Michael Wolfe
Encyclopedia
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic issues at universities across the United States including Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Georgetown
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
, Stanford
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, SUNY Buffalo
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, also commonly known as the University at Buffalo or UB, is a public research university and a "University Center" in the State University of New York system. The university was founded by Millard Fillmore in 1846. UB has multiple campuses...
, and Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. He holds a degree in Classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
from Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
.
Teaching career
Wolfe taught writing and English at Phillips ExeterPhillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
and Phillips Andover
Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...
academies, the California State Summer School for the Arts
California State Summer School for the Arts
The , commonly known as CSSSA [See-Suh] or InnerSpark, is a four-week, pre-professional art training program for high school student that is held each summer at the California Institute of the Arts . The goal of CSSSA is to provide a supportive environment in which students acquired useful skills...
, and the University of California, Santa Cruz
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
.
Tombouctou Books
For fifteen years, Wolfe was sole publisher of Tombouctou Books, a small press enterprise located in Bolinas, CaliforniaBolinas, California
Bolinas formerly Juggville is a coastal unincorporated community in Marin County, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bolinas is located west-southwest of San Rafael, at an elevation of 36 feet...
, that published works of poetry and avant garde prose, including The Basketball Diaries
The Basketball Diaries
The Basketball Diaries is a 1978 memoir written by author and musician Jim Carroll. It is an edited collection of the diaries he kept between the ages of twelve and sixteen...
by Jim Carroll
Jim Carroll
James Dennis "Jim" Carroll was an author, poet, autobiographer, and punk musician. Carroll was best known for his 1978 autobiographical work The Basketball Diaries, which was made into the 1995 film of the same name, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Carroll.-Biography:Carroll was born to a...
, two books of fiction by the Moroccan storyteller Mohammed Mrabet, and American fiction by Douglas Woolf
Douglas Woolf
Douglas Woolf was an American author of short stories, novels and book reviews.Woolf studied at Harvard University from 1939 until 1942...
, Dale Herd, Lucia Berlin
Lucia Berlin
Lucia Berlin was an American short story writer.-Overview:Berlin began publishing relatively late in life, under the encouragement and sometimes tutelage of poet Ed Dorn. Her first small collection, Angels Laundromat was published in 1981, but her published stories were written as early as 1960...
, Bobbie Louise Hawkins
Bobbie Louise Hawkins
-Life:She was raised in west Texas, studied art in London, taught in missionary schools in British Honduras, attended Sophia University.Her first one-woman show of paintings and collages was at the Gotham Book Mart in 1974....
, Steve Emerson
Steve Emerson
Steve Emerson may refer to:* Stephen G. Emerson, stem cell biologist and 13th President of Haverford College* Steven Emerson, journalist and author specializing in national security, terrorism, and Islamic extremism...
, and Paul Bowles
Paul Bowles
Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris...
's final collection of short stories, Unwelcome Words: Seven Stories.
Writing career
Wolfe was a MacDowell ColonyMacDowell Colony
The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...
resident in poetry in 1968. He received an Amy Lowell
Amy Lowell
Amy Lawrence Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.- Personal life:...
Traveling Poets Scholarship in 1970, which was renewed for two further years. During this time he traveled and wrote in North
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
and West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
. His first books of poetry How Love Gets Around and World Your Own, a book of fiction Invisible Weapons, and a travel journal In Morocco derive from this period. In the 1980s, he returned to North Africa several more times. As a Muslim convert he performed the pilgrimage to Mecca
Hajj
The Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so...
in 1990 and wrote extensively about it.
Wolfe's first works on Islam were a pair of books from Grove Press
Grove Press
Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1951. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United States. The Atlantic Monthly Press, under the aegis of its...
on the pilgrimage to Mecca: The Hadj (1993), a first-person travel account, and One Thousand Roads to Mecca
One Thousand Roads to Mecca
One Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of Travelers Writing About the Muslim Pilgrimage is a collection of travel journals edited by Michael Wolfe and published in 1999...
