The Urban History Seminar series feature a scholarly presentation followed by lively discussion. Abdul Basith Basheer, a PhD student in history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, presents “Islam on a City Campus: Muslim Student Community Building and Activism at UIC.”

This talk examines the history of shifting Muslim student identities and the cultivation of a community since the 1960s at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), an inner-city institution nestled between Chicago’s Greektown and Little Italy neighborhoods. Historically, UIC has been known as the university of choice for Chicago’s working class and first-generation college students. Drawing on university archival material and oral histories conducted with Muslim alumni living in Chicagoland, Abdul provides us with a close examination of urban Muslim history. Ultimately, he argues that Muslim student identity at UIC was the product of different viewpoints, ideologies, and understandings of both religion and religious identity within a cosmopolitan urban space like Chicago and its surrounding metro area.

The Zoom session will open at 6:45 p.m. with the program starting at 7:00 p.m. and concluding by 8:15 p.m. RSVP is required.

This session is free of charge; we would greatly appreciate a donation to the Museum in any amount. A Zoom link will be provided after registration.

The Urban History Seminars have been generously underwritten by the Chicago History Museum since 1983.