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Islamic Studies
South Asian Studies March 24, 2023

Merchants of Virtue

Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in Eighteenth-Century South Asia

Divya Cherian

Hosted by Sanjukta Poddar
Merchants of Virtue: Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in Eighteenth-Century South Asia (U California Press, 2023) explores the question of what it meant to be Hindu in precolonial South Asia. Divya …

Islamic Studies

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Interviews with scholars of Islam about their new books.

Nordic Asia Podcast March 17, 2023

Rethinking Community in Myanmar

Practices of We-Formation Among Muslims and Hindus in Urban Yangon

Judith Beyer

Hosted by Nordic Asia Podcast
Where does the concept of “community” come from? How does it shape the lives of Hindus and Muslims in metropolitan Yangon? And how do these people navigate between their ethno-religious …
Islamic Studies March 17, 2023

In the Shade of the Sunna

Salafi Piety in the Twentieth-Century Middle East

Aaron Rock-Singer

Hosted by Shehnaz Haqqani
Who are the Salafis, and what are the roots of Salafism? What does it even mean to be Salafi? Why is Salafism concerned with ethics of visibility and bodily regulation …
French Studies March 14, 2023

Sacred Rivals

Catholic Missions and the Making of Islam in Nineteenth-Century France and Algeria

Joseph W. Peterson

Hosted by Sarah Miles
Upon the French invasion of Algeria in 1830, the territory quickly became a placeholder for French dreams, debates, and experiments in social engineering, economic development and even religious culture. Missionaries …
Islamic Studies March 10, 2023

The Language of History

Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule

Audrey Truschke

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
In her layered and theoretically astute new book The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule (Columbia UP, 2021), Audrey Truschke documents and analyzes a range of Sanskrit texts …
Islamic Studies March 3, 2023

Unknowing and the Everyday

Sufism and Knowledge in Iran

Seema Golestaneh

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In her new ethnographic study Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran (Duke University Press, 2023), Seema Golestaneh guides her readers through processes and praxes of mystical experience and …
Political Science February 27, 2023

Beyond Piety and Politics

Religion, Social Relations, and Public Preferences in the Middle East and North Africa

Sabri Ciftci, F. Michael Wuthrich, and Ammar Shamaileh

Hosted by Lamis Abdelaaty
How do ordinary men and women in Muslim-majority societies create religion-informed views of political topics such as democracy and economics? Beyond Piety and Politics: Religion, Social Relations, and Public Preferences …
Sociology February 26, 2023

Jews and Muslims in the White Supremacist Conspiratorial Imagination

Ron Hirschbein and Amin Asfari

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
Supremacists imagine that Jews and Muslims secretly strive to replace white, European civilization with an unspeakable tyranny. The authors, a Jew and a Muslim, analyze the nature of the conspiracism …
Islamic Studies February 24, 2023

Everyday Islamic Law and the Making of Modern South Asia

Elizabeth Lhost

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Beginning in the late eighteenth century, British rule transformed the relationship between law, society, and the state in South Asia. But professionals, alongside ordinary people without formal training in law …
Islamic Studies February 17, 2023

Rebellious Wives, Neglectful Husbands

Controversies in Modern Qur'anic Commentaries

Hadia Mubarak

Hosted by Shehnaz Haqqani
In the excellent expansive book, Rebellious Wives, Neglectful Husbands: Controversies in Modern Qur'anic Commentaries (Oxford UP, 2022), Hadia Mubarak explores the many different interpretations of four Qur’anic verses: 4:128 on …
Asian Review of Books February 16, 2023

Jerusalem Falls

Seven Centuries of War and Peace

John D. Hosler

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
When the armies of the Rashidun Caliphate entered Jerusalem in 638, the city was quite different from what it is today–one of the most important cities for three religions. As …
Geography February 12, 2023

White Enclosures

Racial Capitalism and Coloniality Along the Balkan Route

Piro Rexhepi

Hosted by Dino Kadich
In White Enclosures: Racial Capitalism and Coloniality Along the Balkan Route (Duke UP, 2022), Piro Rexhepi explores the overlapping postsocialist and postcolonial border regimes in the Balkans that are designed to protect …
Islamic Studies February 10, 2023

A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures

Shahzad Bashir

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
In his innovative and conceptually ingenious new online, open-access, interactive book A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures (MIT Press, 2022), Shahzad Bashir invites his readers to rethink and …
Religion February 1, 2023

A Radical Pluralist Philosophy of Religion

Cross-Cultural, Multireligious, Interdisciplinary

Mikel Burley

Hosted by Tiatemsu Longkumer
A Radical Pluralist Philosophy of Religion: Cross-Cultural, Multireligious, Interdisciplinary (Bloomsbury, 2020) is a unique introduction to studying the philosophy of religion, drawing on a wide range of cultures and literary …
Jewish Studies February 1, 2023

Jews and the Qur'an

Meir M. Bar-Asher

Hosted by Drora Arussy
In this panoramic and multifaceted book, Meir Bar-Asher examines how Jews and Judaism are depicted in the Qur'an and later Islamic literature, providing needed context to those passages critical of …
Almost Good Catholics January 29, 2023

Apocalypse Past, Present, and Future

Thinking about the End in History and Culture

John Jeffries Martin

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec
Historian John Jeffries Martin traces narratives of the Apocalypse over the last 500 years in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions in his new book, A Beautiful Ending. This discussion …
Islamic Studies January 27, 2023

In and Out of This World

Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam

Stephen C. Finley

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
With In and Out of This World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam (Duke University Press, 2022), Stephen C. Finley, Inaugural Chair, Department of African and African …
Almost Good Catholics January 23, 2023

Catholic in Karachi

Living as a Christian in an Islamic Country

Ayyaz Gulzar

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec
Ayyaz Gulzar, journalist and Catholic youth leader in Pakistan, describes the challenges and persecutions the Church faces in the Islamic Republic, which includes the county’s blasphemy laws. He also talks …
Islamic Studies January 20, 2023

The Muslim Difference

Defining the Line Between Believers and Unbelievers from Early Islam to the Present

Youshaa Patel

Hosted by Shehnaz Haqqani
According to a famous prophetic report, “Whoever imitates a people becomes one of them.” What does “imitation” here mean? Rather, what does this statement really mean at all, and how …
Anthropology January 16, 2023

Voices That Matter

Kurdish Women at the Limits of Representation in Contemporary Turkey

Marlene Schäfers

Hosted by Armanc Yildiz
“Raise your voice!” and “Speak up!” are familiar refrains that assume, all too easily, that gaining voice will lead to empowerment, healing, and inclusion for marginalized subjects. Marlene Schäfers’s Voices …