Book talk with Ibrahim N. Abusharif (Northwestern University)
Event Description:
This talk examines how digital media reconfigured religious authority during the Arab Gulf crisis (2017-2022), transforming long-standing hierarchies into contested, highly mediated arenas of influence. Drawing on his book Social Media, Religious Authority, and the Arab Gulf Crisis, Abusharif argues that authority was not simply challenged but reconstituted through platform logics, affective circulation, and strategic religious discourse.
He then connects this analysis to the present moment of war on Iran, where similar dynamics are visible in the religious framing of contemporary war. What was revealed during the Gulf crisis—the portability of theological language, its entanglement with state narratives, and its rapid circulation across digital networks—has now intensified. Religious discourse no longer operates at the margins of conflict; it has become central to how war is justified, narrated, and understood in real time.
Bio:
Ibrahim N. Abusharif, PhD, is an associate professor in residence in the Journalism and Strategic Communication Program. His fields of research include narrative journalism, religious studies, and the decolonization of storytelling. Specifically, his academic interests include the study of the intersections of religion and media, particularly digital media disruptions and their effects on contemporary religious authority. He also researches the origins, promulgation, and effects of key journalistic framing terminologies used in prominent Western news sources in their coverage and reportage of the Middle East and Muslim minorities in the West.