Join author Maryam Kashani in a conversation about Medina by the Bay, the place and the idea that describes how multiracial Muslim communities in the San Francisco Bay Area survive and flourish within and against racial capitalist, carceral, and imperial logics. From the Black Power movement and state surveillance to Silicon Valley and gentrification, Medina by the Bay: Scenes of Muslim Study and Survival (Duke University Press, 2023) shows how Islam emerges from the specificities of the Bay Area, from its landscapes and infrastructures to its Muslim liberal arts college, mosques, and prison courtyards.  Kashani presents Islam as liberatory and abolitionist theory, theology, and praxis for all those engaged in struggle.

Bio: Maryam Kashani was born and raised in the City and is currently a filmmaker and associate professor in Gender and Women's Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her work is engaged with the relationships between physical landscapes and the sociopolitical, material, and spiritual histories and forces that emerge with and against them. She is also in the leadership collective of Believers Bail Out, a community-led effort to bailout Muslims in pretrial and immigration incarceration towards abolition.