Thread by @innesseff

Watching responses to @ProfIRMF's article in JAAR. Colleagues are missing the discussion of how *capital* frames hires in Islamic Studies. Admins and BoTs often want to see humanities positions answerable to *State* (read: Federal, NatSec) needs.

academic.oup.com/jaar/advance-a…

In the U.S., we face an absolute crisis in Religious Studies. Religious Studies job postings are in decline or frozen. Many, many departments look at the next 10 years and wonder if they will still exist. Several have already been eliminated *this year.*

Will current graduate students in Islamic Studies -- in REL Studies more broadly -- find jobs? **We simply don't know.** If an administrator offers an REL department a T/TT -- or a lecturer or VAP position -- the dept has just a little room to negotiate the job description.

That's what makes @ProfIRMF's intervention invaluable. Yes, the article calls out a broader perspective of how we imagine Islam. But, it shows us a generational challenge -- how do we protect the positions we have at universities moving forward when admins set hire demands?

When positions open up in REL or other Departments, how do we argue that those should *remain* and not be reallocated to STEM positions, for example? And, how do we retain those positions *while* broadening Islamic Studies as a field? Grads & contingent colleagues depend on us!

Hausa, Farsi, Ottoman Turkish, Yoruba, Dari, Pashto, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Kiswahili, Igbo, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, English -- and so many more -- are *all* Islamic Studies languages. Our field languishes w/o them. Debates about the centrality of Arabic remain

As a field, Religious Studies is wounded & if RS is wounded, Islamic Studies will struggle alongside it. As we debate the centrality of language (Arabic) and region (MENA), we must not lose sight of an obligation to address the terms administrative capital sets for the field.