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About Shobhana Xavier

I am a religious studies assistant professor based in Kingston (Turtle Island/Canada). I am interested in Islamic Studies broadly, but I think and write on Sufism, especially in North America and South Asia (Sri Lanka). I also teach courses on race and religion, religion and popular culture, gender and religion, ethnography, and Islam in Canada.

Shobhana Xavier is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Queen’s University. More details about her research and scholarship may be found here and here. She may be reached at shobhana.xavier@queensu.ca. You can follow her on Twitter via @shobhanaxavier.

Shobhana's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Shobhana:

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 …
Islamic Studies January 6, 2023

An Evening with a Sufi

Afsar Mohammad

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Afsar Mohammad's An Evening with a Sufi (Red River, 2022) is a collection of Afsar's Telugu poems translated into to English by Asfar and Shamala Gallagher. The stunning poems in the collection capture the …
Islamic Studies November 11, 2022

The Muslims of Latin America and the Caribbean

Ken Chitwood

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Ken Chitwood’s book The Muslims of Latin America and the Caribbean (Lynn Rienner Publishers Inc, 2021) is a provocation to its readers to include Latin American and Caribbean Muslim histories …
Islamic Studies October 14, 2022

Three Centuries of Travel Writing by Muslim Women

Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Daniel Majchrowicz, and Sunil Sharma

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Daniel Majchrowicz, and Sunil Sharma's edited anthology Three Centuries of Travel Writing by Muslim Women (Indiana University Press 2022) is a collection of travel writings from the late 19th century …
Islamic Studies September 16, 2022

Islam and Anarchism

Relationships and Resonances

Mohamed Abdou

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In his new book Islam and Anarchism: Relationships and Resonances (Pluto Press, 2022), Mohamed Abdou reimagines the parameters of political Islam and the possibilities of anarchistic interpretation of Islam and Islamic interpretation …
Islamic Studies May 27, 2022

Sorcery or Science?

Contesting Knowledge and Practice in West African Sufi Texts

Ariela Marcus-Sells

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In Sorcery or Science? Contesting Knowledge and Practice in West African Sufi Texts (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2022) Ariela Marcus-Sells examines two Sufi Muslim theologians, known as Kunta scholars …
Islamic Studies April 29, 2022

Under Siege

Islamophobia and the 9/11 Generation

Jasmin Zine

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In her new book Under Siege: Islamophobia and the 9/11 Generation (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022) Jasmin Zine explores the experiences of Canadian Muslim youth as they navigate the landscape of …
Islamic Studies April 1, 2022

Hajj to the Heart

Sufi Journeys Across the Indian Ocean

Scott Kugle

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In his new book, Hajj to the Heart: Sufi Journeys Across the Indian Ocean (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) and is available as an open-access enhanced edition, Scott Kugle follows …
Islamic Studies March 4, 2022

Producing Islams(s) in Canada

On Knowledge, Positionality, and Politics

Amélie Barras, Melanie Adrian, and Jennifer A. Selby

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In Producing Islam(s) in Canada: On Knowledge, Positionality and Politics (University of Toronto, 2021), Amélie Barras, Jennifer Selby, and Melanie Adrian bring together twenty-nine interdisciplinary scholars of all levels to …
Islamic Studies February 4, 2022

Sisters in the Mirror

A History of Muslim Women and the Global Politics of Feminism

Elora Shehabuddin

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Elora Shehabuddin’s new book Sisters in the Mirror: A History of Muslim Women and the Global Politics of Feminism (University of California Press, 2021), traces the genealogy of the representation …
Islamic Studies November 5, 2021

Minarets on the Horizon

Muslim Pioneers in Canada

Murray Hogben

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Minarets on the Horizon: Muslim Pioneers in Canada (Mawenzi House 2021) by Murray Hogben is an incredible archive of some of the early Muslim settlers in Canada. The book is …
Islamic Studies October 1, 2021

