For 3 days (February 19-21, 2015), scholars, students and com
munity members met at Michigan State University in East Lansing for the 2015 Muslim Studies Conference, Global Halal: Muslims and the Cultural Politics of the Permissible. The conference was videotaped. Video of selected conference papers and keynotes will be available in Fall 2015. Click this link to view the video of the welcoming address by Paulette Granberry Russell, Director MSU Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives and Deandre Beck, Associate Dean MSU International Studies and Programs.
The Conference program included over 20 papers on topics ranging from the halal food markets to the representation of halal themes in literature. Conference highlights included keynote presentations by John Esposito (Georgetown University), Kecia Ali (Boston University), Ingrid Mattson (University of Western Ontario), and Sherman Jackson, University of Southern California.
While the term halal refers to all that is permitted to Muslims, its specific associations with Islamic dietary restrictions underscore the cultural politics of food at time of growing awareness of ethics of food production and consumption and simultaneously an expansion of the globalization of food habits, including increased consumption of highly processed foods. The conference provided a forum for discussing the culture and politics of food within the framework of Muslim Studies, emphasizing not only the cultural or ethnographic aspects of food preparation and consumption, but also the political and economic considerations.
