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Students enjoy lunch at Reem Al-Bawadi, one of Amman, Jordan's well-known tented restaurants.
Information by itself does not change the world. For Edward Curtis IV, an expert in Islamic, African American, and African Diaspora studies, it is important to take research out of the ivory tower to help bridge racial and ethnic divides. Curtis is Millennium Scholar of the Liberal Arts and associate professor of religious studies at IUPUI. With negative depictions of the Islamic faith flooding the media, he believes it is necessary to remind the world that there is more to Islam than jihad.
Curtis' perspectives come at a particularly relevant point in world history. A self-defined, brown-skinned Arab American, Curtis says, "I grew up being bombarded with the question, 'What are you? What are you?'" The need to discover the answer led him to explore how other minorities handled racial and ethnic differences.
After receiving his doctorate in religious studies from the University of South Africa, Curtis became a prolific writer and lecturer on African American religious history and the Nation of Islam. His second book, Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975, will soon be published, and a third book is under contract. When the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI lured him from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Curtis was already well-known as a leading expert in his field.
"I was very happy at UNC, and I was not going to leave unless I was offered a really good reason to do so. The School of Liberal Arts offered it. The financial resources from the Millennium Chair allow me to live in a wonderful urban community while forging new pathways which are of vital importance to American life, security, politics, and culture."
The Millennium Chair and similar programs funded through donor support at IUPUI enable the campus to attract top scholars like Professor Curtis, who, in turn, provide students with learning experiences and perspectives few other universities can offer. "I help prepare my students at IUPUI for the world in which they are already living," he continues. "Our students are the ones going off to fight wars and who are so affected by the price of oil. Because of my presence here, they will have a better chance to understand persons who are, sometimes, wrongly construed as the enemy and to see them as human beings."
As a further testament to his refusal to isolate his students from the world they study, each year Curtis takes a dozen of them to Jordan for a five-week, two-course study-abroad program of his own design. It is the only program of its kind in the U.S. His American students visiting Jordan report that their experience has fundamentally altered the way they see the Middle East and empowered them with more global perspectives. One former student, Monica Yungeburg, said, "I really feel it is necessary to study in the Middle East, if you are interested in anything related to politics, defense, world history, or comparative religion."
Professor Curtis, a member of the Liberal Arts' Department of Religious Studies, recently spearheaded a campaign to strengthen IUPUI's African American Studies Program by serving as the lead writer for a half-million dollar internal grant. In addition, he established an interdisciplinary faculty reading group in black studies to comment on current research and promote the exchange of ideas.
His goal in both black and islamic studies: To encourage tolerance, understanding, and compassion for people of all faiths, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. In other words, to take a stand for equality.
Ann Gordon
Visit the IUPUI School of Liberal Arts at liberalarts.iupui.edu.