranean, and numerous articles on medieval literature and Mediterranean Studies. She is the former director of GISC and is currently Chair of the Department of Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Rubina (Ruby) Ramji is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Humanities at Cape Breton University. Her research focuses on images of Islam in various media discourses, including film and television. She also works on issues of gender, ethnicity, diversity and multiculturalism. Ramji is co-editor, with Alison Marhsall, of the Bloomsbury Handbook on Religion and Migration (Bloomsbury 2022) and with Peter Beyer, of the book Growing Up Canadian: Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists (MQUP 2013) and is the author of a variety of articles and chapters in books including “Examining the Critical Role American Popular Film Plays in Maintaining the Muslim Terrorist Image, Post 9/11” in the Journal of Religion and Film (2016), “Maintaining and Nurturing an Islamic Identity in Canada – Online and Offline” in Religion in the Public Sphere: Canadian Case Studies(Eds., S. Lefebvre, & L. Beaman, University of Toronto Press 2014), “Muslims in the Movies” in The Bloomsbury Companion to Religion and Film (Ed., W. Blizek, Bloomsbury 2013); \ and, “Representations of Islam in American News and Film: Becoming the ‘Other’” in Mediating Religion: Conversations in Media, Religion and Culture (Eds., J. Mitchell & S. Marriage, T&T Clark 2003). Ramji is the Film Editor of the Journal of Religion and Film and served as Senior Editor of Golem: Journal of Religion and Monsters for four years. She was a Chair of the Religion, Film and Visual Culture Group in the American Academy of Religion for six years and the President of the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion (2012-16).

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 http://watch.eventive.org/halaloween. For more events from the Global Islamic Studies Center at the University of Michigan, please visit http://ii.umich.edu/islamicstudies.

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If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact islamicstudies@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.

Co-sponsors:

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