On October 28, 2026, I had the wonderful opportunity to talk once again at the Courageous Leadership Colloquium, held at The University of Olivet. This year, I spoke about courage being a choice that one makes every day. It was a wonderful experience to address those who attended, especially in our troubled times, wherein courage is in short supply. See the audio file below if you’d like to listen to my talk.
If you would like to listen to my talk:
A most excellent book, The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Muslim Liberation Theologies, edited by Emin Poljarević and Ivan Ejub Kostić, will soon be available to the public. My Chapter, entitled “Tawhid and its Political Exports: The Dialectics of Negative Theology and Islamic Utopianism” is included in this massive volume of nearly 600 pages. My chapter looks at the inherent negativity of the theological concept of Tawhid and how that negativity is translated into the socio-political term of “utopia.” In this book, I’m joined by many serious names in the field of Islamic Studies. If you want to read my chapter, you can download it below.
In this book, I’m joined by many serious scholars in the field of Islamic Studies. Check out the table of contents! Don’t forget to suggest ordering a copy to your institution’s library. This is a foundational book.
On October 17th, I was fortunate to join colleagues, graduate students, and former and active professors from the Comparative Religion department at Western Michigan University to celebrate the retirement of the amazing scholar and master pedagogue, Dr. Brian C. Wilson. Dr. Wilson came to WMU in 1996 from UC-Santa Barbara, and quickly became an imminent scholar of local religious history. For thirty years he has educated WMU undergrads and graduate students in religion, religious history, religious theory, etc. I shared my work on the problem of “Geist” within the Willensgemeinschaft and Volksgemeinschaft states regarding Muslims, especially in post-secular Europe.
Dr. Brian Wilson has written some amazing books on American religious history, including Yankees in Michigan, John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age, The California Days of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and the Religion of Biologic Living. These books are all well worth reading as they give incredible insights to the religious history of this area of southern Michigan.
It was great to see my dear friends and mentors, Dr. Nancy Falk, Dr. Stephen Covell, Dr. Kevin Wanner, Dr. Amy DeRogatis of MSU, and many others, including my dear friend and former office mate, Sarah Montgomery-Richards.
dustinjbyrd
