Noah Salomon, author of "For Love of the Prophet: An Ethnography of Sudan's Islamic State" (Princeton University Press, 2016) and winner of AAR's 2017 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the category of analytical-descriptive studies, talks to Kristian Petersen about his fieldwork in Sudan, the attempts at a unified Sudan prior to the 2011 partition, and tradition of the Islamic nation-state.
There is no way to deeply consider religion—its history, definition, impact, danger, and promise—without also thinking about the construction of race. And yet, addressing race, racism, and white privilege in the religious studies classroom is fraught with challenges for faculty and students alike. These tensions have been exacerbated by the contemporary political climate in the United States, but ultimately stem from much deeper historical roots involving settler colonialism, the genocide and forced relocation of indigenous populations, and the enslavement of peoples of African descent. Addressing this maligned history in the United States as well as different iterations of it around the world, considering its contemporary consequences, and envisioning possible futures is part of the important work taking place in religious studies classrooms.
