KD Thompson
@phdeviant.bsky.social
Evjue-Bascom Professor in the Humanities at UW-Madison | Religious Studies | Researching language, identity, & lived Islam in East Africa May all beings find peace.
Officers illegally stopped, detained, and arrested a Navy veteran after he lawfully recorded a traffic stop. Then they tracked him for weeks using Flock Safety cameras. reason.com/2026/09/02/w...
Wisconsin cops used Flock over 100 times to track a Navy veteran after he lawfully recorded a traffic stop
A lawsuit claims the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office used the cameras in retaliation against the vet for exercising his First Amendment right.
reason.com
link.growkudos.com/1ewfjmr8etc
What Does Ushirikina Mean? Religion, Bias, and “Superstition” in Swahili
This article explores the Swahili word ushirikina, which is often translated into English as “superstition.” By examining dictionaries, religious writings, and everyday language, it shows that the term does not have a single meaning. For many Muslims, ushirikina refers to placing trust in powers other than God, while Christians and secular speakers often use it to describe beliefs in witchcraft, magic, or ideas they consider false or irrational. The study traces how missionaries, colonial officials, and religious communities helped shape the meaning of ushirikina over time. It argues that the word is often used not as a neutral description but as a way of judging the beliefs and practices of others. Rather than treating ushirikina or “superstition” as objective categories, the article suggests understanding them as labels applied to beliefs or actions that people regard as misguided, foolish, or religiously unacceptable. This perspective helps reveal how language can reflect broader struggles over religion, authority, and cultural identity in East Africa.
link.growkudos.com
link.growkudos.com/1eipxfirr40
Teaching Love: Gender Roles in Swahili Islamic Marriage Advice
Love is often described as an important part of Islamic marriage, but men and women are not always taught about love in the same way. This study examines 71 Swahili-language Islamic marriage advice booklets written over nearly 90 years in East Africa and compares them with oral marriage advice given to Muslim women in Zanzibar. The research shows that written marriage advice, usually written by men and often given to men before marriage, frequently tells husbands to love their wives. Women, however, are more often taught how to encourage, maintain, and protect their husbands’ love through their behavior, speech, care, and emotional efforts. By analyzing how the Swahili verb “to love” (-penda) is used, the study reveals a consistent pattern: men are more often portrayed as the people who love, while women are portrayed as the people responsible for making love last. Although many texts describe love as mutual and desirable, sustaining love is often assigned to women. These patterns appear across different historical periods, even as ideas about marriage, sexuality, and romance have changed. The findings suggest that gender inequalities are reproduced not only through laws and social institutions but also through everyday teachings about emotions, relationships, and married life. The study shows how religious advice shapes expectations about love, marriage, and gender, and how emotional responsibilities can be distributed unevenly between husbands and wives.
link.growkudos.com
Last week, the LSJ working group on Destandardization, Raciolinguistics, and Academic Language hosted our first event, an idea exchange on pedagogies of destandardization. The recording is now available at languagejustice.hcommons.org/idea-exchang...
Idea Exchange on Pedagogies of Destandardization – Aug 2026 – Language and Social Justice
languagejustice.hcommons.org
KD Thompson@phdeviant.bsky.social · last mo.Join us Aug. 19 for an online Idea Exchange on Pedagogies of Language Destandardization. Bring your assignments, activities, questions, and ideas as we think collectively about language justice in teaching. Free and open to all. #LanguageJustice #Pedagogy #Raciolinguistics
I would only include them if they are finished enough that you’d be ready to share them if asked. Also, there’s a small risk it never gets published, and then it might be better not to have folks asking about it.
Jessica Aiston@jessaiston.bsky.social · 2w agoSo, what's the etiquette around adding publications "in prep" to a CV? (Obviously in their own section, not with the published stuff!). Does it come across like desperate padding, or can it actually help to indicate you have things in the pipeline?
My new article, “Love’s Grammar,” is out in Contemporary Islam. By tracing the Swahili verb -penda (“to love”), I explore how Islamic marriage advice distributes emotional agency and labor between husbands and wives.
