CSI Monday Majlis:Vernon Schubel

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https://Universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/gOT0FOkXRoyxO7JpS4MvKQ

Teaching Humanity: An Alternative Introduction to Islam presents Islam as a religious tradition focused on the centrality of love and rooted in the importance of humanity and universal human virtues. Unlike most introductory books which emphasize the discursive tradition of shari’a, and especially the “Five Pillars,” as the primary defining characteristic of Islam, it foregrounds the affective traditions associated  with Sufism and Shi‘ism and underscores the importance of humanity and the human being within Islamic thought and practice. The book stresses the diversity of Islamic beliefs and practices, presenting them as varied responses to the shared multivalent concepts of tawhid (the unity of God), nubuwwa (prophecy) and qiyama (the Day of Judgment).

Vernon Schubel

Professor of Religious Studies

Vernon James Schubel has been teaching in the Religious Studies Department at  Kenyon College in Ohio since 1988. He received his Ph. D. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia where he specialized in the Islam, South Asian Religions, and theory and method in the study of religion.  He teaches courses on Islam in the Religious Studies Department including its foundation course on the topic, Islam’s Diverse Paths, along with Seminar on Sufism, Voices of Contemporary Islam and Islam in North America. He also teaches the department’s foundation course on South Asian religions as well as Introduction to Religion and the department’s course on theory and methods RLST 390 Approaches to the Study of Religion. Professor Schubel helped to found both Kenyon’s Asian and Middle East Studies programs and Islamic Civilization and Cultures concentration. He is the author of Teaching Humanity: An Alternative Introduction to Islam (Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2023) and Religious Performance in Contemporary Islam  (University of South Carolina Press, 1993), a study of Muharram rituals in Karachi.  In 1989, he was a Fulbright scholar in Multan, Pakistan, where he conducted research on centers of Sufi pilgrimage and in 1996 studied the reemergence of the Sufi tradition in Uzbekistan as an IREX fellow. His most current research  has been focused on the Alevi tradition in Turkey. He has published numerous articles on the Sufi and Shi‘i traditions. He is married to the noted historian of Central Asia, Prof. Nurten Kilic-Schubel, who also teaches at Kenyon College. Professor Schubel is also a singer-songwriter who performs frequently in venues throughout Central Ohio.