Episode 10: Sacred Friendship & Quran and Torah as Portals for Creativity with Dr. Leyla Ozgur Alhassen and Arielle Tonkin

Dr. Leyla Ozgur Alhaseen is a Qur’anic studies scholar and the author of Qur’anic Stories: God, Revelation and the Audience (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) and How the Qur’ān Works: Reading Sacred Narrative (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Her scholarship revolves around Qur’anic stories, style and interpretation in literature, performance, and art, across historical periods, languages, and disciplinary boundaries. Dr. Ozgur Alhassen is working on a book on hierarchies of beings in the Qur’an, and is the author of a number of articles. She has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.

Arielle Tonkin (they/she) is an artist, Spiritual Director, and scholar of art and Judaics. As a teaching artist, Arielle facilitates classes and workshops at universities, museums, and organizations, and their artwork, rooted in painting, fibers and social practice, centers on ritual and healing. Recent exhibition highlights include: A Fence Around the Torah: Safety and Unsafety in Jewish Life at the Jewish Museum of Maryland and Queering Jewish Diasporas at the Omni Commons, Oakland, CA.  As a Spiritual Director, Arielle facilitates life cycle ritual and Jewish and interfaith learning. A lay-hazzan and current SVARA Fellow in the Talmud Teaching Kollel, Arielle’s arts and culture organizing centers around dismantling systems of oppression; Muslim-Jewish cross-textual arts exchange; and Mizrahi cultural flourishing in the diaspora.