The Public Commons

What is the Public Commons?

The Public Commons is a conglomeration of activities and platforms for disseminating grounded knowledge about Muslim American experiences and their meaningful contributions to American society and culture. The Commons is designed to reach diverse audiences through digital exhibitions, media commentary, policy briefs, pedagogical tools for classroom teaching, practical handbooks, and community dialogues, translating scholarship into social change.

Visiting scholars associated with the Hub will participate directly in the public dissemination of their research, students will be trained in journalism and film production to share their stories and those of their communities, and special interactive, virtual exhibits will be curated from material collected in the Repository for the general public.

Projects currently supported through the Public Commons include:

Navā/Voice - Empowering Muslim women to tell their stories of everyday leadership and the stories they inherit.
Know Your Muslim Neighbor - Handbook by CME-US containaing information from scholars, student and activists with a shared mission of combatting hate and Islamophobia.
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.
Community Creative Voices - A forthcoming space for community creative voices, featuring writing, music, and art from across Muslim communities.

From Scholarship to Public Engagement

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.

What the Public Commons Is Building Toward

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.

An Integrated Public Platform

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.