Global Cultural Studies at Columbia University Presents: Margaret
Garner and the Daughters of Ishmael

Assia Djebar has long been fascinated with the figure of Fatima, the
Prophet Mohammed's daughter. In the opera "The Daughters of Ishmael in
Wind and Storm," she relies on Arab chronicles to dramatize Fatima's
role immediately after the Prophet's death. What would the future of
Islam have been if this spirited daughter could have inherited the
prophetship? We will couple extracts from Djebar's opera with extracts
from Toni Morrison's "Margaret Garner," also based on the historical
record, revisiting the events that inspired her 1987 Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel Beloved. Daring to imagine the past otherwise,
these two ambitious compositions place the lives of women at the
center stage of history. The performance will be accompanied by a
discussion with Djebar, Morrison, Leila Ahmed (Harvard Divinity
School), and Angela Davis (University of California, Santa Cruz),
opening questions of feminism, femininity, slavery, and Islam.

Please join us on March 28, at 8 PM, at Columbia's Miller Theatre.
Tickets will be available soon at the Miller Theater Box Office.
For more information, please contact Inr2101@columbia.edu.