Let me begin with an overview of Brown University Digital Publications (BUDP), which originated from conversations with the Mellon Foundation…
Book blog

Scholars from varying disciplines engage in critical discussions of recent books. Additionally, scholars introduce their books with an original essay or, occasionally, an original essay reviews an important new book, connecting it to other threads of conversation in the academy and beyond.
You can read our very first book forum, on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age and the continued discussion around Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age here.
An invitation to imagine Islam anew
It begins with coffee cups. The cover of Shahzad Bashir’s A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures features Lara…
Shahzad Bashir’s invitation to plurality
When I first taught Shahzad Bashir’s interactive book, A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures, my students found it…
A (digital) reformulation of Islamic pasts
Among the reactions to my book A New Vision for Islamic Pasts and Futures, one that stands out especially concerns…
Writing without nets
“Every morning you climb several flights of stairs, enter your study, open the French doors, and slide your desk and…
Mapping Malcolm—An introduction
Mona Oraby, longtime editor of The Immanent Frame, and Najha Zigbi-Johnson, editor of Mapping Malcolm, discuss Malcolm X’s legacy, bridging academic scholarship and community-based…
Contested grounds: Mapping the evolution of Malcolm X’s legacy
Editor Najha Zigbi-Johnson’s conversation with contributor Dr. Marc Lamont Hill in the volume expands our understanding of Malcolm X’s legacy.
Freedom is best served daily
Freedom does not keep well. It spoils if left unattended. Someone has to notice before it curdles, before it slips away.
The art of mapping Black women’s interiors
Alberta’s “mental process” is the sacred space that has stayed with me the most since reading Mapping Malcolm.
On friendship, space, and politics
The most famous photograph of activist Yuri Kochiyama was taken at the Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965, moments after Malcolm X’s…