Grounded

Iman AbdoulKarim
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Each week, we answer a big question, finding grounding somewhere between the spiritual and the intellectual. I’m Dr. Iman, your professor-friend who turns to my work as a scholar of religion, spirituality, and Black intellectual history to think through questions big and small about how we make sense of our lives. Some weeks, that means digging into Black thought, religion, spirituality, and culture. Other weeks, I’m thinking out loud about something I’m researching, teaching, reading, or finding grounding in. And sometimes I’m joined by scholars, creators, friends, and listeners who give us something new to think about. Wherever the question takes us, the goal is the same: to think together about the ideas, people, and traditions that might help us see ourselves and our world a little differently. Let’s get grounded.

  1. 5 ngày trước

    Who Is a Bad Muslim, and Why Will Mayor Mamdani Always Be One?

    Mayor Mamdani was publicly disinvited from 9/11 memorial services, and his dad wrote a book that helps us understand why. We’re thinking about a framework that has shaped how scholars think about Islam, terrorism, and American politics for more than twenty years: Mahmood Mamdani’s Good Muslim, Bad Muslim. Mamdani argues that the distinction between “good” and “bad” Muslims doesn’t actually have much to do with religion, despite terrorism so often being framed as an outcome of religious belief. Instead, the goalpost moves according to Muslims’ relationship to U.S. and Western political interests, both domestically and abroad. And, of course, there’s something pretty incredible about revisiting that argument now, as Mamdani’s own son, Zohran Mamdani, is navigating what it means to be a Muslim elected official who remains unapologetic about his Muslim identity while being critical of the political establishment. We get into the post-9/11 origins of the “good Muslim/bad Muslim” framework, Juliane Hammer’s work on gendered Islamophobia, and then go further back to Malcolm X to think about another historical moment when someone who critiqued American politics, domestically and abroad, was also rendered a “bad Muslim.” Both Mamdanis help us see that who gets rendered a “bad Muslim” tells us much less about Islam than it tells us about power, politics, and who is allowed to critique the United States. Chapters 00:00 — Teaser: Why Mamdani Will Always Be a “Bad Muslim” 00:38 — Where I’m Finding Grounding: Being Back Home 02:52 — Who Is a Good Muslim? Who Is a Bad Muslim? 03:59 — Mamdani’s Dad Told Us This 20 Years Ago 07:03 — Who Gets to Be a “Good Muslim”? 10:55 — Gendered Islamophobia 15:05 — The First “Bad Muslim” People’s Mayor of NYC: Malcolm X 21:20 — Rahma Duwaji + the Moving Goalpost of the “Good Muslim” 24:58 — Where I’m Looking for Grounding Right Now References: Mamdani, Mahmood. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. New York: Pantheon Books, 2004. Hammer, Juliane. “Center Stage: Gendered Islamophobia and Muslim Women.” In Islamophobia in America: The Anatomy of Intolerance, edited by Carl W. Ernst, 107–144. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Wallace, Mike, and Louis E. Lomax. The Hate That Hate Produced. WNTA-TV, 1959. [Islamophobia, Islam in America, Muslims in America, Zohran Mamdani, Malcolm X, good Muslim bad Muslim, Mahmood Mamdani, religion and politics, gendered Islamophobia, Black Muslims, Nation of Islam, and post-9/11 Islam]

  2. 7 thg 9

    Ep. 27 What Do People Do When They Disagree With Scripture?

    What do people do when they don’t agree with scripture? Especially when a sacred text, or the way it has been interpreted, doesn’t align with their own sense of justice, equality, or human flourishing? This week, I’m taking you into my Intro to the Study of Islam classroom to think about that question. I start with an exercise I give my students using two passages about slavery, one from the New Testament and one from the Quran, and the little “gotcha” moment that happens when I ask them to imagine building a society based on those texts. Because the point is to get them to see that sacred texts don’t simply tell people what to do. People give sacred texts meaning. From there, we get into Aysha Hidayatullah’s Feminist Edges of the Qur’an and some of the strategies Muslim feminist theologians have used when interpretations of the Quran don’t align with their commitments to gender justice, including historical contextualization, holistic reading, and the Tawhidic paradigm. Ultimately, I’m thinking about something I really want my students to leave my classes understanding: critique, disagreement, struggle, and debate are not necessarily departures from religious traditions. They are part of how religious traditions are made, sustained, and transformed. And maybe disagreeing with scripture is a much more religious thing to do than we think. Chapters: 00:00 — Teaser: What Do You Do When You Disagree With Scripture? 01:55 — Finding Grounding: Taking Things One Day at a Time 03:40 — The Classroom Exercise: What Would You Do With These Verses? 06:04 — Disagreement Is Part of Religious Tradition 10:50 — Feminist Edges of the Qur’an 14:16 — Strategy #1: Is the Past the Past? 19:14 — Strategy #2: Sacred Texts Have Contradictions 20:25 — Strategy #3: Can Humans Be Gods? References Talal Asad, “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam,” Qui Parle 17 no .2 (2009): 1-30. Aysha Hidayatullah, Feminist Edges of the Qur’an. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Kathryn Lofton, “Religion,” in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, edited by Sarah Hammerschlag (University of Chicago Press, 2025), 349-365. -- [religion, scripture, sacred texts, Bible, Quran, Islam, Christianity, religious studies, Quran interpretation, Biblical interpretation, disagreeing with scripture]

  3. 31 thg 8

    Ep. 26: What'd I Learn From Seeing 5 GLP-1 Ads a Day?

