Each year, the Muslim Studies Program hosts a student research symposium open to undergraduate and graduate students at MSU. Students wishing to participate for the April event must submit either a published or unpublished paper (15-25 pages w/ works cited page) written between March 2024 and March 2025 with the deadline for submission on March 28, 2025.

One graduate student paper and one undergraduate student paper will be recognized with $500 cash awards.

Last year’s participants included:

Undergraduate

• Saarah Alam, “Harmony Unveiled: Exploring Evolution and Islam” 
• Eleanor Pugh, “Women in Government in Central Asia: Successes and Limitations of Gender Quotas” 
• Yahia Guenena, “Ibn Taymiyyah’s Epistemological, Theological, and Cosmological Arguments” 

Graduate

• Farzaneh Ebrahimzadeh Holasu, “Everyday Resistance and Quite Encroachment in Shirin Neshat’s Women Without Men (2009) and Mahdokht (2004)” 
• Prabal Gupta, “Fugitive and Exilic Identities in Diasporization in Tanvir Mokammel’s Chitra Nodir Pare (Quiet Flows the River Chitra) and Cherien Dabis’s May in the Summer” 
• Ayaat Ismail, “Feminist Threads in Contemporary Palestinian Cinema: Challenging Conventions” 
• Sara Tahir, “Pakistan as the Place of Kinship” 
• Jessica Saba, “Interlocking Oppressions: Palestinian Women’s Struggle Against Zionist Settler-Colonialism and Patriarchy” 

Congratulations to Eleanor Pugh and Farzaneh Ebrahimzadeh Holasu for receiving the awards for best papers!

The Muslim Studies Program is now accepting paper submissions from MSU undergraduate and graduate students for our annual Student Research Showcase.
Top papers in each category will qualify for a $500 award.

Paper submission deadline: March 28, 2025. Please see the attached flyer for details.

The Student Research Showcase will take place on Wednesday, April 23, at 7 p.m. EST.

Contact: khalilmo(at)msu.edu