Category: Liberation Theology

NEW BOOK CHAPTER: “Tawhid and its Political Exports: The Dialectics of Negative Theology and Islamic Utopianism,” in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Muslim Liberation Theologies

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.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Muslim Liberation Theologies – 2026 – Byrd – Tawhid and Its Political ExportsDownload
0

New Book: Beyond Eurocentric Social Theory: The Nomadic Intellectual on Religion, Culture, and the State

I am happy to announce that Esmaeil Zeiny and I recently published our book, Beyond Eurocentric Social Theory: The Nomadic Intellectual on Religion, Culture, and the State, which is a collection of essays that engage the work of the Iranian social theorist and my dear brother, Seyed Javad Miri. Dr. Miri is an encyclopedia of knowledge regarding social thought, both Western and Islamic. He has published books and articles on a wide variety of topics, from Iranian politics and culture to Western theory in conversation with Eastern philosophical and religious thought. His work has influenced countless intellectuals and we have attempted to honor him with this collection of essays, published by DeGruyter Brill.

I would personally like to thank Dr. Esmaeil Zeiny, who did the bulk of the heavy lifting on this project, which allowed me some intellectual space to keep working on the many projects that Seyed Javad and I are always involved in, including our Institute for Critical Social Theory, our journal Critical Perspectives, and the numerous books he publishes with Ekpyrosis Press. If there is good in this new book, it is the work of Esmaeil Zeiny and the authors; if there are mistakes, they’re mine.

Look closely at the cover and you’ll see that Seyed Javad is looking back at you!

Get yourself a copy of the book: Beyond Eurocentric Social Theory: The Nomadic Intellectual on Religion, Culture, and the State.

0

Institute for Critical Social Theory Conference in Istanbul, July 8-10, 2026

The Institute for Critical Social Theory has released its Call for Papers for the 2026 conference at Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey. The theme of this year’s conference is “Critical Social Theory in an Age of Global Uncertainty.” We, the organizers, would love to see you all there. Send us an abstract! For more details, see the full Call for Papers below:

ICST – Call for Papers 2026Download
0

New Publication in Critical Perspectives

Critical Perspectives, the journal of the Institute for Critical Social Theory, has just released Vol. 1, no. 2. It was published in December by Ekpyrosis Press. In it I have an article entitled, “Ali Shariati and the Foundations of Islamic Socialism: Muhammad, Capitalism, and the Post-Metaphysical Socialist Alternative.” I also wrote a book review of Jack El-Hai’s The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Herman Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal meeting of Minds at the End of the WWII.

You can purchase a physical copy for $20 here: Critical Perspectives Vol. 1, no. 2.

Or, a free download can be found here:

Critical Perspectives – Vol 1, no. 2 Download
0

Celebrating MLK; Talking about Justice

On Wednesday, January 21st, I had the distinct pleasure to be a speaker at the 2nd annual Symposium of the Hiram Archer Student Success Academy (HASSA) at The University of Olivet. I spoke on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s conception of Justice, and why it is needed in the world today, as we, like Dr. King, live in a time of despair, a time of troubles, and a time wherein faith in our ability to govern ourselves with justice for all is disintegrating. I joined President Dr. Steven Corey, Author and Speaker DeAndre Carter, Oakland University’s Dr. Tonya Bailey and her amazing husband Lee Bailey, as well as the unconquerable recording artist, LaQuisha Burries-Finn. We also had the pleasure of listening to the UO Gospel Choir and the violinist, Rodney Page. This was a tremendous event, one wherein the spirit of Dr. King emanated through all the speakers and performers.

Screenshot
0

“Critical Theory in an Age of Social Disintegration” – ICST Conference in Bristol, UK

On July 17-19, the Institute for Critical Social Theory hosted their inaugural conference at the University of Bristol, UK. I was a great honor to welcome so many scholars to the ICST event. We had thirteen presentations, two plenary addresses, and a round table discussion about critical theory during times of war (See the schedule below). We are looking forward to our next conference in 2026, with Istanbul being the agreed upon destination. Keep an eye out for that Call for Papers.

