A Provocative Look at the State of Muslim Culture Today
Rumi’s Cave
26 Willesden Lane
Kilburn, London
NW6 7ST
7.00 pm – 9:30 pm
Nearest Stations (Kilburn, Kilburn Park, Kilburn High Road)
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/Rs5KL
What is the state of Muslim arts and culture – cutting edge and innovative, or boring and dull?
Is there a need to define to a British or American Islam? How do we represent Islam on screen, on stage, through novels and in poetry?
Doesn’t staging the ummah mean we are just selling a “safe” version Islam to the chattering classes?
Join us as we talk to award-winning playwright and author Wajahat Ali about the state of Muslim arts and culture today – and whether the project of defining a culturally relevant Islam for our times is even worth pursing.
FREE – but space is limited, so let us know you are coming!
Supported by the Radical Middle Way, The Leaf Network, The Cordoba Foundation and Rumi’s Cave.
Wajahat Ali – playwright, author, journalist and attorney – is a Muslim American of Pakistani descent and is the author of the acclaimed play, The Domestic Crusaders, which premiered in 2005 at the Thrust Stage of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and San Jose University Theatre, broke box office records in New York in 2009, was published by McSweeney’s in December 2010 and went on to be performed at Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
Ali’s essays and interviews on contemporary affairs, politics, the media, popular culture and religion frequently appear in the Washington Post, The Guardian , Salon , Slate , McSweeney’s , Wall Street Journal Blog , Huffington Post , CNN.com , CounterPunch and Chowk, among other on-line sites. His blog, “Goatmilk: An Intellectual Playground ” is ranked in the top 7% of all political blogs by blogged.com. Wajahat is the recipient of Muslim Public Affairs Council’s prestigious “Emerging Muslim American Artist” recognition of 2009 and was given the 2011 Otto Award for Political Theatre.
In 2011, he was the lead author and researcher of “Fear Inc., The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America” published by The Center for American Progress. Ali is the co-editor of the anthology “All-American: 45 American Men on Being Muslim” published this June 2012 by White Cloud Press. Wajahat is currently writing a TV pilot with Dave Eggers about a Muslim American cop in the Bay Area, California, and he is working on his first movie screenplay
