Islam

Interrogating the Interrogators: Managing Muslims in Germany

Podcast
In this episode host Candace Mixon and guest Schirin Amir-Moazami discuss Amir-Moazami’s book, _Interrogating Muslims: The Liberal-Secular Matrix of Integration_ as a starting point in discussing topics such state categorizations of religion in the liberal state and considerations of religion and secularism. Through examples of German swimming classes and citizenship tests, Amir-Moazami suggests that in relational moments, there are places to look for state reinforcement of its own bodily needs and governing of subjects that cannot govern themselves.

Unruly Women: Neocolonialism, Race, and Discrimination

Podcast
For our first episode of Season 12, Falguni A. Sheth joins RSP editor Andie Alexander to discuss issues of liberalism, racial discrimination, religious freedom, and governance with regard to Muslim women of color and Black Muslim women in the US.

Does Critical Islam Make the Familiar Strange?

Response
In this response to our episode with Khurram Hussain, Matt Sheedy situates Hussain's work and outlines the usefulness of Hussain’s ‘critical humanist approach’. Sheedy then furthers the conversation by posing some questions about the implications of this approach and how it might translate to other disciplines.

The Critical Humanist Study of Islam

Podcast
What sort of discursive traps to we fall into when talking about 'Islam' or 'the West'? How might we reframe our discussions with a critical humanist approach? In this episode, Khurram Hussain joins Andie Alexander to discuss his recent book, The Muslim Speaks (Zed Books, 2020) explore the benefits of critically engaging these issues in a way that takes seriously the human-focused study of religion.

Religious Symbols, Secularism, and Culture Wars

Podcast
In this episode, Matt Sheedy joins RSP co-editor Andie Alexander to discuss his recent book Owning the Secular: Religious Symbols, Culture Wars, Western Fragility and unpack common assumptions about secularism and religion in the public sphere.

Islam, Politics, and Identity: The (Im)possibility of Sudan’s Islamic State

Podcast
Is the Islamic state simply a reaction against the modern secular nation-state, or is there more to it? Join us as Noah Salomon answers this question among many more as he talks about his book For Love of the Prophet: An Ethnography of Sudan's Islamic State.

It’s a kind of magic – Experiences with the Resisting Object

Response
"The body alone cannot deal with the language problem that we have," writes Alina Kokoschka in her response to our interview with Richard McGregor on images, aesthetics, and challenge of studying objects in Islam.

Following the Objects: Seeing Religion in Egypt and Syria

Podcast
Why do scholars of religion have such a variety of incomplete and messy tools to “follow the objects”? Find out with the curious stories of devotional objects from Cairo and Damascus as Candace Mixon speaks with Richard McGregor about Islam and the Devotional object.

Depicting the Undepictable: the word, the image, the divine and Islam

Response
"Aniconism and iconoclasm are inherent within" Islam, writes Joseph J. Kaminski in this response to episode 328. Scholars of Islam and Muslims alike should be wary of images and the ways in which they create "an artificial frame" for understanding religious encounters.

Challenging the Normative Stance of Aniconism in the Study of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Podcast
In this episode, Candace Mixon discusses aniconism with Birgit Meyer & Terje Stordalen. Would our normative assumptions about the absence of images in certain traditions be better served by turning to aesthetics?

When Religion Is Not Religion: Inside Religious Studies’ Fight for Religious Literacy in the Public Sphere

Response
As I listened to her interview about the book and its ramifications on the Religious Studies Project, I not only appreciated her balanced and thorough approach to this topic, but found myself wanting to focus on three points that she touched on in the talk: 1) the ways in which “religion” is defined in the public sphere; 2) whether or not we should listen to “fringe” Islamophobes and their rhetoric on religion; and 3) thinking about “when Christianity is not a religion.”

When Islam Is Not a Religion

Podcast
Asma Uddin is the author of When Islam Is Not a Religion: Inside America's Fight for Religious Freedom. In this book, Uddin examines an alarming trend to redefine Islam as a political ideology, not a religion. In our conversation, we track the history of this movement to redefine Islam and its implications for the rights of Muslims. We discuss the widespread presumption among American progressives that courts tend to protect religious freedom for Christians, but not for Muslims, and we examine particular stories that support and problematize that narrative. In particular, Uddin provides vivid examples of how American courts have reacted to arguments that Islam is not a religion.

Critical Approaches to Pre-Islamic Arabia and Early Islam

Podcast
Given the way in which many introductory courses present the history of early Islam and pre-Islamic Arabia, we may be tempted to think that the historical facts were well established and the narrative uncontested. However, this is far from the case. What evidence do we actually have from this period, and how may it challenge the conventional narratives that have become canonised in sacred and academic histories? What misconceptions might be challenged by modern epigraphic work, or the application of Social Identity theories to ancient texts? And why might this matter for contemporary Islam, contemporary Islamic Studies, and the critical study of religion more broadly? Joining Chris to discuss these questions, is Dr Ilkka Lindstedt of the University of Helsinki.

