Matters of Humanities

Our final episode features Ouassima Laabich, Berlin-based PhD scholar, futurist and initiator of the Muslim Futures Lab Berlin. She shares the story behind the Muslim Futures Fellowship, and we reflect on what it means to be unapologetically Muslim in future-making spaces and why this work is more vital than ever.

Check out her work here:

https://muslimfutures.de/

*intro and outro sound attribution: A Track Called Birthday: Perfect for Intros by kjartan_abel -- https://freesound.org/s/608397/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

The art space has long been a  rich repository for all sorts of imaginings. We talk to Anusheh Zia, a  London-based Artist and Sumayya Vally South-African & UK-based Architect about envisioning futures from Muslim perspectives and how their work reflects those visions.

Check out their work here:

• Counterspace - https://www.counterspace-studio.com/
• Anusheh website - https://anushehzia.com/

This episode takes on the dominance of technology-driven futures. We talk to James McGrail PhD candidate at Leiden’s Anthropology department whose work lies at the intersection of AI and Muslim futures in Singapore. We also dive in transhumanism, ethical AI and what all this means for Muslim imaginaries. 

Some resources:

• Huxley, Julian (1968). Transhumanism. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 8 (1): 73 - 76. 
• Hejazi, Sara (2020). ‘Humankind. The Best of Molds’—Islam Confronting Transhumanism. Sophia 58 (4): 677 - 688.
• Revolutionary mathematics: Artificial Intelligence, Statistics and the Logic of Capitalism – Justin Joque (2022)
• Raquib, A., Channa, B., Zubair, T. et al. Islamic virtue-based ethics for artificial intelligence. Discov Artif Intell 2, 11 (2022)

Join us as we explore Sci-Fi’s ability to tackle the ‘what ifs?’ and imagine bold futures. We discuss the genre’s roots in the Muslim world and how it has long been used to creatively imagine different possibilities, futures and push boundaries. Plus, a conversation with Singaporean sci-fi writer Hassan Hasaa’Ree Ali on how Islam shapes his storytelling- and a few of our favourite reads too!

Book Recs:

• Sultana’s Dream – Rokaya Sakhawat Hussain (1905)
• A Culture of Ambiguity: An Alternative history of Islam - Thomas Bauer  (2021)
• Theologus Autodidactus – Ibn al-Nafis (13th Century)
• Hayy Ibn Yaqdhan - Ibn Tufail – (12th Century)
• The Daevabad Trilogy – S.A Chakraborty (2017,2019, 2020)
• Homeostasis & Doa.com - Hassan Hasaa’Ree Ali  (2011, 2013)
• A mosque Among the Stars - Ahmed A Khan & Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad  (2007)
• Alif the Unseen – G. Willow Wilson (2012)
• Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life: The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World - Jörg Matthias Determann (2020)

What do we mean when we talk about Muslim futures? In the opening episode, we set the stage for a journey into imagination, resistance, and radical possibility. We unpack the concept of "Muslim futures", why it's necessary, what it challenges, and how centering Muslim experiences can reshape our collective visions of what's to come. From speculative fiction to community organizing, from theology to technology, we look at how futures thinking intersects with Muslim life and thought. Throughout the series, we’ll return to two key questions: Who gets to imagine the future? And what happens when Muslims take the lead?

Future: All that matters- Ziauddin Sardar (2013)

Dr. Kate Bellamy and Dr. Andrew Wigman host the pilot podcast ‘Name That Language’, the podcast in which, with the help of an expert from the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), they explore the ins, outs, ups, and downs of one of the world’s 7000 or so languages. Each episode takes you on a journey of a specific language, investigating its history, grammatical features, and resources for learning with a few funny detours along the way. But here's the rub: you won't hear the name of the language until the very end of the interview. Can you Name That Language?

This episode's main speaker is Dr. Andrew Wigman.

Dr. Kate Bellamy and Dr. Andrew Wigman host the pilot podcast ‘Name That Language’, the podcast in which, with the help of an expert from the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), they explore the ins, outs, ups, and downs of one of the world’s 7000 or so languages. Each episode takes you on a journey of a specific language, investigating its history, grammatical features, and resources for learning with a few funny detours along the way. But here's the rub: you won't hear the name of the language until the very end of the interview. Can you Name That Language?

This episode's main speaker is Paulus van Sluis.

Dr. Kate Bellamy and Dr. Andrew Wigman host the pilot podcast ‘Name That Language’, the podcast in which, with the help of an expert from the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), they explore the ins, outs, ups, and downs of one of the world’s 7000 or so languages. Each episode takes you on a journey of a specific language, investigating its history, grammatical features, and resources for learning with a few funny detours along the way. But here's the rub: you won't hear the name of the language until the very end of the interview. Can you Name That Language?

This episode's main speaker is Dr. Kate Bellamy.

The eight episode of the podcast is about “The Big Green Tent” by Lyudmila Ulitskaya (born 1943), published in 2011. This final episode of the series focuses on a historical roman à clef. “The Big Green Tent” is a historical roman à clef about the post-Stalinist period, in particular the rise of the dissident movement in the 1960s and 1970s. While dissidents like Andrei Sakharov and Andrei Sinyavsky were still considered martyrs and moral winners when the Soviet Union was falling apart, in today’s Russia they are often seen as nothing less than traitors. Ulitskaya, however, stands up for the dissidents and suggests a parallel between the suffocating political climate under Leonid Brezhnev (in power from 1964 till 1982) and the no less repressive regime of Vladimir Putin. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown how dangerous and prophetic her novel actually is.

All translations were done by Otto Boele.

© Otto Boele & Electrical Films 2024

The seventh episode of the podcast is about “The Sad Detective” by Viktor Astafiev (1924-2001), published in 1986.

Did the increased openness under Mikhail Gorbachev (in power from 1985 until 1991) also have a downside? Absolutely! Some writers seemed to relish the idea of depicting Soviet society as being completely ravaged by alcoholism and domestic violence without offering a shimmer of hope for the future. An important pioneer of this “black wave” of Soviet literature was Viktor Astafiev who had made a name for himself with thick, colourful novels set in Siberia, but now seemed to adopt a new approach in his fiercely realistic urban novel “The Sad Detective”. Soon the novel became the focal point of a lively debate that involved critics and readers, liberals and nationalists, and signalled the return of anti-Semitism and Russian nationalism as entirely legitimate positions. 

Sources used in this episode of "Scandal and Controversy in Russian Literature":

- Clark, Katerina. 2000. The Soviet Novel. History as Ritual, 3d edition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).

- Graham, Seth. 2000. “Chernukha and Russian Film,” Studies in Slavic Cultures, 1, pp. 9-27.

- Parthé, Kathleen. 2004. Russia’s Dangerous Texts. Politics Between the Lines (New Haven: Yale University Press).

- Parthé, Kathleen. 1992. Russian Village Prose. The Radiant Past (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

All translations were done by Otto Boele.

© Otto Boele & Electrical Films 2024