BU PhD Tazeen Ali Joins 2020 Young Scholars in American Religion Program
BU PhD Tazeen Ali, who is an Assistant Professor at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, joins a prestigious cohort of other early career scholars at the Center for the Study of Religion & American Culture. The Young Scholars Program assists early career scholars in the improvement of their teaching and research and in the development of professional communities. In addition to its historic concentration on teaching and research, the Program now includes a seminar devoted to such other professional issues as constructing a tenure portfolio, publication, grant writing, and department politics.
Prof. Ali’s work focuses on Islam, gender, and race in America. Her book-in-progress, “Rethinking Interpretive Authority: Gender, Race, and Scripture at the Women’s Mosque of America,” analyzes how American Muslim women negotiate the Islamic tradition to cultivate religious authority and build gender-equitable worship communities using ethnography and textual analysis of women’s sermons. Her advisor at BU was Prof. Kecia Ali.
Prof. Ali is not the only BU alum to join the Young Scholars Program. Dr. Shari Rabin, a former BU religion BA and Katz Prize Awardee, was selected in 2019. Dr. Rabin, who earned her PhD from Yale University, is now an Assistant Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at Oberlin College.