Library Receives National Grant to Host “Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys” Series

May 24, 2013

The Zach S. Henderson Library has  received a $3,500 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA), to host a five-part reading and discussion series titled “Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys.” The library is one of 125 libraries and state humanities councils across the country selected to participate in the project, which seeks to familiarize public audiences in the United States with the people, places, history, faith and cultures of Muslims in the United States and around the world. The Muslim Journeys theme that the Zach S. Henderson Library has chosen to explore is “Pathways of Faith.” “We are delighted to have been chosen to host this unique series that will allow members of both the campus community and the larger Statesboro community a chance to discuss important themes in Muslim history and literature, with the help of two well-qualified scholars, professors Hemchand Gossai and John Parcels,” said Ann Hamilton, associate dean of the Library. The five books to be discussed include:

• The Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam by F. E. Peters
• Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan A. C. Brown
• The Story of the Qur’an: Its History and Place in Muslim Life by Ingrid Mattson
• The Art of Hajj by Venetia Porter
• Rumi: Poet and Mystic, edited and translated by Reynold A. Nicholson

Selected with the advice of librarians and cultural programming experts, as well as distinguished scholars in the fields of anthropology, world history, religious studies, interfaith dialogue, the history of art and architecture, world literature, Middle East studies, Southeast Asian studies, African studies and Islamic studies, the books are part of the Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys. The Zach S. Henderson Library was one of 842 libraries chosen to receive the Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys. For more information, visit the Zach S. Henderson Library website.  About Bridging Cultures Bookshelf The Bridging Cultures Bookshelf is a project of NEH, conducted in cooperation with the ALA Public Programs Office, with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Additional support for the arts and media components was provided by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Arts. The Averitt Center for the Arts and the Statesboro Regional Library were community partners with the Zach S. Henderson Library in applying for both the Bridging Cultures Bookshelf and the “Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys” awards.