Another round of lectures on World Religions!

It has been a busy month! I last posted in early July with an online lecture, “Introduction to Religious Studies,” offered through Pitkin County Senior Services in Aspen, CO. In the past month I completed additional lectures on Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Sufism. The embedded links are to these videos on YouTube, and you can also access them through Pitkin County Senior Services list of activities.

These lectures have been really fun to create. Squeezing as much as possible into a 30-40 minute presentation is a great challenge, even if for every piece content included, there are 100+ things excluded. My hope is that these lectures provide a starting point for anyone interested in learning about world religions. I’ve included a slide at the end of each presentation featuring “additional readings,” for further study.

As I said, there are more lectures in the works, stay tuned for the next group!

Lecture series through Pitkin County Senior Services

I am happy to announce that the first of several lectures introducing religious studies as a field, as well as talking about some different religious traditions, is now available online. Below are links to the Pitkin County Senior Services website (where you can browse through the different offerings), and then my “Intro to Religious Studies” lecture is available via YouTube.

In the coming weeks I will be completing general introductory lectures on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with one more specific lecture on Sufism. Lectures are all 30-45 minutes long, and include information on each tradition’s history, key institutions, rituals, holidays, and demographics. Each presentation also contains an “additional reading” section. The goal for each lecture is to provide an introductory presentation to a 101-level college course.

My colleague, Thomas DeZauche, is completing presentations on Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and indigenous traditions from North America. Once completed, these presentations will provide a nice survey for anyone interested in learning about religious traditions from around the world.

Enjoy!

https://www.pitkinseniors.com/virtual-events--activities.html  

https://youtu.be/HB23ioPrCSM

P.S. I will post to my website as more and more of the presentations become available online.

Teaching Through the Pandemic

In the past month teachers and students all over the world have made the transition from face-to-face to online learning. Of course, online learning has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, becoming much more common place than a “few” years ago when I was a college student. In my particular case, I am teaching four courses this semester – two sections of World Religions, one of Introduction to Philosophy, and then World Mythology. The first three were already online to begin with, so there were no changes to the format for me or my students. My mythology students, on the other hand, had to make a significant change to the way they were going to learn. The current situation with the global pandemic is truly unique, and I have worked to incorporate it within my teaching when appropriate.

For example, for my Intro to Philosophy course, I had prepared discussion prompts for the various philosophers we cover each week. I thought it would be relevant to ask my students to speculate on how people like Kant and Marx would have commented on our society’s response to the pandemic. Concerning personal freedom vs. collective responsibility, where does the “categorical imperative” take us when we look at stay-at-home orders and the ensuing protests? What kinds of evaluations can we make using a critique of the means of production and the inequitable suffering from the pandemic based on socio-economic class? The pandemic has been heartbreaking in so many ways, but I have to admit that for once I knew that my students would have some knowledge of an important event, and thus I felt comfortable asking for their opinion in an assignment. Similarly, when a colleague of mine put together a website cataloging how religious communities were responding to the pandemic, I shared this with my World Religions classes and asked them to comment. This didn’t produce much in terms of discussion on our weekly threads, but at least it is there for them to investigate, and I can plan on integrating it in my syllabus from the beginning of the semester next time around.

There are so many times where I want to make a connection between material I am covering in class and the students’ daily lives. After all, without an avenue to apply this knowledge and these critical thinking skills, what is it all for? To use a baseball analogy, sometimes I hit a virtual home run...while other times it is more of a foul ball, or even a straight up swing-and-a-miss. My friends and I talk about how our pop culture references suddenly don’t yield any response from the students, and then we have to think about other ways to make the same kind of point. Since I really want to engage with my students, I know that unless I meet them where they are – including in the realm of their popular culture references – that most of what I say will probably just pass by them. This is a lost opportunity. I have to strike a balance between playing to the ever increasing emphasis on the present cultural moment, and cultivating a more nuanced understanding of the past. Far more important than any content that I teach (well, except for my beloved Mughal dynasty - that they have to learn about!) are the skills that I aim to foster in my courses. Critical thinking, the ability to read, speak, and write with a bit more sensitivity, and encouraging them to question the world around them; this is the most important thing that I want for my students.

Teaching Intro to Philosophy!

