I am one of two UW-Madison faculty selected for nomination to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) summer competition for my project, “A Multi-sited Ethnography of Muslims on the Margins in North America and Online.”

As a UW-Madison nominee, I’ll receive summer salary support in 2020 that will enable me to spend two months developing a book proposal for Muslims on the Margins, my third ethnographic book project.

The book tells the story of a multi-sited community coalescing around creative (re)interpretations of the Qur’an, critical questioning of taken-for-granted Muslim norms, and radical inclusion of those who are ‘queer’ in various ways. As humanizing research, my ethnographic and sociolinguistic approach centers on the voices and interpretations of queer (LGBT and gender-nonconforming) Muslims and their allies collected over a 45-month period in North American face-to-face and international online groups that label themselves “progressive” or “inclusive.” By examining how these eclectic participants form small and large-scale communities, learn and teach one another the linguistic, social, and embodied norms of these communities, and find meaning in their practices, Muslims on the Margins will lead to deeper understanding of Muslim diversity, overturn stereotypes that claim Islam and queerness are incompatible, and encourage appreciation for both similarities and differences among Muslims and between Muslims and others.