Muslim Migrants in the West: a literary journey with Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela, born in Sudan to an Egyptian mother and Sudanese father, is based in Aberdeen, Scotland. She is the author of six novels and several short stories. Her work has been translated into 15 languages and is highly acclaimed for sensitivity to sources, history, and the complexities of her topics.

Her most recent work, River Spirit, is a historical novel that tackles difficult issues including colonization, slavery, and bravery in the face of insurmountable obstacles.

Read more on her website.

Munzoul Assal

Munzoul Assal is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Khartoum and Senior Researcher at CMI.

He is also Professor at the Department of social anthropology, UiB. Prior to this he was the Director of the Peace Research Institute at the University of Khartoum, and Dean of Scientific Research.

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Tijana Przulj

Tijana Przulj is a PhD candidate in English literature at the University of Bergen, Department of Foreign Languages. She also holds an MA in English from the University of Bergen.

Tijana’s research interests include transnational literature, decolonization, literary border crossings, aesthetic response and attachment, the nature of fiction, and autofiction. Her dissertation project explores transnational Anglophone literature with a particular interest in the notions of liminality, home, belonging and intimacy.

Sarah A Tobin

Sarah Tobin is an anthropologist focusing on Islam, economic anthropology, and displacement/migration in the Middle East and East Africa.

Her work explores transformations in religious and economic life, identity construction, and personal piety. She also examines the intersections with gender, Islamic authority and normative Islam, public ethics, and Islamic authenticity. Ethnographically, her work has focused to a large degree on Islamic piety in the economy, especially Islamic Banking and Finance. Dr. Tobin also explore these questions in times of economic shifts, such as during Ramadan, in contested fields of consumption such as the hijab, and the Arab Spring.

Her latest research projects examine these questions with Syrian refugees in Jordanian camps of Za`atari, Azraq, and Cyber City, and in Results-Based Financing in Tanzania.

See personal page.

sarah.tobin@cmi.no
+ 47 480 08 425