This semester I will be teaching a new course - “Intro to Philosophy.” As I continue to teach within the Philosophy department at UC-Colorado Springs, I have greatly enjoyed getting to stretch a bit beyond my training in Religious Studies. The undergraduate introductory course is important for any discipline, where we basically tell our students (most of whom are studying the subject at the college level for the very first time) what this entire enterprise is all about. Is there more to studying philosophy then learning about Plato? Yes. Is it still important to study Plato? Yes. I know that coming from a related but different discipline means that I may bring a different set of questions and priorities to the course, and I think that this will open up for lots of robust discussions with the students during the semester head. I will be posting reflections on this course in the coming months, but I look forward to learning through teaching - it really is the best way to learn!

Origin Stories - Back at FRCC, 10 years later

This past week I started teaching a course titled “World Mythology” at Front Range Community College (FRCC) in Westminster, CO. This is a very exciting class for several reasons. First, much of my research centers on poking holes in the constructed categories that many of us (myself included) use day in and day out without too much thought. I am looking forward to lots of conversations with my students discussing how, where, and why we draw the line between myth and religion - especially where we see differences of opinion. Second, FRCC was the first place where I taught college-level courses. I had the good fortune of meeting two FRCC faculty members in a course on Islam that I taught through Naropa University’s Extended Studies program, and afterwards I was invited to teach Arabic at FRCC. That then turned into teaching Comparative Religions, History of Islamic Civilization, and a Humanities survey course. All that teaching experience was wonderful, especially as I was so young at the time! I still look back at those first few years teaching at FRCC and think about how much I learned working with those students. It was truly life changing, and convinced me that I wanted to work in education. That same teaching experience was also great for my resume, and helped me in applying for a full-time teaching job at CU-Boulder, and then going on for my PhD at UNC Chapel Hill. This past spring I showed up for “new faculty orientation,” and it was so much fun walking through the same hallways, running into so many folks I used to work with, and telling them the good news that I will be around again a couple days a week. Perhaps I can find an old FRCC faculty ID card and compare it with my new one…now THAT would be a great before/after comparison!

OpEd piece in Boulder Daily Camera: "Muslims Have Been Here For Centuries"

Our local newspaper, the Boulder Daily Camera, has been the site for an exchange of opinions these last few weeks regarding Muslims in America. It started with Quentin Young’s editorial piece on July 21, and continued with Frank Walsh’s rejoinder on July 31st. My contribution was published on August 4th, under the title “Muslims Have Been Here For Centuries.” Here is a link to the piece: http://boulderdailycamera.co.newsmemory.com/?publink=1f189a06b

As a scholar trained in the study of religion, with special emphasis on studying Islam, I feel it is important for me to contribute to public discourse in my community. I look forward to exploring more opportunities to contribute in the near future. Whether in the classroom, local newspaper, or elsewhere, I hope to add a bit more nuance and complexity to debates that stray towards the overly reductive and simplistic. Tossing in a bit of actual history is always good too.

"These aren't the papers you're looking for": Looking back at Denver Pop Culture Con 2019

A few weeks ago I had the amazing opportunity to participate in Denver Pop Culture Con 2019, gathering with thousands of people to talk about the movies, TV shows, comics, and yes, COSTUMES that we all love. For me, this was a welcome foray into a venue that is really all about the public. Regardless of where we live or what we do to making a living, walking around the convention center, it was all about appreciating who had the best costume or knew the most about a given movie, TV show, or book. As someone who has spent the last five years participating in academic conferences, this was such an enjoyable experience!

First of all, I got to spend a few days with an old friend, Chad Federwitz. I have known Chad since we both we at Naropa, and I was honored when he and our mutual friend, TJ, invited me to join a panel they did last year at Denver Pop Culture Con on religion and the Jedi Order. Their panel last year looked at Buddhist and Daoist influences/resonances with the Jedi Order, and this year we expanded things to include Sufism. At the last minute, TJ was called to go on a spiritual retreat to Japan, so Chad and I handled things by ourselves. Our other panel was what I like to call a “light Marxist critique” of the Star Wars franchise. Chad and I talked about how the Star Wars movies, books, comics, and TV series invite the audience to identify with the downtrodden and oppressed, but we wanted to point out some ways in which the Resistance/Rebellion is not quite as “free” as we might want it to be. Also…people in the audience wanted to talk about how Disney was the equivalent of the Evil Empire/First Order, so that was a fun dynamic to negotiate. I’m already looking forward to attending (and hopefully participating) next year. With it being an election year, I think some good discussion and critique of the equivalences that some folks want to draw between particular political parties and “sides” of the conflict in the Star Wars universe would be particularly appropriate. So much deconstruction to do!

