Berkeley Public Theology Program

On the History of Religions and the Study of Islam

Travis Zadeh, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies; Director of Undergraduate Studies for Modern Middle East Studies, Yale University
Monday, November 27, 5-7pm
Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, UC Berkeley

Please join us for the Berkeley Public Theology Program lecture on November 27, Monday 5pm – 7pm at Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, UC Berkeley. We welcome Travis Zadeh, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and the Director of Undergraduate Studies for Modern Middle East Studies at Yale University.

Islam plays a powerful role in American public discourse. Across this often contentious landscape, numerous voices can be heard defining and contesting the nature of Islam. These definitional problems also shape academic debates, where the seemingly basic question of what is Islam has received renewed attention. This lecture addresses the place and history of Islam in the modern academic study of religion in light of discursive structures that are designed to contain and delimit the meaning of Islam.

Travis Zadeh is a scholar of Islamic intellectual and cultural history. His areas of interest include frontiers and early conversion, Qur’anic studies, eschatology, mythology, mysticism, pilgrimage and sacred geography, encyclopedism, cosmography, classical Arabic and Persian literary traditions, material and visual cultures, Islamic studies in the digital humanities, vernacularity and language politics, comparative theories of language and translation, secularism, colonialism, Islamic reform, science, magic, miracles, and philosophies of the marvelous.

Read more here.