July 1, 2019—Mahan Mirza, an Islamic studies student and professional on religious literacy, has been named govt director for the Rafat and Zoreen Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at the Keough School of Global Affairs. His appointment begins these days.
Mirza’s giant pedagogical and management enjoy consists of serving as dean of the college at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, America’s first authorized Muslim liberal arts college. Most these days, he served as the lead school member for Notre Dame’s Madrasa Discourses assignment, which equips Islamic nonsecular leaders in India and Pakistan with the tools to expectantly interact with pluralism, modern science, and new philosophies. The challenge is funded by way of a John Templeton Foundation supply.
“Professor Mirza brings surprising educational and administrative competencies to this essential management function, as well as crucial enjoy as a participant in interfaith speak and community engagement,” stated Scott Appleby, the Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School. “His know-how in Islamic training and philosophy is complemented via his information and appreciation of the arts extra generally. I am thrilled that Mahan has normal my invitation to assist the Ansari Institute to fulfill its bold and timely task.”
Mirza joined Notre Dame in 2016 as professor of the practice for the Keough School’s Contending Modernities research initiative, a flagship application of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.
For the Madrasa Discourses project—housed below Contending Modernities—Mirza taught participants in India and Pakistan via distance studying and coordinated studying intensive classes in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Qatar, a number of which allowed for intercultural exchanges between Notre Dame students, Madrasa Discourses participants, and individuals from South Africa. Additionally, Mirza directed pedagogical videos, helped increase an internet Urdu journal posted in India, and led an attempt to launch an interactive internet site to make the Madrasa Discourses curriculum publicly reachable.
Mirza holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, an M.A. From Hartford Seminary, and a Ph.D. In nonsecular studies from Yale University. He has taught publications and lectured on Arabic-Islamic studies, western religions, and the history of technology, at the side of foundational subjects inside the liberal arts, together with common sense, rhetoric, astronomy, ethics, and politics. He has edited two unique issues of The Muslim World and served as assistant editor for the Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought.
He is a fellow of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies and could preserve to serve as a consultant for Madrasa Discourses.
Launched in fall 2018, the Ansari Institute is dedicated to analyzing, teaching, outreach, and interaction with spiritual groups regionally and international. The Institute fulfills its challenge through the examination of the way religions make contributions to the commonplace good and how they develop quintessential human improvement.
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