Muslim American Women on Campus - by Shabana Mir (Paperback)

About the Book

Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity

Book Synopsis

Shabana Mir's powerful ethnographic study of women on Washington, D.C., college campuses reveals that being a young female Muslim in post-9/11 America means experiencing double scrutiny--scrutiny from the Muslim community as well as from the dominant non-Muslim community. Muslim American Women on Campus illuminates the processes by which a group of ethnically diverse American college women, all identifying as Muslim and all raised in the United States, construct their identities during one of the most formative times in their lives.
Mir, an anthropologist of education, focuses on key leisure practices -- drinking, dating, and fashion -- to probe how Muslim American students adapt to campus life and build social networks that are seamlessly American, Muslim, and youthful. In this lively and highly accessible book, we hear the women's own often poignant voices as they articulate how they find spaces within campus culture as well as their Muslim student communities to grow and assert themselves as individuals, women, and Americans. Mir concludes, however, that institutions of higher learning continue to have much to learn about fostering religious diversity on campus.

Review Quotes

"Extremely accessible. . . . Highly recommended. All levels/libraries." -- CHOICE

"The reticence Mir found on both campuses is unfortunate in a university setting, where dialogue and mutual understanding should be the norm." -- Washington Post

"The social insights of Mir's work - especially the reflections of a minority group on majority campus culture - and the approachable writing style make this text particularly useful to scholars of education and policy makers." -- Anthropology & Education Quarterly

"Thought-provoking and timely . . . the book offers a nuanced, frank voice to issues seldom discussed so openly and a bracing challenge to academic communities, especially multicultural, religious, and women's studies scholars, as well as general readers." -- Publishers Weekly