Lastly, I have to saw that one of most enjoyable parts of speaking at this gathering was that I didn’t feel like I was performing. That might sound strange, given that many of the other participants were literally in costume, but in the past when I have spoken at AAR or MESA, I can’t help but feel like I’m supposed to put on armor and wade into battle as some type of superhero academician, all-knowing, all-confident, etc. Some of that pressure comes from being in the precarious position of a graduate student and contingent faculty member, but it’s also true that there are a lot of egos crowding the room at academic conferences, and beyond the pressure to do a good job presenting your paper, there are the added expectations of networking and job searching. In attending Denver Pop Culture Con 2019, I really focused on hanging out with my friends, sharing some ideas and listening to what the audience thought, and just soaking it all up the wonderful atmosphere.

I’m taking the rest of 2019 off from academic conferences, but I am sure I will be back in 2020 and beyond. When I do get back to those spaces, I will be sure to take some of the Pop Culture Con vibe with me. Also, perhaps a light saber…:)

Comic Con pix!

Chad and I…looking far too serious at our first panel!

Two great Jedi Knights, ready to attend our panel on Buddhism, Daoism, Sufism, and Star Wars!

Not sure these guys would be able to handle crewing the Rocinante from The Expanse, but props to their “Pur’n’Clean” uniforms, and for organizing a panel on my favorite current sci-fi show!

All credit to local Denver LEGO master and “Brickitect” Ken Klock for putting together this amazing rendition of the Imperial shield generator from Return of the Jedi. What this photo doesn’t show is that the wings on the Imperial shuttle actually moved up and down. Wow!

Probably my favorite cosplay from Pop Culture Con - Ahsoka Tano, complete with her twin light sabers! Photo Credit to Sarah aka Miss Marvel/She-Ra.

Denver Culture Con 2019, here we come!

In a few days I will speak on two panels at Denver Culture Con 2019 (formerly known as Denver Comic Con). This is an exciting opportunity to have more public facing conversations than are usually possible (or welcome) at the run of the mill academic conference.

The first panel is titled, “Why Supporting Star Wars Helps the Empire, not the Resistance,” and takes place on Friday, May 31, 2:30-3:20 p.m. in Room 704/706 at the Denver Convention Center. Here is the abstract:

“Star Wars is one of the most popular franchises around the world, spawning films, TV series, books, comics, and – by some accounts – a new religious movement. Whether labeled as the Rebellion or Resistance, viewers are consistently invited to identify with the downtrodden and oppressed in every book, film, or TV series. However, this identification with the oppressed belies the reality in which the SW universe itself is a powerful force driving us to consume SW media and related products. These modes of production and consumption do nothing to address the deep inequalities that exist IRL. To the contrary, consuming the SW universe does more to empower the neoliberal capitalist "Evil Empire" than it does any type of Resistance. Through examining the tension between the ideals promoted by the SW universe and the effects of fans’ consumption of that universe, audience members will critique their own relationship to this much beloved universe.”

The second panel is titled “The Jedi Religion: Sufi, Daoist, and Buddhist Themes and the Jedi Order,” and takes place on Saturday, June 1st, from 2:30-3:20 p.m., in Rooms 704/706. Yes, that’s right, the panels are at the SAME TIME and in the SAME PLACE, just one day apart. This means that I have no excuse not to get to the second panel on time!

Here is the abstract for the second panel:

“Many researchers, writers, and fans alike, lay claim to the Jedi, insisting that the Jedi Order is basically Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, etc. The Jedi, however, are not Muslim or Buddhist, or any other modern religion, they are Jedi. George Lucas has pointed to numerous religious influences in his stories, yet many want to put Yoda or Qui-Gon Jin in a particular camp of religious influence. In this talk, we will explore possible influences and parallels between the Jedi Order and Sufi, Buddhist and Daoist religion/philosophy. Using source material taken from the “official canon,” we will search for common ground between the Jedi Order and three rich and diverse religious traditions. We hope that this presentation will provide participants with greater knowledge of these three world traditions, and how they might connect to the world(s) of Star Wars and the Jedi Order.”

Click here for the full schedule, as well as information on buying tickets.

Check back for my after action report, which will be sure to include some great photos of people dressed up as their favorite scfi-fi/fantasy characters!

Studying Philosophy and Religion...all that different?

