Refereed Publications
Conceptualizing Islamic tattooing as marginal—as opposed to “conflicting” or “exterior”—clarifies that Islamic tattooing is not necessarily a break with or exit from tradition, but, rather, an embodied enactment of Islamic tradition.”
“Structuring Sports, Structuring Community: The Islamic Society of Chester County Debates a Basketball Court.” In Religion and Sports in North America: Critical Essays for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Randall Balmer and Jeffery Scholes. New York: Routledge, 2022. Co-authored with Megan Eaton Robb.
For members of the ISCC, sports offered a discursive space to express aspirations for and concerns about the community’s future. This chapter describes how basketball, important for several community members, served not only those who love sports but also those who care little for it. For all members, sports were a space to consider local challenges, diasporic experience, and intergenerational tensions.”
“Ayat Al Kursi Round.” Material and Visual Cultures of Religion Journal 6, no. 2 (2022).
Crowned by the word “Allah,” a dense piece of Arabic calligraphy carved out of stainless steel wraps around an embellished center. The text is the ayat al-kursī, or “The Throne Verse,” a portion of the Qur’an (2:256) often recited before sleep or travel because of its reputation for spiritual and physical protection.
Reviews
“Stephen C. Finley: In and Out of This World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam. Duke University Press, 2022.” Material Religion.”(forthcoming)
In and Out of This World by Stephen Finley is an eye-opening and sharp reassessment of Nation of Islam (NOI) discourse that offers wide-ranging interventions in the study of Black religions, Islam in the Americas, and material religion.”
“Sophia Rose Arjana: Buying Buddha, Selling Rumi: Orientalism and the Mystical Marketplace. Oneworld Academic, 2020.” American Journal of Islam and Society 39, no. 3-4 (2022), 198-2020.”
In this topically and theoretically eclectic project, Sophia Rose Arjana analyzes the way that religious consumption perpetuates Orientalism.”
Building on his creative engagement with Jawi manuscripts, and wide-ranging scholarship on Sufism, Islamic material culture, and Islam in South and Southeast Asia, Sevea demonstrates how these extraor-dinary figures manifested Islamic tradition and shaped colonial labor practices, and show how the Sufi networks, local forms of life, and labor contingencies in which these Islamic miracle workers were enmeshed animated their Islamic practice and impacted modern Malaya.”
Less a handrail and more a special exhibit on a neglected yet influential artist, this handbook translates the world of Silvan Tomkins for contemporary scholars and charts new routes for affect theorists.”
Non-Refereed Publications
Any scholarly engagement with ‘religion’ will benefit from critical frameworks from religious studies and overlapping fields. Rather than take for granted categories of difference, critical scholarship analyzes the social processes that shape the embodiment of race, gender, and ability. So too should scholars interrogate what they mean by “religion” and how they deploy the category.”
The Muslim fish hoagie lies at the intersection of the cheesesteak, the hoagie, and the Nation of Islam. Chopped fried whiting, melted American cheese, and crunchy vegetables overflow from a long roll that tests the circumference of your mouth. If this doesn’t already scream “Philly,” the cheesesteak-esque chopped fish reminds you which city you’re in.”
The collaboration and camaraderie of working on Unstable Archives this summer felt like monsoons after a drought. As anticipated, I acquired or deepened all sorts of skills and helped produce a deliverable of which I’m proud. What I hadn’t seen coming was how the relationships integral to this labor helped heal my academic body after a year-plus of toiling mostly alone.”
Perhaps what is most exciting to me about Jaber’s presentation is that where suspicion turned citizens away from the state in Agrama’s case study, thereby enabling sovereign encroachment, Awalem Khafeya turns viewers away from religious institutions. The work that suspicion does in these two case studies is flipped. It is as if the secular state identified the Agrama’s “asecular” spaces and targeted them in media.”
“Have We Ever Been Secular? (Im)materiality in Fernando’s ‘Supernatureculture,’” Mat Sec Blog, 2020.
Yet, Fernando notes that many of these recent attempts to re-entangle the human and non-human world have limited their purview to the visible material world, especially that contingent to humans. In these studies, ghosts, jinn, and other supernatural entities evade significance.”
“Illuminating the Divine: Behnaz Karjoo’s ‘Immanence’ at Twelve Gates Arts,” The Maydan, 2020.
The microscopically delicate floral and yellow gold designs demanded I draw so close as to almost breathe on them…When I did defy the normal etiquette of distanced viewing, I encountered a world of complex detail hidden by the work’s minuscule scale—like focusing on part of a kaleidoscope only to realize that portion is itself another infinitely unfolding kaleidoscope.”
“Inheriting More Than Nanny’s Sari Trunk: Nandini Chirimar at 12 Gates Arts,” Kajal Mag, 2017.
Mixing sparse monotone drawings, mixed-media pieces, and treasured yet mundane family items, Chirimar explores the “wills” that our family imparts to us through objects and the memories associated with them. Ultimately, the show provides insight into family material cultures and the memories we inherit.”
