• PHD The Study of Religion, Harvard University 1981
World Area Of Focus:
• Africa 10%-24% • Asia 25%-49% • Middle East 75%-99% • South Asia 25%-49%
Languages:
• Arabic, Modern Standard (professional proficiency) • French (professional proficiency) • Persian (professional proficiency) • Spanish (professional proficiency) • Urdu (professional proficiency)
Specialization:
General and critical issues of Islamic studies, premodern and contemporary Sufism, and Indo-Muslim culture.
Relevant Experience:
• Director of the UNC-Chapel Hill Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations • Co-editor of the Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks Series at the University of North Carolina Press; Fulbright Lecturing and Research Fellowship in Islamic Studies.
Distinctions:
• -ongoing Global Humanities Translation Prize, Buffett Institute - Northwestern University, 2017, for Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr; Fellow, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, UNC (2014); Co-Principal Investigator, “Andrew Carnegie Centennial Fellowships in Support of Arab Region Social Science.” (2013-2015); John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2010); • -ongoing Principal Investigator, US Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center for Middle East Studies (2010-2014); Faculty Learning Community on Strategy and Leadership, Institute for the Arts and Humanities (2012). • -ongoing 2005-2014 William R. Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor, UNC; 2000-2005 Zachary Smith Distinguished Term Professor, UNC; 1992-2000 Professor of Religious Studies, UNC; American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected Fellow 2009;
Dissertations and Theses Supervised in Past 5 Years:
8
Relevant Courses Taught:
• RELI 180 Introduction to Islamic Civilization • RELI 581 Sufism • RELI 582 Islam and Islamic Art in South Asia • RELI 584 The Qur’an as Literature • RELI 785 Genealogies of Middle East Studies
Recent Publications:
• 2018 Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr. Translated by Carl W. Ernst (Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 2018).
• 2017 It’s not just academic: Essays on Islamic studies and Sufism. New Delhi: Yoda Press/Sage, 2017.
• 2016 Refractions of Islam in India: Situating Sufism and Yoga. New Delhi: Yoda Press/Sage Publications.
• 2013 "The Global Significance of Arabic Language and Literature," Religion Compass 7/6 (2013), pp. 191-200
• 2013 Editor, Islamophobia in America: The Anatomy of Intolerance (Palgrave-McMillan, 2013).
• 2012 “Islamic Studies in U.S. Universities,” co-author with Charles Kurzman, Review of Middle East Studies 46/1 (Summer 2012), pp. 24-46
• 2011 How to Read the Qur'an: A New Guide with Select Translations. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
• 2010 Co-Editor (with Richard C. Martin), Rethinking Islamic Studies: From Post-Orientalism to Cosmopolitanism (Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2010)
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