After completing three degrees in religious studies (BA, MTS, PHD), this year I find myself teaching in a philosophy department. In the particular case of UC Colorado Springs (UCCS), there is no formal religious studies program on campus, and the philosophy department is the place where the study of religion has found a proverbial home. After visiting campus for the first time a few weeks ago (see my earlier blog post) and meeting some of the philosophy faculty, I have to say I didn’t feel out of place at all. After all, the dividing line between these two disciplines is largely arbitrary, and can be traced to particular social and cultural histories in European and North American academies. Especially after attending Harvard Divinity School, which some forget is technically a seminary, I came to appreciate how many subjects philosophers and theologians have in common, and how religious studies as an academic discipline overlaps with both while also retaining some space of its own. At dinner with my colleagues, I was amazed at how many people told me about their love for teaching al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Ibn Sina (the name I prefer to the Latin transliteration, Avicenna, but that’s a different blog post).

I developed a course called Islamic Philosophy for UCCS this semester, and will be teaching another course called Modern Islamic Philosophy in the fall. So far, the syllabus each course (one in progress and one under development) is not that different from a course I took at Harvard called…wait for it…”Islamic Philosophy and Theology.” Reading al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Mulla Sadra, Sayyid Ahmed Khan, Muhammad `Abdu, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Said Qutb, and so forth in one department vs. another is not that different, especially at the undergraduate level. True, most of my students at UCCS have taken philosophy courses before, and have more familiarity with Aristotle than you would expect from the typical 21 year old in the United States, but almost none of them have read anything from Islamic intellectual history before, so that previous knowledge only serves them when the authors we cover in class address the Greek “classical” writers. The rest of the time, I have to explain everything else the same way I would when teaching this material in a religious studies department.

In terms of scholarship, my training and specialization is in studying texts, analyzing them in order to produce new insights — either because no one else has looked at the texts in question for a very long time, or because I seek to make an intervention in the current scholarly discourse surrounding the subjects that these texts address. So, studying Indian divination techniques known as “the science of the breath” (Persian: `ilm-i dam), brings up these challenging questions - how do we draw the boundaries between science, religion, and magic? How do those boundaries shift from one historical or cultural context to another? What happens when we take boundaries generated in a particular context and apply them to another without adjusting for different political and religious sensibilities? What role does colonization and Orientalism play in the way that knowledge from non-European cultures has been received, interpreted, and marginalized - especially over the past 300 years? These are all questions that I know I can pursue in cooperation with this band of philosophers with whom I now find myself joined.

In truth, after spending five years immersed in a religious studies program, it has been a breath (ha!) of fresh air to change gears. I’m reminded of my undergraduate institution, Macalester College (Go Scots!), where the Departments of Religious Studies and Philosophy shared the same floor in Old Main, and I was known to bother professors from either department if they left the door open…inviting me to stop by and ask questions. In addition to religious studies, I also majored in classics, and read some of these ancient philosophers in the original Greek.

This is all to say that in my experience, a scholar of religion teaching in a philosophy department is no “stranger in a strange land” situation. Instead, I think it is a real opportunity for growth. I get to talk to people who have spent a lot of time analyzing texts, but also considering other approaches to knowledge (embodiment and visual/material culture especially). We sit, we think, we ask questions. We want to know more, understand more, question more. Sounds like “love of wisdom” (philo-sophia) to me.

Redefining Presence...while Teaching Online

This past fall I started a new part-time teaching gig, teaching world religions and Islamic philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs. The trick was that the semester started in August, while I was not going to move back to Colorado until October…sooooo, I started teaching online. I have taught online before, but that was in 2009, and I was curious to see different the experience would be.

Currently on my third online course at UCCS, I can say definitively that I am enjoying the experience, in large part because the students are very engaged. Just like traditional “brick and mortar” classes, there is always the possibility of a few students who are not very active in class and do not prepare. But the vast majority are clearly doing the work, and even going beyond the participation expectations that I have set for the course. As someone who continues to work at establishing a daily writing practice, sometimes I am amazed at how many words per day I produce through participating on discussion threads and correspondence with my students. Beyond typing constantly, I am also learning to take advantage of all of the wonderful audio/video features so that students hear my voice, see my face, and generally appreciate that they are working with a real life person on the other end of the screen. And still…it is just so different from standing in front of a lecture hall or sitting at a table in a seminar. Being in person, I pay attention to students’ body language, facial expressions, as well their questions and comments. Teaching online, there is a serious disembodiment factor that I think still merits quite a bit of attention.

