Episode #6: An Insurrection of Imaginaries: Nabil Echchaibi
Julie and Nabil talk about the challenge and honor of being part of a Jewish-Israeli-Arab-Palestinian faculty discussion group. Nabil describes his childhood in Morocco, the beautiful handwriting of a beloved father who died too young, the weight and detritus of colonization, and the power of multilingualism. In what ways might writing and conversation be sacred? What do we learn from Edouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation? How might nomadism function in opposition to the violence of borders? Nabil also discusses the tension between “movement and belonging,” and the desire for opacity in the face of Islamophobia’s demand for revelation.
Texts discussed:
Nabil Echchaibi is Associate Professor of Media Studies and Director of the Center for Media, Religion and Culture at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research and teaching focus on media, religion, and the politics and poetics of Muslim visibility. His work on Muslim media cultures, diasporic media, and decoloniality has appeared in various journals and in many book publications. He is the author of Voicing Diasporas: Ethnic Radio in Paris and Berlin Between Culture and Renewal and co-editor of International Blogging: Identity, Politics and Networked Publics; Media and Religion: The Global View; and The Thirdspaces of Digital Religion. He’s currently writing his book: Unmosquing Islam: Media and Muslim Fugitivity. Drawing on a vast literature in Black and Africana studies, Islamic studies, decolonial theory, cultural studies, and media studies, this book develops a theory of Muslim fugitivity as a practice of imagining a world of possibility that has not been visibilized and documented yet but has existed all along. Is there more to Muslimness, he asks, beyond the tussle of geopolitics, terror talk, and religious orthodoxy?
Dr. Echchaibi writes opinion columns in the popular press, including the Guardian, Al Jazeera, Forbes Magazine, Salon, the Huffington Post, Religion Dispatches, and Open Democracy. He is also co-editor of the journal Cultural Studies and Associate Dean of Research and Creative Work in the College of Media, Communication and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder. A native of Morocco, he earned his BA from Mohammed V University in Rabat and his MA in Journalism and PhD in Media Studies from Indiana University-Bloomington.
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