Love’s grammar: Gendering agency in Swahili-language Islamic marriage advice
link.springer.com
On 30 October, the Middle East Studies Program here (UW-Madison) is hosting a workshop on Regional Impacts of the Iran War. We’d especially love junior scholars and advanced PhD students to participate! The call for papers is open until 11 September.
Call for Papers: Regional Impacts of the Iran War - Project on Middle East Political Science
The war with Iran has had a massive and still unfolding direct impact on global and regional security. The effects of the still ongoing war are likely to have unpredictable cascading effects across t...
pomeps.org
Celebrating @gengqixiao.bsky.social for publishing “Toward a Theory of (Trans)Bordering in Language Education in Critical Inquiry in Language Studies!” It offers a new framework for understanding how language learners & teachers negotiate, challenge, & reshape linguistic & institutional boundaries
Toward a theory of (trans)bordering in language education
In this conceptual essay, I reflect on the development of translanguaging research over the past decades, highlighting its theoretical advancement and pedagogical shortcomings. While translanguagin...
tandfonline.com
Excited to share a new article on ushirikina ("superstition") in Swahili. Through dictionaries, missionary archives, and contemporary usage, I trace how language becomes a tool for defining “true” and “false” religion. doi.org/10.1353/mrw.... #ReligiousStudies
Project MUSE -- Verification required!
doi.org
Use code NYUP50 at checkout to save 50% on my book (and all other NYU Press books)! Orders over $40 receive free domestic shipping. nyupress.org/978147981435...
Muslims on the Margins
Offers vivid stories of nonconformist Muslim communitiesThe turn of the twenty-first century ushered in a wave of progressive Muslims, whose modern interpret...
nyupress.org
I’m Francesca Hong, a single mom, service worker, and State Rep—now running for Governor of Wisconsin. This campaign won’t be funded by billionaires or corporate PACs. It’s powered by working people. If you’re ready to take back our state, chip in today: secure.actblue.com/donate/fran-...
Delighted that my syllabus Queer(ing) Religion has been recognized with an Honorable Mention in the 2026 LGBTQ-RAN Educational Resource Prize. Here's to bringing more queer religious histories into our classrooms. 🌈✨ Press release: tinyurl.com/bdcw4acw
tinyurl.com
Two-year postdoc at Dartmouth in Religious Studies, specializing in South Asian Religions. Deadline: September 16, 2026
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Join us Aug. 19 for an online Idea Exchange on Pedagogies of Language Destandardization. Bring your assignments, activities, questions, and ideas as we think collectively about language justice in teaching. Free and open to all. #LanguageJustice #Pedagogy #Raciolinguistics
Upcoming event: Queer & Trans Muslim Experiences of Faith and Identity Across Borders, a space to explore religion, gender, sexuality, migration, & belonging. All genders, orientations, & faith backgrounds welcome. 28 Aug, 5PM Eastern. Register: tinyurl.com/yn335jpa
Deadline extended! The 2026 AfAA Student Paper Awards are now accepting submissions until July 20, 2026. Undergraduate & graduate awards recognize outstanding scholarship in Africanist anthropology and include cash prizes. Details: afaa.americananthro.org/awards/ #Anthropology #AfAA
🎓 AfAA Travel Grants for the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting 🧑🏾🎓 Students & recent PhDs in Africanist anthropology 📅 Deadline: July 12, 2026 #AfricanistAnthropology #AAA2026 #Anthropology #GradStudents #TravelGrant
I’m excited to share a new essay I just published with Collecting Religion: collectingreligion.wordpress.com/2026/07/08/b.... It’s about the space between the shop and archive and what that reveals about how religion gets collected, handled, and lived.
Between Shop and Archive
by K.D. Thompson When Tom Hinnebusch retired from UCLA in 2004, he gave me a box of Swahili-language booklets he had collected over his decades as one of the foremost linguists of Swahili. I had be…
collectingreligion.wordpress.com
I'm grateful to DeSondy for this close reading of my book, Muslims on the Margins (NYU, 2023): "This important book does not discuss theological debates but places a spotlight on the lived experience of those who believe they can be fully Muslim and queer." www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
University of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent
journals.uchicago.edu
Let the beauty we love be what we do — Rumi (as translated by Coleman Barks)
