Beginning in 2009, the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere has used funds from the Rothman Endowment to sponsor a grant competition among University of Florida faculty and graduate students to expand the UF library collections in areas in and related to the humanities that are currently underserved. These acquisitions enable courses and research in exciting areas of the humanities new to the academy and new to UF.
Prof. Ali Mian shares the following guest essay on the significance of this award for supporting Islamic Studies at UF:
The academic study of Islam is an interdisciplinary enterprise that draws on humanistic and social scientific approaches to situate historical and contemporary Muslim thought and practice in broader, and sometimes comparative, frameworks of analysis. UF is an emerging center for the academic study of Islam and our faculty specialize in Islam in Africa, Islam and politics, Islam in Turkey, Qur’anic studies, and Islam in South Asia. We are home to the Center for Global Islamic Studies to promote greater public understanding of Islam
as a global tradition. We also have numerous graduate students working on Islam-related subjects in Religion and other departments. This grant is key to making UF’s library holdings in Islamic studies reflect the vision of the types of research projects being pursued by our faculty and students.
The funded acquisitions focus on newly released volumes in several areas of Islamic studies: (1) Islam in South Asia, (2) the history of Muslim theology, mysticism, and legalism, and (3) gender, sexuality, race, and migration in contemporary Islam. Many of the volumes purchased with this grant are now in the stacks or available for online perusal as e-book resources. The latest scholarship in these three areas also illumines broader methodological and theoretical issues in the humanities and the interpretive social sciences. For example, Diaspora and Media in Europe: Migration, Identity, and Integration is a volume that appeals to scholars in religious studies but also those in European studies, media studies, and racialization and migration writ large. These new acquisitions will not only enhance faculty research but also allow undergraduate and graduate students to write well-researched papers.