Dr. Saud Al-Zaid
Malcolm X & the Five Percenters: Reading Course in Black American Islam
English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Thursdays, 16-19:30 h, 8 dates: 20.10., 3.11., 17.11., 1.12., 15.12.2022, 12.1., 26.1., 9.2.2023, Hardenbergstr. 33, room 110 (some sessions online)

Registration starts 17.10.2022 here: www.saudalzaid.com/malcolmx

This seminar is a reading course focused on two texts: “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and Michael Muhammad Knight’s “The Five Percenters: Islam, Hip Hop, and the Gods of New York”. This course wishes to provide some historical context of the Black Lives Matters movement for students within the context of Black Muslims. We will read about the life of Malcolm X from his conversation to Islam in prison to his rise as a vocal leader in the Civil Rights movement. Then we will approach the Five Percenters, a unique expression of Islam that developed in New York City and was tremendously influential in rap and hip-hop culture.

There will be bi-weekly group readings, presentations, and discussions. Students are expected to attend all sessions as there are only eight. Those who miss a session will be expected to give an extra presentation in the next session with coordination from the instructor. Students are expected to attend all sessions and to lead discussion at least once. We will have very open and critical discussions about race, identity, religion, and politics – with the hope of achieving better mutual understanding and respect for social justice.

Requirements for the ungraded Studium Generale credits: Students are expected to attend all sessions and to lead discussion at least once.

Saud Al-Zaid is a scholar of Islamic thought and aesthetics. He specializes in the writings of Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), a literary critic and ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his aesthetic influence on the Salafis of Central Arabia and the Gulf. Al-Zaid holds degrees in Economics and Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago, a Masters degree in Arab Studies from the Center of Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, and another Masters in the Anthropology & Sociology of Religion from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. He completed his doctorate in Islamic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin entitled “Modernity’s Other: An Intellectual Anthropology of Radical Islamic Thought”. Al-Zaid is based in Berlin and has given public lectures at Re:publica, the Berlin Biennale, Chaos Computer Club Congress and Computerspielemuseum, among others.