{"id":19560,"date":"2015-10-27T16:16:13","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T20:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/?p=19560"},"modified":"2021-02-04T10:00:11","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T15:00:11","slug":"digital-journal-shares-insights-on-islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/2015\/10\/27\/digital-journal-shares-insights-on-islam\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Project Shares Insights on Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"pregill_mizan_smsc_resized\"<\/a>
Michael Pregill at an Islamic Studies conference in Naples, co-sponsored by Mizan and the ILEX Foundation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

In Arabic, the word mizan<\/em> means balance. And that’s just what\u00a0Mizan<\/a> –\u00a0<\/em>a multi-channel, multimedia initiative sharing scholarship and insight on Muslim societies – attempts to provide.<\/p>\n

“We want to improve online discourse about Islam,\u201d\u00a0said Michael Pregill, Interlocutor at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations (SMSC),<\/a> an affiliated regional studies center of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.<\/a> “Mizan\u00a0<\/em>was originally conceived as an Islamic e-journal, but over time the project\u00a0has grown to become a multifaceted digital scholarship initiative incorporating publishing and multimedia.”<\/p>\n

As Interlocutor, Pregill facilitates content curation across\u00a0Mizan’s\u00a0<\/em>three channels. The first, mizanproject.org,<\/a> went live earlier this year.<\/p>\n

“Mizan Project is dedicated to fostering public scholarship and supporting research on Muslim societies across the world,” states the Mizan mission statement.\u00a0“Under the supervision of the\u00a0<\/span>Interlocutor\u00a0and the <\/span>Advisory Board<\/a>, it\u00a0provides a platform for community outreach, engagement, and participation for scholars and students of Muslim societies and civilizations.”<\/span><\/p>\n

On a semiweekly basis, Mizan Project will update with a new piece of public scholarship, published under a Creative Commons license.<\/p>\n

“Our goal is to provide an interdisciplinary approach to Muslim societies,” Pregill said. “We want our scholarship to provide a bridge between the past and present, and allow academics to connect more directly with their diverse audiences.”<\/p>\n

The second component of\u00a0Mizan\u00a0<\/em>is Mizan Pop, a multimedia channel for sharing and commenting on various aspects of pop culture throughout the Islamic world, including art, music, and video.\u00a0It will launch in the spring of 2016.<\/p>\n

The final leg of the project is\u00a0Mizan: Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Muslim Societies and Civilizations,<\/em>\u00a0an open-access, peer-reviewed journal of Islamic Studies launching April 2016. Pregill said that the journal intends to publish two issues a year.<\/p>\n

Additionally,\u00a0Mizan\u00a0<\/em>has organized a\u00a0number of events, both at the Pardee School\u00a0and beyond.\u00a0Pregill co-organized a conference on Islamic stories of the prophets in Naples in October; the conference was co-sponsored by ILEX Foundation, which\u00a0supports the Mizan<\/em> initiative. He\u00a0also organized a panel on the Islamic State held at the Pardee School earlier this year; video from the panel<\/a> is available on the Mizan<\/em> website, and papers from the panel will constitute the first issue of the Mizan Journal.<\/p>\n

It’s all in service of an important and timely goal.<\/p>\n

“As I came to BU from Elon University in North Carolina to start up Mizan<\/em> over the last year, our development of the project coincided with the rise\u00a0of the Islamic State, an organization that calls itself a new caliphate,” Pregill said. “It really hammers home the notion that we can’t understand the present without studying the past. This is a moment in the Muslim world that cries out for sophisticated interpretation.”<\/p>\n

Mizan\u00a0<\/em>is supported by a grant from the ILEX Foundation.<\/a> You can follow it\u00a0on Twitter at @mizan_project.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Arabic, mizan means balance. And that’s just what Mizan – a multiplatform initiative on Muslim societies – attempts to provide. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2094,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8431,8432],"tags":[8802,8406,9032,9028,9030,9029,9031],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19560"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19698,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19560\/revisions\/19698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}