The Halal Metropolis Podcast

​​Hanan Ali Yahya is a first-generation Yemeni-American raised in Detroit. With over 10 years of community advocacy and leadership experience, her work focuses on developing neighborhoods and cities, with a focus on access, equity, and sustainability. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 2017 where she studied Urban Studies and Entrepreneurship. She is currently Project Manager of the Joe Louis Greenway, a City of Detroit project. The Joe Louis Greenway is a recreational pathway that aims to unify Detroit’s neighborhoods, people, and parks. For more information on the project, visit joelouisgreenway.com. 

Aya is a Lebanese designer, printmaker, cinephile, and coffee junkie currently based in Metro Detroit. She graduated from the American University of Beirut with a BFA in Graphic Design. After moving to the US, she worked at the Arab American National Museum for nearly 7 years before leaving recently to pursue a freelance career. She has a deep interest in art and craft traditions and their preservation. She is interested in melding the old with the new, community-based knowledge-sharing, and the idea that art is for everyone. She is a co-founder of Maamoul Press, a multi-disciplinary small press and collective that aims for the creation, curation and dissemination of art by marginalized creators at the intersection of comics, printmaking and book arts, which we’ll dive into a bit more during our conversation. 

When not drowning in design deadlines, keeping up with the Maamoul Press festival schedule, and having movie marathons, she’s getting acquainted with her new old 100+ year old platen press and learning letterpress, in hopes of one day retreating from the workforce and becoming a printmaking hermit.

Nihad Dukhun, artist, master calligrapher and a professor of mechanical engineering. A native of Gaza, Palestine, his interest in custom Arabic calligraphy began when he was in the 6th grade. His work has been exhibited in major U.S. cities and sold in the U.S, Europe, the Middle East as well as Japan. Dukhun holds a PhD in mechanical engineering and is currently a professor at the University of Detroit - Mercy.

Kamelya Youssef is a poet, educator and literary worker. She's the author of "A Book With a Hole In It" (2022, Wendy's Subway), she's also the co-writer of the play "Kilo Batra: In Death More Radiant" (2021, A Host of People). Her poems and lyric essays have been published by Mizna, The Academy of American Poets, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poet Love and elsewhere. She currently teaches poetry at The City University of New York and is senior poetry editor of Guernica. 

Salwa Mawari is an Arab American mother, educator, and author. Her book, "Under the Sana’a Skyline," debuted in March 2022. Through her work, she aims to write diverse literature that fairly and accurately represents students of Arab and Muslim backgrounds. Under the Sana’a Skyline is her first book. She is currently working on her second book which will be published in 2023.

Adnan Charara is a Lebanese-American artist who has lived and worked in the U.S. since 1982. With an unquenchable thirst to create since he was a child, he drew, painted, sculpted and assembled his way from Seattle to Boston to Detroit, where he currently makes his artistic home. Adnan works in multiple mediums with several ideas at a time, treating his studio practice like a detail-oriented factory. His hard-working dedication is masked, however, by his whimsical and humorous treatment of serious subjects. Adnan resides in Dearborn, a quick drive from the Cass Corridor neighborhood that houses his studio. He bought the historic Astro building in 2011 with an ambitious plan to develop it into a multifunctional space, including an exquisite gallery, gift shop, two store-fronts and his sprawling subdivided studio. That plan has come to life with the help of architects and designers, and he continues to focus his energy on both his artwork and his community involvement.

Adnan was featured on the PBS series Arab-American Stories in 2012. Recently he was nominated for a Smithsonian Fellowship and was honored by the Arab American Chamber of Commerce. In addition, he has served on the boards of several arts institutions, and has exhibited all over the United States and internationally, in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Alise Alousi is a poet whose work has appeared in several journals and anthologies, including most recently in the Detroit Free Press and R&R Press. She's a recipient of fellowships to the Fine Arts Work Center, Soul Mountain and Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing as well as a 2019 Kresge Literary Arts Fellowship and a 2015 Knight Arts Challenge Detroit award. Her poetry is forthcoming in a new anthology of Arab love poems, "We Call to the Eye and the Night" (Persea Books, 2022). 

