[REVIEW] Covering Muslims: American Newspapers in Comparative Perspective

Edward Said's 1997 Covering Islam argued that negative public opinion about Muslims is significantly shaped by media representations.

Consciously echoing Said, Erik Bleich and A. Maurits van der Veen seek to quantitatively investigate Said’s more qualitative conclusions in Covering Muslims: American Newspapers in Comparative Perspective.

Whereas previous studies identified the media’s elevation of certain presuppositions and characterizations (x), Bleich and van der Veen test to what extent stories about Muslims actually are negative in comparison to average media coverage, both in general and with respect to other comparable religious groups. They also look at how the bulk of “resoundingly negative” stories about Islam can be accounted for and whether negative coverage of Islam and Muslims is a unique or enduring feature of the US media landscape.

In my latest review for Reading Religion from the American Academy of Religion, I provide an overview of the book and offer some reflections on how journalists might respond to the findings.

The Religion + Culture 2022 Reading Rundown

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: I have a ridiculous job.

I get to read books, talk to authors and creatives, and write about it all so that others can listen and learn, rage and wonder, contemplate and cause trouble.

I read things I love. Things that interest me. Things that matter. Things that I would read and write about for free (shhh, don’t tell my publishers).

Really, it’s a ridiculous vocation. A calling that I am immensely humbled to have.

One of my favorite things to do at the end of the year is look back on all the things I read, the ideas I encountered, and reflect on the people I interviewed or interacted with along the way.

This year, I read a total of 25,353 pages, including numerous news pieces, 63 journal articles, a behemoth of blogs, countless chapters, and 84 different books (including 19 works of fiction).

The following are some of the books that moved me, made me smile, or that I think matter in a world swimming with competing and contrasting ideas, viewpoints, and perspectives. They are, you could say, my Top 25 Books of 2022.

Perhaps you’ll find something that piques your interest in the list as well.

A lot of the books below featured in my research and writing over the year, but others just caught my attention (and more importantly, held it). Among them are my usual themes and interests: religion, borderlands, interreligious encounters, Berlin and Germany, spirituality, James Bond, Islam and Christian-Muslim relations, and travel (this year, to places like Italy and Scotland, Morocco and Mexico).

And so, here are my Top 25 Books of 2022, in the order I finished them throughout the year. Many of the hyperlinks connect you to reviews or other relevant works. Others take you directly to the publishers’ webpage, where available (be sure to support your local bookstore!):

• My Broken Language: A Memoir, by Quiara Alegría Hudes

• A Traveler in Italy, by H.V. Morton

• The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, by Lindsay Chervinsky

• Journeys toward Gender Equality in Islam, by Ziba Mir-Hosseini.

• Ministers of a New Medium: Broadcasting Theology in the Radio Ministries of Fulton J. Sheen and Walter A. Maier, by Kirk D. Farney

• Berlin Global, from the Humboldt Forum.

• Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and their History, by Simon Winder.

• What We Owe the Future, by William MacAskill

• Theater Unser: Wie die Passionsspiele Oberammergau den Ort verändern und die Welt bewegen, by Anne Fritsch

• The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life, by Simran Jeet Singh

• Fabian oder Der Gang vor die Hunde, by Erich Kästner

• Race and Rhyme: Rereading the New Testament, by Love Lazarus Sechrest

• Borders and Belonging, The Book of Ruth: A Story for Our Times, by Pádraig Ó Tuama, Glenn Jordan

• Religion in 50 Words: A Critical Vocabulary, by Aaron W. Hughes and Russel T. McCutcheon

• Casablanca: Colonial Myths and Architectural Adventures, by Jean-Louis Cohen and Monique Eleb

• Islamic Empires: The Cities that Shaped Civilization: From Mecca to Dubai, by Justin Marozzi

• Christianity’s American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular, by David A. Hollinger

• An Odd Cross to Bear: A Biography of Ruth Bell Graham, by Anne Blue Wills

• Berlin Alexanderplatz, by Alfred Döblin

• Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts against Domestic Violence, by Juliane Hammer

• Manifold Destiny: Arabs at an American Crossroads of Exceptional Rule, by John Tofik Karam

• Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland, by Francesca Sobande and layla-roxanne hill

• Undocumented Saints: The Politics of Migrating Devotions, by William A. Calvo-Quirós

• Trainspotting, by Irvine Welsh

• The 007 Diaries: Filming Live and Let Die, by Roger Moore

Let me know if you also read any of the books above, want to share your thoughts on titles you enjoyed in 2022, or if you have any book recommendations for 2023 (yes, please!).

Until then, Happy New Year friends. Here's to more good reads in the year to come.

December 2021 Book Giveaway!

Looking to get that religion nerd in your life something unique for the holidays?

Interested in exploring the vibrancy and diversity of Muslim life and experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean?

In the market for an effective sleep aid? ;)

Well, I’ve got extra copies of my new book The Muslims of Latin America and the Caribbean and I’d like to give one away!

To enter to win a copy sent to the address of your choice, simply do any of the following between now and December 14, 2021:

1) Sign up for my Religion+Culture E-Newsletter;

2) Sign up for the Latin America and Caribbean Islamic Studies Newsletter;

3) Share news about the book and/or the book giveaway and tag me on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Entries are open until December 14. Multiple entries allowed.

Questions, comments, or conundrums? Send me a note.

Review: Latino and Muslim in America

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Since 2016, the issues of immigration, religious freedom, and the question of the compatibility of Islam and the West have been hotter-than-usual issues in the United States. In the narrative of Latino Muslims (a term I will later problematize) in the US, these various strands intersect and overlap. 

According to Harold Morales’s own previous research, there “are likely between 50,000 to 70,000” Latino Muslims in the US. Regardless of numbers, there is a pertinent need to study religious minorities such as Latino Muslims for their ability to “de-naturalize and de-essentialize, to broaden and to push our varied and unfixed understandings of and relations” (211) to various categories of religion, identity, ethnicity, and issues such as immigration, religious freedom, and Islam in and of the West. This need is what Morales seeks to address in his latest book, Latino and Muslim in America: Race, Religion, and the Making of a New Minority.