Discussing Pious Fashion and Muslim Dress Beyond the Headscarf

Podcast
In this discussion, we cover some key terms from Bucar's book, such as what Pious Fashion is, why it might be defined that way, and how it helps further a conversation about Muslim women beyond the veil. We discuss the differences in performing fieldwork for this project in Iran, Indonesia, and Turkey. Connecting this research to Islamophobia and Muslim experience in America, Liz Bucar reflects on how modesty has become more mainstream.

Discourse #5, February Edition: With Irene Oh and Carolyn Davis

Podcast
On this month's episode of Discourse, Dr. Irene Oh (Director of the Peace Studies Program, George Washington University) and Dr. Carolyn Davis (independent consultant) spoke with Ben Marcus about a few key stories in religion and public life from February.

Religious and Socio-Cultural Boundary Work in the Swiss Handshake Affair

Response
In Switzerland, immigrants are in general expected to ‘culturally and socially integrate’, while ethno-cultural differences are, at the same time, perceived as enriching and ethno-cultural identities and thus not totally expected to be abandoned.

The Therwil Affair: Handshakes in Swiss Schools

Podcast
In this podcast, taking place on the last day of the Annual EASR Conference in Bern, Dr Philipp Hetmanczyk and Martin Bürgin of Zurich University talk to Thomas White about the Therwil Affair, a controversy that emerged in 2016 after two Swiss Muslim schoolboys declined to shake hands with their female teacher.

Editors’ Picks, Summer 2018: The Resonance of Vestigial States

Response
During our "summer break", various members of the RSP editorial team will be sharing their thoughts on some podcasts from the RSP archive that they think you should listen to (again). Editors' Picks, if you will. These aren't necessarily 'favourites', but just some podcasts that came to mind that the author has found useful for whatever reason.

Muslim Superheroes

Podcast
A. Dave Lewis joins us again for a discussion of representations of Muslims in superhero comics. We talk about some positive representations, like Kamala Khan, Marvel's new Ms Marvel, and some less-than-positive portrayals, like Frank Millar's Holy Terror!

Muslims, NGOs, and the future of democratic space in Myanmar

Podcast
The critical situation of the Rohingyas has cast a shadow over Myanmar’s process of democratization and drawn attention to some aggressively un-civil sectors of this Buddhist majority country’s Muslim minority population. In this interview with Melissa Crouch, ...

Muslim NGOs and Civil Society in Morocco

Response
The Religious Studies Project inaugurates its series on “Religions and NGOS” with an investigation of Muslim NGOs in Indonesia and their contribution to the development of both a vibrant civil society as well as a successful democratic system.

Muslim NGOs and civil society in Indonesia

Podcast
While the service provision activities of some religious NGOs complement and enhance systems of low state capacity, in others they compete with state services and in still others service delivery by religious NGOs is associated...

Islamic Millennialism

Podcast
We may tend to think of millennialism as something typical of New Religious Movements and christian fundamentalism, but it has a long and interesting history in the Islamic world too. Rob Gleave, Professor of Arabic Studies at Exeter, takes us through the history of Islamic millennialism, ...

Paths to Sexual Ethics

Response
Paths need not be linear nor our place on them stagnant, rather we can draw from the past and draw it into the present moment, revisiting and revising as we ask new questions in enduring, and uniting, struggles over ethics in sexuality and beyond.

Sexual Ethics and Islam

Podcast
Sexual ethics and Islam? How might one begin to study such a vast and "problematic" topic? What are some of the most prescient issues that recur in this contested field? And what is the broader significance of this discussion for Religious Studies in general?

Science, Religion, and the Tyranny of Authenticity

Response
Fitting neatly within a complexity thesis tradition, Hameed employs what might be called normativizing nuance. By this I mean that by demonstrating the complexity/messiness of things “on the ground,” one version of a tradition can be delegitimized and/or another version of the tradition can be legitimized. In this sense, “Islam and science/evolution” has a great deal of resemblance to work on “Islam and violence.”

Religion, Science and Evolutionary Theory

Podcast
Science and evolution in Muslim societies is a complicated topic. Among the public, what does evolution mean? Whats does evolution stand for? Is there a 'Muslim view' on evolution? In this podcast, Stephen Jones interviews Salman Hameed about recent research on Muslim perceptions of science and evolution.

Radical experiences that can change worlds

Response
The observation that ideas are not inherently radical, but that the term is a relative one that involves comparisons to social norms, is of critical importance. The value judgments that we ascribe to ideas are not innate to them but are instead reflections of our own beliefs. These beliefs and norms vary between societies and over time within society.

Speaking about Radicalisation in the Public Sphere

Response
Francis rightly notes, radicalisation and violence are not necessarily linked: people can be what we call radicalised without becoming violent, while many people are violent without being seen as being radicalised. In the general discourse, particularly in the media, all these terms are often seen as somewhat synonymous, which raises the ever important question about the baggage these terms hold, and what is hidden rather than revealed in using them. Are the terms analytically useful? Or do they have some other utility, perhaps in terms of communicating ideas?