Believing in South Central

Everyday Islam in the City of Angels

Pamela J. Prickett

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Believing in South Central: Everyday Islam in the City of Angels (University of Chicago Press, 2021) by Pamela J. Prickett is an ethnographic study of an African American Muslim community …
Islamic Studies September 17, 2021

Muslims in the Movies

A Global Anthology

Kristian Petersen

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Kristian Petersen’s new edited volume Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (Ilex Foundation and Harvard University Press, 2021), introduces the subject of Muslims and film. The volume contains nineteen …
Islamic Studies July 23, 2021

Narrative Pasts

The Making of a Muslim Community in Gujarat, C. 1400-1650

Jyoti Gulati Balachandran

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Jyoti Gulati Balachandran's Narrative Pasts: The Making of a Muslim Community in Gujarat, c. 1400-1650 (Oxford University Press, 2020) explores the complex power of Sufi texts in creating Muslim communities in …
Islamic Studies June 25, 2021

O Humankind

Surah Ya-Sin

Cemalnur Sargut

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
O Humankind Surah Ya-Sin (Fons Vitae, 2021) is compiled by Cemalnur Sargut, who is a Sufi teacher based in Turkey and has been translated into English by Victoria Rowe Holbrook. The compilation …
Islamic Studies May 21, 2021

The Translator of Desires

Poems

Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In this ground-breaking work, Michael Sells (the Barrows Professor Emeritus of the History and Literature of Islam and Professor emeritus of comparative literature at the University of Chicago) translates sixty-one …
Islamic Studies April 30, 2021

Esoteric Islam in Modern French Thought

Massignon, Corbin, Jambet

Ziad Elmarsafy

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In his new book Esoteric Islam in Modern French Thought: Massignon, Corbin, Jambet (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2021) Ziad Elmarsafy maps the intellectual and personal genealogies of three French specialists of …
Islamic Studies April 2, 2021

Ambient Sufism

Ritual Niches and the Social Work of Musical Form

Richard C. Jankowsky

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Ambient Sufism: Ritual Niches and the Social Work of Musical Form (University of Chicago Press, 2021) by Richard C. Jankowsky (an Associate Professor of music at Tufts University) is a …
Islamic Studies March 5, 2021

Book of Wings

Tawhida Tanya Evanson

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Book of Wings (Esplanade Books, 2021) is a stunningly mesmerizing debut novel by Tawhida Tanya Evanson. It follows the journey of the protagonist Maya across vast geographies, such as Canada …
Islamic Studies February 5, 2021

Ms. Marvel's America

No Normal

Jessica Baldanzi and Hussein Rashid

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In their co-edited volume, Ms. Marvel’s America: No Normal (University Press of Mississippi, 2020), Jessica Baldanzi and Hussein Rashid focus on the superhero Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan. The first Muslim …
Islamic Studies January 8, 2021

Say What Your Longing Heart Desires

Women, Prayer and Poetry in Iran

Niloofar Haeri

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer & Poetry in Iran (Stanford University Press, 2020) by Niloofar Haeri is a stunning and absorbing ethnography of the lived ritual experiences …
Islamic Studies December 11, 2020

Witness to Marvels

Sufism and Literary Imagination

Tony K. Stewart

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In Tony K. Stewart’s book, Witness to Marvels: Sufism and Literary Imagination (University of California Press, 2019), we are taken into the imaginal realms of ogres, fairies, Sufi pirs and …
Islamic Studies November 27, 2020

Muslim Women's Rights

Contesting Liberal-Secular Sensibilities in Canada

Tabassum Fahim Ruby

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Muslim Women’s Rights: Contesting Liberal-Secular Sensibilities in Canada (Routledge 2019) By Tabassum Fahim Ruby follows the legal debates and public discussions that surrounded the proposed shari‘ah tribunals in Canada from …
Islamic Studies November 13, 2020

The Sufi Paradigm and the Makings of a Vernacular Knowledge in Colonial India

The Case of Sindh (1851–1929)

Michel Boivin

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
The Sufi Paradigm and the Makings of a Vernacular Knowledge in Colonial India: The Case of Sindh (1851-1929) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) by Michel Boivin maps the construction of a vernacular …