The current proliferation of the ‘critical’ as a prefix in an ever-increasing range of fields and sites addressing and engaging Islam, Muslims and the Islamicate raises the questions: why and why now? The ability to identify Eurocentrism as an epistemological and methodological problem has long presented a challenge and opportunity to advance approaches that engage in a serious and sustained manner with Orientalism and White Supremacism and its legacies in shaping our understanding of the world. A disparity of efforts, however, is discernible among scholars grappling in different fields against the impasses of positivism, presentism and the entrenchment of disciplines in epistemic cages forged as part of Europe’s worldmaking.

The key touchstones of Critical Muslim Studies, emphasise scholarship that is non-positivist, and conceptually rigorous. It is an approach that includes being attentive to racial formations and processes of racialisation; engaging with comparative and transnational context and processes on a global scale, and mapping out non-linear histories, discontinuities, and genealogies.

This international and interdisciplinary conference aims to bring into conversation researchers who may not necessarily identify themselves as doing Critical Muslim Studies but share some of the same concerns and interests and recognize the need for epistemic decolonisation.

We invite individual and panel proposals from any relevant disciplinary field. Contributions can be historical or contemporary, theoretical or substantive.

If you want to present a paper at the Critical Muslim Studies conference, and have not already been accepted please submit your abstracts (no more than 300 words) together with a brief bio (100 words) for each participant indicating presenter or speakers name, institutional official affiliation and full contact information no later than 15th June 2022 to the ReOrient Conference Team at reorient@leeds.ac.uk