Conference report: “Religious Pluralisation—A Challenge for Modern Societies”

Response
A conference report for The Religious Studies Project by Ashlee Quosigk, a PhD student at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland on the “Religious Pluralisation—A Challenge for Modern Societies” Conference, which had an important and timely mission to identify innovative research approaches as well as broad political and social scopes of action to address religious plurality.

Making Space for the Better Book

Response
There is the perception that critical scholarship will not get a fair hearing, and there is a perception that theological or confessional scholarship is incapable of being fair. A number of years ago I attended a keynote lecture during a national religious studies conference at which an esteemed professor declared in exasperated tones; “What Have They Done To My Buddhism?!” The tension in the room, rising during his overtly confessional presentation, reached a silent crescendo at this exclamation. Even I, as a (very) junior scholar of religion, ...

Religious Studies as a Discipline

Podcast
Aaron Hughes (University of Rochester) has been a vocal critic of some of the theories and methods used by religious studies scholars working on Islam. In this podcast, he discusses his critique of the discipline and practice of religious studies he has made through works such as Situating Islam (Equinox, 2008), Theorizing Islam (Equinox, 2012), Abrahamic Religions (Oxford, 2012), The Study of Judaism (SUNY, 2013), and, most recently, Islam and the Tyranny of Authenticity (Equinox, 2015).

Report: 2015 Joint Conferences of the New Zealand and Australian Associations for the Study of Religion

Response
The biennial conference of the New Zealand Association for the Study of Religions (NZASR) and the annual conference of the Australian Association for the Study of Religions (AASR) were held together in Queenstown, New Zealand from December 8-10 2015. Interdisciplinary perspectives and theoretical approaches across the humanities and social sciences were evident in the wide-range of papers presented. Islam, and Asian religions more generally, were the most consistent objects of focus, perhaps unsurprising given Australasia’s proximity to Asia and recent increased media attention to the Islamic State.

New Religious Movements and Contemporary Discourses About Religion

Response
Increased attention to religion by international governments and NGOs has not necessarily resulted in less problematic models of religion being used by these governments and groups. As I listened to Susan Palmer’s RSP interview and read about her new co-authored book (with Stuart A. Wright) Storming Zion: Government Raids on Religious Communities (2015), I was reminded why NRMs make such useful case studies in the religious studies classroom. From a pedagogical perspective, ...

“Societies in Transition: Progression or Regression?” – BSA Conference Report

Response
“Societies in Transition: Progression or Regression?” British Sociological Association (BSA), University of Glasgow, 15-17 April 2015. Conference report for The Religious Studies Project by Rachel Hanemann. The British Sociological Association’s conference was held this year at the University of Glasgow. The conference theme was “Societies in Transition: Progression and Regression,...

Sufism is a paradox?

Response
While the tendency to think of Sufism as a kind of individualized or more private form of Islam is quite prevalent, the representation of Sufism as a form of 'peaceful Islam' or as a 'solution' to the 'problem' of radical Islam is equally pervasive. In his interview with the Religious Studies Project, Milad Milani gives a thoughtful overview of the tradition of Sufism, answering big questions such as: what is Sufism, how did it emerge historically (see Milani 2013),...

Sufism

Podcast
In this interview, Milad Milani discusses the basic orientation and history of Sufi thought. He also speaks about the diverse national variations of Sufism, particularly with respect to Iranian (or “Persianate”) Sufism. The interview concludes with a few critical remarks on the questionable appropriation of Sufism in contemporary Western discourses on religion.

At the Limits of Orientalism: The Politics and Problems of Labelling in the Career of Michael A. Cook

Response
Having so vigorously rocked the academic boat early in his career, Cook later changed tack gracefully when he realised that he had set a course in the wrong direction. Few scholars in the discipline of Islamic Studies could claim to be as qualified as Michael Cook to advise students on the matter of early career publications.

The Holberg Prize 2014 Episode With Michael Cook, “Bigger Things Do Rest On Smaller Things.”

Podcast
Professor Michael Cook, winner of the Holberg Prize 2014, has had a huge influence on the historical study of Islam. In this episode, Knut interviews Professor Cook about his decision to go into history in the first place, about his writing process, the role of the humanities, his reflections about teaching, and why he finds it so important to get the details right.

The Secular Reality

Response
"If, as [Douglas Pratt] is contending, we don’t want the “metaphysical dimension” and “stories” of religion at the personal as well as societal level, this is not persistence; this is a new phenomenon altering centuries of evolving theological trajectory." Douglas Pratt presents us with a most noble and worthwhile endeavor in his Religious Studies Project podcast entitled, The Persistence and Problem of Religion.

Religion as Vestigial States

Podcast
In this episode, Jonathan Tuckett is joined by Naomi R. Goldenberg, who argues that religions are formed in distinction to governmental ‘States’ and represent the last vestiges of the previous order and explores several examples of this as well as considering the implications of this distinction.

The Merits of Hybrid Theology

Response
Wiebe begins his interview by admitting that it may not be possible to clearly delineate religious studies and theology, an admirable concession which seems to lull the listener into the false belief that he is promulgating an understanding of the ‘dichotomy’ which understands the malleable nature of both academic disciplines and the relationship between them. Unfortunately, ...
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