Ali Imran ‘24, English and anthropology & sociology double major, will present his research, “Laal Husayn: The Queer Politics of Sufism and Poetic Voice in Punjab,” at the “Muslim Futurism: Definitions, Explorations, and Future Directions” conference held on Jan. 21-23, 2022.
This unique opportunity occurred because Imran makes a practice of going the extra mile. “When the conference put out a call for papers, some brilliant academics and scholars I follow shared it.”
He submitted an abstract of his research and was invited to present his work at the program, which partners with Colorado College, Duke University, University of Miami, Columbia University, and the Center for Afrofuturist Studies.
Imran’s research was completed during a Denison Summer Scholar program, a ten-week opportunity to conduct paid research.
Imran says, “My paper queries how to articulate an indigenous collectivity politics through a framework like Husayn’s work without recycling discourses that marginalize non-normative readings or allow for reductive understandings and colonization of scholarly work from Global South. So I approach the poetry and life of Husayn by queering our reading of the Sufi poetry and emphasizing how it has been memorialized and understood through history.”
Imran also presented a version of this paper at the 2021 MMLA “Cultures of Collectivity” Conference held in Milwaukee, WI. “I am grateful for these experiences and they have allowed me to develop a better understanding of my work.”