Alousi is also director of school and community partnerships at the Inside Out Literary Arts organization in Detroit. She's a former Artist in Residence with several Detroit high schools, and the former program director there as well. 

https://alisealousipoetry.com/about

Bayan Founas was born in Hamtramck, Michigan, raised in metro Detroit and educated at the University of Michigan. She is a poet, educator, youth mentor and activist. She's passionate about making educational reforms in communities of color and in that effort she created a creative writing and arts program called Writing for Freedom in 2016 for youth of color to creatively and collectively heal. She uses culturally relevant and transformative justice approaches in the classroom and in writing workshops for people to self-actualize and reach their full potential. 

And finally, through her poetry she also shares her experiences as an American Muslim woman. She has two self-published poetry collections covering themes of home, immigration, diaspora and belonging, entitled "Diary of a Daughter in Diaspora" (2018), and "Here to Stay: A Literary Mixtape," (2021) paired with the spoken word album "Here to Stay."

https://bayanfounas.com/

LuFuki and Tazeen Ayub are cofounders of the Afro-spirit jazz ensemble LuFuki and Divine Providence, who use creative, improvised music to unite and heal hearts. They are also co-directors of the Detroit chapter of GAMA (Gathering All Muslim Artists) and are also cofounders of the Sanctuary of Sound, a venue which hosts spiritual music and meditation sessions. Tazeen is also a full-time instructor of Arabic at the Henry Ford College School of Liberal Arts and is a community organizer. LuFuki is the cultural curator for the Halal Jazz Cafe at the Muslim Center and project manager at MuslimARC Detroit working on issues of housing justice.

Hayan Charara is a poet, a children's book author, an essayist and an editor. 

He is the son of Lebanese immigrants. He grew up in Detroit, Michigan. He earned a B.A. in English from Wayne State University, a Master's in Humanities from New York University, and a Ph.D. in literature and creating writing from the University of Houston, which is where he teaches now in both subjects.  

His work explores family, loss, identity and the experience of growing up Arab American in Detroit. He's the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the Lucille Joy prize for poetry from the University of Houston's Creative Writing program, and the Arab American book award. 

This interview was recorded in 2021. Charara's book, "These Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit," referred to in the interview is now available.

Mark Crain is the executive director of Dream of Detroit, an initiative to combine community organizing with housing and land development to revitalize a neighborhood and build a thriving, healthy community on the west side of Detroit. Dream organizes local residents as well as folks from throughout the metro area Muslim community in the fight to achieve racial and economic justice in Detroit’s neighborhoods.

Amna Ashgar's works look to the American experience for a multitude of cultural motifs. From her family's Pakistani popular cultural ephemera to Disney movies to Jean-Léon Gérôme's Orientalist paintings, from Hudson River School works to currents of contemporary political thought, Ashgar draws from her own life in the Detroit area where she grew up and now resides, making sophisticated works that mix imagery across cultures, creating conversations between communities. 

Endi Poskovic is a visual artist and printmaker. Born and raised in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina, Endi was educated in Yugoslavia, Norway and the United States. His works have been exhibited worldwide, in numerous international exhibitions. He's received awards and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the U.S. Fulbright Commission, the John D. Rockefeller Foundation and many others. Endi was also a crucial member of the cohort of creatives whose work and voices were presented throughout the Halal Metropolis exhibition series. He is currently a professor at the Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan.

Abdallah Jasim, also known on social media and by his stage name as Abid Jay. Abdallah is a comedian who born in Tucson, Arizona, and was raised in the Warrendale neighborhood of Detroit. Abdallah studied chemical engineering at the University of Cincinatti. He has performed at comedy shows across the country. Through his comedy has woven together hilarious stories from his experiences as a Muslim and an Arab living in the United States. He's also been able to address more serious issues through his work, such as racism. He's recently written and shot a pilot for a television show he's developing. 

Nargis Hakim Rahman is an award-winning Bangladeshi American, Muslim writer, who currently is a reporter at WDET 101.9 FM. Rahman graduated from Wayne State University, where she was part of the Journalism Institute of Media Diversity. Passionate about community journalism in the greater Detroit area, her work focuses on giving American Muslims and other minorities a voice in the press. Her work has appeared in NPR, Haute Hijab, Eater, The Muslim Observer, Brown Girl Magazine, Metro Detroit Mommy and many other publications.

The Halal Metropolis Podcast has been made possible through the generous support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, and the El Hibri Foundation, and is hosted by the Center for Arab American Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. For more information check us out at halalmetropolis.org.