"Something like this was sorely needed..."
In the preceding months, several of you have told me that something like this was needed. A newsletter to collect, distribute, and help produce research on the subject of Islam and Muslim communities in Latin America and the Caribbean.
It's been an immense joy to see a growing community of more than 100 interested individuals coalesce around the resources shared in the newsletter.
In this, our third edition, we get to hear from two of them: Dr. Aisha Khan (New York University) and Dr. Carlos Jair Martínez Albarracín (Universidad Manuela Beltrán).
First, a review of The Deepest Dye: Obeah, Hosay, and Race in the Atlantic World along with an interview with the author: Aisha Khan, in which she talks about the complex historical and contemporary relationship between power, race, and religion in the Americas and the Atlantic World.
Second, Carlos Jair Martínez Albarracín shares a member note highlighting work being done on Arabic-speaking communities and Muslim communities in the Caribbean, including the continental Caribbean (e.g. Colombia).
If you'd like to see your own work featured in future editions of the newsletter, we are looking for original articles, research notes, reviews, and translations. Submissions can be in Spanish, English, Portuguese, Arabic, or French. For more information, please see our "Call for Contributions" below.
Third, we feature two related stories "In the News" touching on what R. Brooks Jeffery called, "the Islamic built environment of the Hispano Americas" or what one of the authors calls, "Latin America's Alhambrismo." Both pieces -- one article and one podcast -- take a look at how Andalusian and neo-Moorish art, culture, and architecture came to influence the construction of the Americas, from Puerto Rico to Cuba, Mexico to Peru and many places in between. I sincerely hope you enjoy the third edition of the Latin America & Caribbean Islamic Studies Newsletter and encourage you to share it with others interested in the subject and for whom such a newsletter might also be "sorely needed."