Description:

Join the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa and the Program of African Studies as we provide lunch and a lecture. Co-sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies. 

Suburban Islam: Religious and National Belonging in Chicago's Exurbs

Justine Howe, religious studies, Case Western Reserve University

Abstract:

Howe will discuss her book, Suburban Islam (Oxford University Press, 2018), which demonstrates how American Islam in constructed and performed through everyday rituals of suburban leisure and consumerism. For many American Muslims, the 9/11 attacks and subsequent War on Terror marked a rise in intense scrutiny of their religious lives and political loyalties. Focusing on suburban Chicago, the book demonstrates how "third space" communities have transformed leisure activities, such as football games and nature walks, into practices that they understand as enactments of Islamic piety. Even as they serve as sites that attempt to transcend various divisions in the American ummah, third spaces also augment tensions within enduring Muslim debates around authority and ethics.

Bio:
JUSTINE HOWE is an associate professor of religious studies at Case Western Reseve University. She holds a PhD in religious studies from Northwestern University and an MA in Anthropology and Sociology of Religion from University of Chicago Divinity School. She has published multiple articles and chapters on gender and religious pluralism in contemporary American Muslim communities. Howe is also the editor of the Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender (forthcoming summer 2020).  Her next book project, "Muslim Students and the Making of American Islam," examines the crucial role of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) in shaping American Islam.