    Is it my manifest destiny to lose 40 pounds in 3 weeks? I started keeping track. And on average, I get 5 GLP-1 ads DAILY. When I started really paying attention to them, I noticed that what they were selling me wasn’t just the normal skinny = health = beauty formula. A formula Sabrina Strings’ research shows has been used to racialize Black bodies for centuries. Instead, its promise to me was: You’ll finally be who you’ve always been meant to be. And that is where my scholar of religion brain starts kicking in. Because whenever you start talking about destiny and who someone has always been meant to be, you’re talking about religion, especially American religion. This week, I’m thinking through three things that being inundated with GLP-1 advertising has taught me: what these ads reveal about our ideas of becoming and the self and why Serena William’s as the face of Ro is diabolically genius, why its feels spiritually unsettling to my own sense of self + embodied knowledge when the same platforms used to learn+connect are constantly telling me not to trust my body, and how GLP-1 marketing has hard launched an entire genre of social media content organized around being your final form (5 Things I Did To Be XYZ), rather than life as a continual process of becoming. AND IT’S SO BORING. Chapters 00:00 — Teaser: What Are GLP-1 Ads Actually Selling? 00:31 — Welcome to Grounded 01:28 — Finding Grounding: Learning How to Be Unstressed 03:36 — What I Learned From Seeing 5 GLP-1 Ads a Day 07:45 — Why GLP-1 Marketing Feels Different From Earlier Weight-Loss Marketing 17:50— You Go Looking For Info, And Are Told Not To Trust Your Body 22:24 — GLP-1 Marketing Has Become Its Own Content Genre & ITS BORING References Strings, Sabrina. "How the use of BMI fetishizes white embodiment and racializes fat phobia." AMA Journal of Ethics 25, no. 7 (2023): 535-539. Strings, Sabrina. Fearing The Black Body. New York University Press, 2020. About Grounded Grounded with Dr. Iman is a podcast for people who like their big questions grounded in research. Each week, Dr. Iman AbdoulKarim, professor and scholar of religion and spirituality, takes on a question about this human experience we’re all having, finding grounding somewhere between the spiritual and the intellectual. Expect religion, spirituality, Black thought, culture, history, and whatever else the question requires. New episodes every Monday.

  4. 24 thg 8

    Ep. 25: Why Does Reading Someone Feel So Intellectual and Spiritual? | Jools Lebron vs. Jeffree Star

    Why does hearing somebody get read for filth feel so intellectually and spiritually satisfying? This week, I’m thinking through Jools Lebron’s read of Jeffree Star and asking what a read actually does. What distinguishes it from a reaction, insult, belittling someone, etc.? Because to me, those are their own things, separate from the kind of speaking-truth-to-power, punching up, and critical analysis that makes a read *a read.* I also think about how there is something spiritual happening here too. We get into the read as catharsis and collective processing, the flow state of reading someone down, and what it might mean to understand that flow as a form of channeling memory, experience, and a part of Black history long before there was a term for it. Chapters 00:00 Teaser 00:27 Welcome to Grounded 01:03 Finding Grounding: Back in Atlanta 02:20 Jools Lebron vs. Jeffree Star 07:38 What Makes a Read a Read? 11:07 A Read Is Intellectual 15:22 Why a Read Feels Spiritual Works Referenced W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903). bell hooks, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (1989). Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?” (1851). Malcolm X, “Message to the Grass Roots” (1963). Jools Leabron @joolslebron — Grounded with Dr. Iman is a podcast for people who like their big questions grounded in research. Each week, Dr. Iman AbdoulKarim, professor and scholar of religion and spirituality, takes on a question about this human experience we're all having, finding grounding somewhere between the spiritual and the intellectual. Expect religion, spirituality, Black thought, culture, history, and whatever else the question requires.

  5. 17 thg 8

    Ep. 24: How Do You Actually Get Into a PhD Program?

