Translating Race in the Islamic Studies Classroom

This article offers a set of race-conscious approaches to teaching premodern Arabic texts in translation, tailored courses Islamic studies and related subject areas. Throughout, I address the productive tension generated by fact that many contemporary translations do not consistently signpost moments racial thinking as such despite increase scholarship on medieval race racism well call, part students, grapple with racialization our course materials. On one hand, argue can perpetuate what Kimberlé Crenshaw dubs “perspectivelessness” discursively disengaging from various ways, but other, contend this opens opportunities for critical reading translation practices historical source themselves. offer guided readings nine two major press series—Penguin Classics Library Literature—that lend themselves classroom use, which demonstrate how foster mind. In doing so, an extended meditation comparative historicizable hermeneutic understanding histories literatures.