I recently had the opportunity to visit UCCS for the first time to participate in the department’s external review process (see awesome mountain lion statue below!), and I was struck by how excited I was to tell my students that they could meet me in person. A colleague in the department lent me his office, so instead of meeting students over Skype or talking over the phone, I got to be present with them IRL, as the kids say. In these conversations, it struck me how much laughter there was in the room - using humor judiciously is a major part of my teaching style, and it is one of the things that I miss the most about being in a physical classroom. But perhaps there are other ways to approach this issue.

The first would be stop trying to make online teaching somehow equivalent to traditional teaching. So much of the technological innovations around audio and video are designed to make it easier to connect teachers and students in a way that mimics being together in person. These are wonderful adaptations, and I will continue to learn how to use them more effectively, but I also think that it is important to acknowledge that online education is a different realm. Especially for courses that are asynchronous, meaning that there is not a “live” connection where I am sitting at my computer at the same time as my students, there are incredible benefits in terms of flexible scheduling and increased access. When my schedule is disrupted by things like a child home sick from school, or an interminable trip to the DMV, I’m not that stressed because I know that I can log on and respond to my students at any time of day or night, and they can too.

I put in the effort to provide extensive feedback on assignments so that students know that I take their work seriously. I would do this in a traditional course, but with teaching online, this feedback is even more important because there are no other ways for me to connect with my students. There is no equivalent to a friendly wave when our paths cross on campus. There is no opportunity for chitchat about last night’s basketball game. Instead, I find that all of my interaction is very business oriented, dealing with course content, fielding questions about assignments, and doing all. that. grading.

Something I would like to learn more about is how this all feels from the student side. Given how busy undergraduates are, juggling school, multiple jobs, family commitments, and life’s daily grind - what do they think about online vs. traditional courses? Especially at schools where there is a mixture of the two, and there are often students taking both types of courses simultaneously. This is a question I’m going to pursue with my students this semester, and hopefully have some type of meaningful data to write about in May when the semester is over.

Perhaps the longer I teach exclusively online, the more normalized this will all become. I do have to admit, I don’t miss struggling to get ready for work, worrying if I have my power point saved to the right USB drive, finding parking in the morning, and finishing teaching only to remember that I didn’t have time to eat breakfast, and now I have to splurge at the campus food court to buy lunch when I’m trying to stick to a tight budget (grad student habits never die). Maybe I will start holding occasional class sessions on Second Life, so I can really see my students (albeit in the form of their digital avatars), or I will double-down on platforms like Web-Ex to do more live video conferencing. But maybe I will just accept that this is a different kettle of fish, and find a different way to tell all of the jokes I have built up over the years.

AAR 2018!

As always, I am excited to attend the annual American Academy of Religion (AAR - https://www.aarweb.org/annual-meeting) conference. This year it is in Denver, Colorado (so close to home!), running from November 17-20, 2018. I will be presenting a paper entitled “Bodies in Translation: Esoteric Conceptions of the Muslim Body in Early-modern South Asia” as part of the Material Islam seminar. The theme for this year’s session was the body, and I was thrilled that the organizers accepted my proposal. My paper draws on one of my dissertation chapters, in which I analyze how the esoteric breathing practices known in Persian as `ilm-i dam (“the science of the breath”) complicate our understanding of religious boundaries in South Asia. I am looking forward to reconnecting with friends and colleagues during the conference. If you’re interested in hearing more, come sit in on the panel! We meet on Monday, November 19th, 9:00-11:30 a.m., Denver Convention Center-707 (street level). As a teaser, here is a key quote from one of the manuscripts I discuss in the paper, along with a photo of the folio from which this quote is taken:

“First, that the entire human body is held together with veins (rig-ha).

It is necessary that one of these veins has information (khabar).

Second, namely that the veins of the body are the source of the human breath, which appears from those veins.

Third, one should know that each breath (nafas) individually goes by three paths.

The first is from the right side, they say it is of the sun.

The second is from the left side, they say it is of the moon.

The third is in the middle of two nostrils, they say it is heavenly (asmani).

Every breath (dam) has a special quality.”

Miz al-Nafas, British Library Delhi Persian 796d (London), folio 57b-58a.

