Muslims in Public Discourse: Competing Narratives, Monsters, and Heroes

The Duke Islamic Studies Center, along with the Duke Human Rights Center at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, will host its second event Oct. 11 as part of the "American Muslims, Civil and Human Rights" series, which examines the current human rights crisis for Muslims in the U.S.
Dr. Sophia Rose Arjana will discuss the ways in which Muslims have been dehumanized in public discourse, resulting in the hostile climate American Muslims must contend with, while also being attentive to the ways in which Muslims are challenging this discourse through activist interventions. In particular, Dr. Arjana will focus on the graphic narratives that include comics, graphic novels, and webcomics-genres that have opened up new spaces for Muslims to voice their concerns about Islamophobia. Dr. Arjana is a scholar of Religion whose books include Muslims in the Western Imagination (Oxford, 2015), Pilgrimage in Islam: Traditional and Modern Practices (2017), and Veiled Superheroes: Islam, Feminism, and Popular Culture (2017).