(1997), an anthology of 10 centuries of travelers writing about the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
. Shortly after 11 September 2001, he edited a collection of essays by American Muslims
Islam in the United States
From the 1880s to 1914, several thousand Muslims immigrated to the United States from the Ottoman Empire, and from parts of South Asia; they did not form distinctive settlements, and probably most assimilated into the wider society....
called Taking Back Islam: American Muslims Reclaim Their Faith. Taking Back Islam won the 2003 annual Wilbur Award for "Best Book of the year on a Religious Theme". In 2010, Blue Press Books published a chapbook of poems by Wolfe entitled Paradise: Reading Notes. He recently completed a fourth volume of poetry, entitled Digging Up Russia: Selected Poems, 1968-2010.
Wolfe is currently working on two novels: one set in contemporary California, entitled Upriver, and one set in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He has also recently translated and written a brief commentary for a collection of verse from the Greek Anthology, entitled The Last Word: Selected Ancient Greek Epitaphs." This collection will be published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2012, with an Introduction by Richard P. Martin.
For about four years, Wolfe wrote an occasional column for Beliefnet, a Web journal of the world’s religions.
Television and film
In April 1997, Wolfe hosted a televised account of the Hajj from Mecca for Ted Koppel's "Nightline" on ABCAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
. The program was nominated for Peabody, Emmy, George Polk, and National Press Club Awards. It won the annual Media Award from the Muslim Public Affairs Council. In February 2003, Wolfe worked with CNN International
CNN International
CNN International is an international English language television network that carries news, current affairs, politics, opinions, and business programming worldwide. CNN is one of the world's largest news organizations. It is owned by Time Warner, and is affiliated with CNN, which is mainly...
television news reporter Zain Verjee to produce a new half-hour documentary on the Hajj. Wolfe has been featured on hundreds of regional and national radio talk shows.
In 1999, Wolfe helped found an educational media foundation focused on promoting peace through the media, Unity Productions Foundation (UPF). In 2002, UPF produced its first full-length film, called Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, a two-hour television documentary on the life and times of the Prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
. The film, which Wolfe co-created, co-produced, and co-executive edited, received a national broadcast on PBS and subsequent international broadcasts on National Geographic International. It was awarded a Cine Special Jury Award for Best Professional Documentary in its category of People and Places.
Wolfe co-produced two new films released in 2007. The first was entitled Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
. It was aired nationally on PBS on Aug. 22, 2007. Prince Among Slaves was also aired on PBS that year. It is the true story of an African prince enslaved in antebellum Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
struggling to regain his freedom.
UPF has since released a trio of contemporary documentaries. On a Wing and A Prayer (2008) and Talking through Walls (2009) both appeared on PBS. The third film, Allah Made Me Funny (2008), was released in theaters. In 2009, UPF's seventh film appeared on PBS. Based on a worldwide Gallup Poll of the Muslim world, it is called Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think. All UPF films have websites and are additionally available through UPF's educational outreach project, called 20,000 Dialogues.
Wolfe continues to produce long and short-form documentaries for PBS and other broadcasters in the US and abroad with Unity Productions Foundation. His co-production partner on all these films is Alex Kronemer.
Awards
- Lowell Thomas Award, "Best Cultural Tourism Article, 1998," Society of American Travel Writers, March 1999
- Marin County Arts Council Writers Award, 1990, 1983
- California State Arts Council Writers Award, 1985
- Amy Lowell Traveling Poets Scholarship, 1969, 1970, 1971
- Member, Phi Beta Kappa Society, Wesleyan University, 1968
External links
- Official Unity Productions Foundation website
- Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet PBS website
- Author's Guild author website
Published work
- How Love Gets Around, Soft Press, 1974
- World Your Own, Threshold Books, Putney, Vermont, 1976
- In Morocco, Sombre Reptiles, Berkeley, California 1980
- Invisible Weapons, Creative Arts Publishing, Berkeley, California 1985
- The Hadj: An American's Pilgrimage to Mecca, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 1993
- One Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of Travelers Writing about the Muslim PilgrimageOne Thousand Roads to MeccaOne Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of Travelers Writing About the Muslim Pilgrimage is a collection of travel journals edited by Michael Wolfe and published in 1999...
, Grove Press, New York, 1997 - Taking Back Islam: American Muslims Reclaim their Faith, Rodale Press, Pennsylvania, 2003
- Paradise: Reading Notes, Blue Press Books, 2010
- Forthcoming: "The Last Word: Ancient Greek Epitaphs", Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.