Reflections on the 5th Perso-Indica conference

I recently had the opportunity to participate in the 5th Perso-Indica conference, hosted by Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Bonn, Germany. The Perso-Indica project (http://perso-indica.net/) is a long term undertaking aimed at improving our understanding of knowledge production and circulation within the Persianate cosmopolis during the pre- and early-modern era. The project will result in a massive online database, as well as a series of published volumes. This particular conference focused on the translation of scientific texts.

I presented a paper entitled "The Philosophical Implications of Classifying `ilm-i dam as 'Science'." The paper examined three different texts on "the science of the breath" (Persian: `ilm-i dam) from the 14th-17th CE. If you are interested in more information, the full program and paper abstracts are available on the Perso-Indica website (http://perso-indica.net/events-news/31).

This was my first time attending such a highly specialized academic conference. In the past I have attended large conferences organized by the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Middle Eastern Studies Association (MESA), as well as smaller regional conferences sponsored by AAR. The contrast between those experiences and attending the Perso-Indica conference were quite striking. At AAR, I find myself constantly having to explain not only what I work on, but also having to justify why it is a meaningful scholarly pursuit. At the larger conferences, there is a great deal of networking and the opportunity to learn from people working outside of one's own niche field, and of course, who doesn't want to spend a few days with 10,000 people who also love to talk about the study of religion?

In Bonn, I spent two days talking to a small group of people who (1) understood and appreciated the importance of my work, and (2) were in a position to give me incredibly helpful feedback as well as offer detailed suggestions for my research. By detailed suggestions, I mean that during coffee breaks, scholars would pass me notes with manuscript references taken from their own archival work, as well as the now ubiquitous passing around of USB drives so that we could exchange scanned images of manuscripts. When many of the texts in question have never been published (and thus exist only in physical form), and traveling in person to research institutes across the world is a bit of a stretch on a graduate student budget, then these exchanges are a wonderful way to be able to advance one's research. Also, whereas at AAR and MESA, there is a constant shuffle as people come in and out of the conference rooms, during the sessions in Bonn, no one ever left the room. Everyone attending was focused on listening to the paper being presented, and as a result there was extremely fruitful discussion. 

There are benefits to all types of scholarly gatherings, but I have to admit that I found the Perso-Indica conference to be the most satisfying of such experiences to date. I look forward to staying in touch with a whole group of colleagues, and to the future projects that will doubtlessly result from productive exchange.

Essay published on The Maydan

I am proud to share the news that a short essay on my research has been published by The Maydan. Titled, "Breathing with Others: The Science of the Breath in Early-modern South Asia," this piece summarizes the project that has occupied so much of my time in the past few years, and will undoubtedly occupy even more of it in the years to come. Here is the link:

https://www.themaydan.com/2017/12/breathing-others-science-breath-early-modern-south-asia/

My thanks to the editors at The Maydan for inviting me to share my work, and for their excellent feedback that helped improve the piece a great deal.

Returning to BOSTON for AAR 2017

I will be in Boston at this year's American Academy of Religion conference. I am presenting one paper based in part on my dissertation research, and then speaking at a round table session for advanced graduate students in Islamic Studies. Here is the information on presentations:

Saturday, November 18th - 4:00 PM-6:30 PM - Marriott Copley Place-Wellesley (Third Level) - Panel title: Islamic South Asia: Text, Interpretation, and Resistance

Paper title: Mughal Indology in the Ain-i Akbari: Abu'l Fazl and Esoteric Divination Practices

Monday, November 20th - 9:00 AM-11:30 AM - Marriott Copley Place-Simmons (Third Level) - Panel title: New Graduate Research in Islamic Studies

Dissertation title: The Power of the Breath in Persianate India

This will be the first time that I make it back to Boston since leaving there in 2005 after I received my Master's in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. Not sure I will have much time to make it over the river to Cambridge, but still excited to go back where I had so many warm (or were they cold?) memories from what feels like a lifetime ago.

San Antonio here I come!

I will be presenting at the American Academy of Religion annual conference in San Antonio, Texas this year.  The conference is November 19-22, I present on a panel titled "The Occult Challenge to Sufism" on November 21.  My paper is entitled "Do Sufi Occultists Dream of Electric Sheep? : Magical Constructions of Authenticity in a 19th CE Persian Manuscript." I look forward to connecting with so many friends and colleagues during what I am sure will be hectic whirlwind of a conference. For anyone interested in the conference program, here is a link: 

https://www.aarweb.org/annual-meeting/guide-to-the-2016-aar-annual-meeting-in-san-antonio