Teaching against Islamophobia Seminar
For the 2023 meeting in San Antonio, we seek individual papers, paper sessions, and roundtable proposals from scholars in any discipline or subfield that address questions related to the theme “Teaching Against Islamophobia in the Academy and Beyond.” This seminar is pedagogically focused, and should center practical methods and strategies for understanding and combatting Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism and discrimination in and outside of the classroom.
Some questions you may consider in your proposals:
- Is the term “Islamophobia” still efficacious in our current socio-political context?
- What does it mean to teach “against” Islamophobia?
- What is the relationship between Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism?
- How does attention to gender impact our efforts to teach against Islamophobia?
- How does an awareness of intersectionality play a role in teaching against Islamophobia? (e.g., anti-Black Islamophobia)
- Who should be teaching against Islamophobia? (e.g., is “Islamophobia” only a concern for scholars of Islam?)
- Where should we be teaching against Islamophobia? (e.g., only in Islamic Studies departments? Secular academic institutions?)
- How can we use public scholarship to teach against Islamophobia?
- What are the professional and scholarly risks and challenges we face when we name anti-Muslim bias in our educational setting or local communities?
- What are the particular concerns and challenges of teaching against Islamophobia in Texas?
The purpose of the Teaching against Islamophobia Seminar is to widen the network of scholars engaged in critical reflection about pedagogical and discursive praxes that address the global rise of anti-Muslim sentiment. This seminar thus focuses on the challenges and opportunities faced by engaged scholars combating Islamophobia. We invite critical and creative reflection on (1) the differences between teaching about Islam and teaching about Islamophobia in both the classroom and wider publics; (2) pedagogical strategies for such teaching should be tailored to different contexts; (3) specific challenges of teaching ‘against’ a concept instead of teaching ‘toward’ a more positive end; and (4) the ways in which Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry function as a form of racism and why naming this bigotry as racism is important. As such, we encourage discussion not only on the transmission of new content knowledge about Islamophobia, but also on the transmission of interpersonal and leadership skills necessary to engage in public life to resist bias, bigotry, and racism.
| Chair | Dates | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sajida Jalalzai | sajidajalalzai@gmail.com | - | View |