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About Kristian Petersen

Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kpeterse@odu.edu.

NBN Episodes hosted by Kristian:

Islamic Studies April 15, 2022

Owning the Secular

Religious Symbols, Culture Wars, Western Fragility

Matt Sheedy

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
In Owning the Secular: Religious Symbols, Culture Wars, Western Fragility (Routledge, 2021), Matt Sheedy, Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Bonn, Germany, examines three case studies dealing with religious …
Islamic Studies March 25, 2022

Revolutionary Bodies

Technologies of Gender, Sex, and Self in Contemporary Iran

K. S. Batmanghelichi

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Gender and sexuality in modern Iran are frequently examined through the prisms of nationalist symbols and religious discourse. In Revolutionary Bodies: Technologies of Gender, Sex, and Self in Contemporary Iran …
Islamic Studies February 28, 2022

Opposing the Imam

The Legacy of the Nawasib in Islamic Literature

Nebil Husayn

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Islam's fourth caliph, Ali, can be considered one of the most revered figures in Islamic history. His nearly universal portrayal in Muslim literature as a pious authority obscures centuries of …
Islamic Studies December 3, 2021

Suspect Communities

Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror

Nicole Nguyen

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror (University of Minnesota Press, 2019) is a powerful reassessment of the U.S. government’s “countering violent extremism” (CVE) program that has …
Islamic Studies October 15, 2021

Elusive Lives

Gender, Autobiography, and the Self in Muslim South Asia

Siobhan Lambert-Hurley

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Muslim South Asia is widely characterized as a culture that idealizes female anonymity: women's bodies are veiled and their voices silenced. Challenging these perceptions, Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, University of Sheffield, highlights …
Islamic Studies October 8, 2021

Islam and the Devotional Object

Richard J. A. McGregor

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
In Islam and the Devotional Object: Seeing Religion in Egypt and Syria (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Richard J. A. McGregor, Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University, offers a history of Islamic …
Islamic Studies September 10, 2021

The Christian Encounter with Muhammad

How Theologians Have Interpreted the Prophet

Charles Tieszen

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Muhammad has not only been at the center of Muslims discussions of prophethood but he has also been the focus for many Christians as well. In The Christian Encounter with …
Islamic Studies August 13, 2021

Imagining Afghanistan

The History and Politics of Imperial Knowledge

Nivi Manchanda

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Over time and across different genres, Afghanistan has been presented to the world as potential ally, dangerous enemy, gendered space, and mysterious locale. These powerful, if competing, visions seek to …
Islamic Studies July 16, 2021

Islam Through Objects

Anna Bigelow et al.

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Islam through Objects (Bloomsbury, 2021) represents the state of the field of Islamic material cultural studies. With contributions from scholars of religion, anthropologists, art historians, folklorists, historians, and other disciplines …
Islamic Studies June 11, 2021

Islamophobia and the Novel

Peter Morey

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
In an era of rampant Islamophobia, literary representations of Muslims and anti Muslim bigotry tell us a lot about changing concepts of cultural difference. In Islamophobia and the Novel (Columbia …
Islamic Studies May 28, 2021

Quranic Schools in Northern Nigeria

Everyday Experiences of Youth, Faith, and Poverty

Hannah Hoechner

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
In a global context of widespread fears over Islamic radicalization and militancy, poor Muslim youth, especially those socialized in religious seminaries, have attracted overwhelmingly negative attention. In northern Nigeria, male …
Islamic Studies April 23, 2021

Fear in Our Hearts

What Islamophobia Tells Us about America

Caleb Iyer Elfenbein

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
In Fear In Our Hearts: What Islamophobia Tells Us about America (NYU Press, 2021), Caleb Iyer Elfenbein, Associate Professor at Grinnell College, examines Islamophobia in the United States, positing that …
Religion March 29, 2021

Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions

A Discussion with Stefania Travagnin

André Laliberté and Stefania Travagnin

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
The study of religion in China has a long history across a number of interrelated disciplines. In recent years, scholars have been reassessing past scholarship and synthesizing it in new …
Islamic Studies March 26, 2021

Islam and the Culture of Modern Egypt

From the Monarchy to the Republic

Mohammad Salama

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Egypt is often the focus of religious and political histories of early twentieth century. The striking hardening of nationalist and Islamic movements within Arab societies during this period is frequently …
Islamic Studies February 26, 2021

Terror Epidemics

Islamophobia and the Disease Poetics of Empire

Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Terrorism is a cancer, an infection, an epidemic, a plague. For more than a century, this metaphor has figured insurgent violence as contagion in order to contain its political energies …
Islamic Studies January 29, 2021

Muslim American City

Gender and Religion in Metro Detroit

Alisa Perkins

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
The call to prayer breaks the hustle and bustle of an urban sonic landscape in unique ways. For Muslims living in Hamtramck, Michigan broadcasting the adhān was one way of …
Islamic Studies December 31, 2020

Muhammad and the Empires of Faith

The Making of the Prophet of Islam

Sean Anthony

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Contemporary historians have searched for the historical Muhammad along many paths. In Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The Making of the Prophet of Islam (University of California Press, 2020) …
Islamic Studies October 30, 2020

Interrogating Secularism

Race and Religion in Arab Transnational Art and Literature

Danielle Haque

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
In many popular accounts of contemporary “Western” society there is an inherent contradiction between the principles underlying liberal secularism and Islam. This type of binary discourse about “religion” and “secular” …
Religion October 19, 2020

Jezebel Unhinged

Loosing the Black Female Body in Religion and Culture

Tamura Lomax

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
One of the central threads in the public discourse on Black womanhood is the idea of the “Jezebel.” This trope deems Black women and girls as dishonorable and sexually deviant …
Islamic Studies October 9, 2020

Al Rashid Mosque

Building Canadian Muslim Communities

Earle H. Waugh

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
In the early 20th-century Muslims, primarily with roots in Lebanon, began to settle in Canada’s interior plains. In 1938, the small community in Edmonton opened the first mosque in the …
Islamic Studies September 4, 2020

Aurangzeb

The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King

Audrey Truschke

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
For many, the history of the Mughal empire looms heavy over contemporary South Asian social imaginaries. The lightning rod figure within modern day myths about the past is the Mughal …
Islamic Studies August 14, 2020

With Stones in Our Hands

Reflections on Racism, Muslims and US Empire

Sohail Daulatzai and Junaid Rana

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
In this current moment it has become increasingly clear that US society is deeply entangled in racist policies and logics of white supremacy. While this affects numerous communities, anti-Muslim racism …
Religion August 5, 2020

Reimagining Hagar

Blackness and Bible

Nyasha Junior

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Popular culture helps shape how audiences imagine Biblical personalities in our contemporary moment. For many, Warner Sallman’s portrait of Jesus fixes him as white, others envision Moses as Charlton Heston …
Islamic Studies July 17, 2020

Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection

A Study of West African Arabic Madih Poetry and its Precedents

Oludamini Ogunnaike

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Around the world Muslims praise the Prophet Muhammad through the recitation of lyrical poetry. In West Africa, Arabic praise poetry has a rich history informed by local literary, spiritual, and …