ICST 2025 Conference ScheduleDownload

If you’d like to listen to my plenary address, wherein I discuss what it means to be critical in an age of social disintegration, you can find it on YouTube:

For more information on the Institute for Critical Social Theory, please visit our website: ICST

1

Discussing the life and legacy of Pope Francis with Dr. Rudolf J. Siebert

On May 31st, 2025, I sat down with the critical theorist and Catholic theologian, Dr. Rudolf J. Siebert, to discuss the life, work, and legacy of Pope Francis. We discussed the Pope’s life before the papacy, the twelve years of his papacy, and the numerous ways in which he “changed the tone” of the Catholic Church, making it more inclusive and open to the world. Elected in 2013, Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, 2025. To the end, he maintained his positions against Russia’s war on Ukraine, Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, and the need to address Global Climate Change before it is too late. In many ways, Pope Francis was a force unto himself, as he, as Dr. Siebert says, put the poor at the forefront of faith, as the church should be a “field hospital” as opposed to a bunker. Our discourse was sponsored by Ekpyrosis Press and the Institute for Critical Social Theory.

0

NOW AVAILABLE: Ali Shariati: Critical Social Theory and the Struggle for Decolonization

Ali Shariati: Critical Social Theory and the Struggle for Decolonization, edited by Dustin J. Byrd and Seyed Javad Miri

Ali Shariati (1933-1977) is best known as a “revolutionary theorist,” closely connected to Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979. While his social, political, and religious thought was deeply influential in those turbulent times, Shariati was much more than a political ideologue. A scholar of religion, philosophy, and sociology, Shariati was fluent both in Western and Islamic thought, which allowed him to create some of the most penetrating “critical” thought in the 20th century, applicable to both the West and the dār al-Islām. While he remains controversial inside his home country, his influence has grown beyond its borders. Today, contemporary theorists are returning to Shariati’s written works, seeing his voluminous writing as a precursor to the decolonization movement, which seeks to emancipate the non-Western world from the vestiges of Western colonial domination. In many ways, Shariati laid the foundation for such emancipatory work through his own struggle against the Shah of Iran and the clerical establishment that supported the status quo. This collection of essays returns to a variety of the Shariati’s core concepts, as it seeks to interrogate them, revitalize them, and engage our own age of strife through these Shariatian perspectives.

Contributors: Dustin J. Byrd, Seyed Javad Miri, Joseph Alagha, Esmaeil Zeiny, Vahideh Sadeghi, Bijan Abdolkarimi, Raewyn Connell, Carimo Mohomed, Tanveer Azamat, Teo Lee Ken, Milad Dokhanchi, Fatemeh Shayan, Ali S. Harfouch, M.S. Kolbadi, and Mohammad Masud Noruzi.

Available on the Ekpyrosis Press website: Ali Shariati

Available on Amazon (US): Ali Shariati

Available through Lulu (US & International): Ali Shariati

0

NEW PODCAST on Ali Shariati

My dear brother and colleague, Seyed Javad Miri, and I had a wonderful opportunity to discuss Ali Shariati with Jacek Drozda, the host of the “Emancypacje” (Emancipation) podcast out of Warsaw, Poland. We discussed Shariati’s life, work, influence on the 1979 revolution in Iran, and most importantly, Ali Shariati’s Liberation Theology.

Here’s the introduction to the podcast: We begin our new mini-series “Liberation Theologies” where we look at the intersection of emancipatory politics and religion with an exciting conversation about Ali Shariati, a renowned Iranian revolutionary, sociologist, political theologian and theoretician. Our guests are two major specialists in this field: prof. Dustin J. Byrd (The University of Olivet) and prof. Seyedjavad Miri (Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies in Tehran). As regular collaborators they authored and edited several important books together, including “Ali Shariati and the Future of Social Theory: Religion, Revolution, and the Role of the Intellectual” (Brill, 2017). Take a deep dive into Shariati’s contribution to political philosophy and the Iranian Revolution the victory of which he did not live to see.

Liberation Theologies Pt. 1 on Soundcloud: Ali Shariati, Revolution, Islamic Modernism, and Red Shi’ism.

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