The Public Commons

The Public Commons is a developing public-facing platform of the Center for Muslim Experience in the United States (CME-US), dedicated to sharing grounded knowledge about Muslim American experiences through accessible, community-centered formats. It serves as a space where research, storytelling, and public engagement come together to foster understanding and dialogue.

The Commons builds on existing CME-US initiatives while expanding the infrastructure needed to translate scholarship and lived experience into resources for the public.

• Voices in Dialogue - Empowering Muslim women to tell their stories of everyday leadership and the stories they inherit.

• Lenses of Belonging: Muslim America in Focus - a photographic showcase curated by CME-US, and captured by American Muslim students across the nation, featuring visual reflections on everyday Muslim life in America.

Work within the Public Commons focuses on transforming research into formats that are legible, accessible, meaningful, and useful to diverse audiences. These include digital exhibitions, media commentary, pedagogical tools for classroom use, practical handbooks, and community-facing dialogues. Together, these initiatives ensure that public conversations about Muslim Americans are informed by rigorous scholarship and lived experience rather than abstraction or stereotype. 

Projects developed through the Commons emphasize clarity, accessibility, and ethical storytelling, centering Muslims as narrators of their own histories and experiences.

The Public Commons is intentionally designed to grow over time. Drawing on materials collected through CME-US research, archives, and community partnerships, the Commons will support a range of public-facing outputs, including:

• Digital exhibitions and virtual storytelling

• Public lectures, talks, and media commentary

• Pedagogical tools and classroom resources

• Community dialogues and public programs

• Short-form media, podcasts, and documentary projects

These initiatives are in active development and will be added to the Commons as they come online.

The Public Commons is being developed in close coordination with the Scholars Hub and the Global Muslim Digital Repository. Archival materials, oral histories, and research produced through CME-US inform public-facing projects, while community-centered initiatives like Lenses of Belonging shape how those materials are shared and interpreted.

Together, these efforts ensure that public representations of Muslim American life are grounded in scholarship, lived experience, and ethical storytelling.