During the faculty salon, Aysha Hidayatullah, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, and Taymiya R. Zaman, Department of History, outlined the impetus for writing and publishing their article, “Speaking for Ourselves: American Muslim Women’s Confessional Writings and the Problem of Alterity.” Saera Khan, Department of Psychology, and Rebecca Mason, Department of Philosophy, provided commentary on the article before opening up to a lively discussion with 19 people from several departments. Faculty shared some of their feedback about the event.

“I think it was great that the paper was circulated in advance so that everyone could discuss it with prior knowledge. This led to excellent participation among the participants. The respondents did well setting up good points of entry to the text.”

“I thought having two responses was effective by providing two different perspectives (from philosophy and psychology), and the speakers did a great job fielding an array of questions. A lively discussion was the result, so it is fair to say that the facilitators were effective.”

“It was an important topic. The speakers were dynamic and engaging. Reading the article ahead of time allowed us to use our time to focus on the discussion rather than going through the arguments of the article.  I really liked the format. It was interesting to get responses from people from different disciplines, and see how those responses were and weren’t influenced by their disciplinary backgrounds.”