    This, I’m answering a question I get every year: How do you actually get into a PhD program? PhD applications, especially in the humanities, can feel like a behind closed doors process. So, I’m sharing the advice people were generous enought to share with me when was applying and what I’ve learned from helping others through the process. We (me, myself, I, and you) get into how to identify programs that are actually a good intellectual fit, why I strongly recommend looking for fully funded programs, and why undergraduate reputations don’t necessarily translate to the strongest PhD program in your field. I also talk about navigating interdisciplinarity and figuring out whether a department really supports the kind of scholar you want to become. Then we get into the MAKE OR BREAK part: you have to reach out to people. Cold emailing current graduate students and potential faculty advisors can completely change your application process. Finally, we talk personal and research statements, including why you do not need to know exactly what your dissertation will be. What you do need is a clear research question, a sense of where you might look for answers, and an ability to explain why that particular program and its faculty can help you pursue it. Basically, this is the PhD application primer I wish everyone got before application season. Chapters: 00:00 — Teaser: How to Get Into a PhD Program 00:42 — What I’m Finding Grounding In: Intellectual Play 06:29 — How TF Do You Get Into Grad School? 08:37 — How to Identify the Right PhD Program 14:56 — How Interdisciplinarity Works in Grad School 20:08 — You HAVE to Cold Email 25:23 — Writing Your Personal + Research Statement

  6. 10 thg 8

    Ep. 23: What I Learned From Student Evaluations as a First-Year Professor

    What did my students teach me about teaching? This week, I’m reflecting on my first semester as a full-time professor and what I learned from finally reading my student evaluations. Can you tell the semester is fast approaching? I’m talking about why teaching really is an art, why my students wanted less lecturing and more hands-on learning, how they somehow ended up wanting *more* assignments, and I’m still committed to high expectations while meeting students where they are. And how that is NOT the same as lowering expectations (especially in an AI reality). Chapters 00:00 — Teaser: Why I’m Tired of the “Students Just Use AI” Conversation 00:22 — Where I’m Finding Grounding 03:35 — What I Learned From My First Teaching Evaluations 08:50 — Students Don’t Want to Just Be Talked At 12:35 — They Asked for MORE Work??? 18:30 — Where Students Wanted Me to Ease Up: Attendance & Hard Readings

  7. 3 thg 8

    Ep. 22: What is Secularism?

    It's one of those words people use all the time, thinking they mean the same thing, when that isn’t always the case! As a scholar of religion who teaches about secularism, I’ve realized the best place to start is by talking about assumptions. This week, I draw on my own journey as a Black Muslim scholar of religion to walk through the kinds of assumptions I encountered throughout college, graduate school, and becoming a professor, and how those assumptions reveal what secularism is and how it functions. The takeaway is that rather than treating secularism as simply the separation of church and state, it is best understood by paying attention to the "common sense" assumptions that organize our lives and determine whose knowledge really counts. This conversation is just the start, but one that has deeply reshaped how I understand scholarship, Black thought, and the relationship between spirituality and intellectual life. Chapters 00:00 — Teaser: Secularism Was Never Meant for Me 00:30 — Grounding in Traveling with the Girls 03:06 — This Week's Question: What Is Secularism? 10:37 — Assumption #1: Outsiders Are Experts, Insiders Know Less 14:55 — Assumption #2: People Want You to Tell Familiar Stories 20:36 — Assumption #3: There Is No Separation Between the Spiritual and the Intellectual

  8. 20 thg 7

    Ep. 21: How to Strengthen Your Intuition?

    This week, we're answering the question: How do you strengthen your intuition? Over the past few weeks, we've explored intuition through philosophy, Black thought, and management studies. This week, I wanted to do something different and answer that question through my own life. I share the three practices that have most transformed my relationship to intuition over the past five years: developing a relationship with myself via journaling, learning to distinguish what I want from what other people want for me, and embracing the conflict that comes from actually acting on what my intuition tells me. Along the way, I reflect on journaling, therapy, prayer, graduate school, learning to trust myself as a scholar of Black Muslim thought, and why I want all my women and femmes to leave behind the idea that there is redemption in our suffering (which is a huge barrier to developing clear intuition).

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Each week, we answer a big question, finding grounding somewhere between the spiritual and the intellectual. I’m Dr. Iman, your professor-friend who turns to my work as a scholar of religion, spirituality, and Black intellectual history to think through questions big and small about how we make sense of our lives. Some weeks, that means digging into Black thought, religion, spirituality, and culture. Other weeks, I’m thinking out loud about something I’m researching, teaching, reading, or finding grounding in. And sometimes I’m joined by scholars, creators, friends, and listeners who give us something new to think about. Wherever the question takes us, the goal is the same: to think together about the ideas, people, and traditions that might help us see ourselves and our world a little differently. Let’s get grounded.

Thông Tin

  • Nhà sáng tạo
    Iman AbdoulKarim
  • Năm hoạt động
    2026
  • Tập
    29
  • Xếp hạng
    Sạch
  • Bản quyền
    © Copyright 2026 Iman AbdoulKarim
  • Trang web chương trình
    Grounded