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Faith in Fantasy on Imaginary Worlds Podcast

I am a longtime fan of the Imaginary Worlds podcast, and was ecstatic was I was asked to participate in roundtable on the role of faith in imaginary worlds. I was joined by friend of many years, the Velveteen Rabbi, Rachel Barenblat, who did a wonderful write-up of her experience here. The episode description is: Science fiction has not always been compatible with religion — in fact many futuristic settings imagine no religion at all. But sci-fi and fantasy have long fascinated people of different faiths because the genres wrestle with the big questions of life. You can listen to episode…

GIA Podcast | Grantmakers in the Arts

GIA Podcast | Grantmakers in the Arts. Narrative Change Through Satirical Storytelling (podcast #17): Zeyba Rahman, senior program officer for The Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art’s Building Bridges Program; Josh Seftel, filmmaker and creator of “The Secret Life of Muslims” series; Hussein Rashid, adjunct faculty member in the Department of Religion at Barnard College who focuses his research on Muslim and American pop culture; and Negin Farsad, Iranian-American writer and comedian who you can find on Netflix, HBO, and other media platforms, are interviewed by Nadia Elokdah, deputy director and director of programs of GIA. They discuss their recent…

Converting Islamic Ideals to Hip-Hop Flow

SF Gate covers the new documentary New Muslim Cool (h/t Kawthar) “New Muslim Cool,” a new documentary about a Puerto Rican convert, Hamza Perez, who gave up drug-dealing in exchange for Islam, but couldn’t quit hip-hop. Perez’s new life is certainly rich with subject matter – the FBI raids his mosque without giving a reason; he teaches prisoners in the county jail until his security clearance is mysteriously revoked – but it’s a different kind of subject matter, and he’s operating under different constraints. His ideal audience isn’t the head of a major label – it’s the young men hanging…