Dreaming the Ummah

Ahmed Elbenni is a Ph.D. candidate in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and senior editor at Muftah Magazine. He received his BA in History and Political Science from Yale University and MA in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. His doctoral dissertation examines the theorization, creation, and circulation of self-consciously "Islamic" novels in the modern Near East. More specifically, it explores how Muslim reformers in the twentieth century conceived “literature” as an epistemological and ethical problem-space which could, through the translation of “Islam” into an aesthetic experience and narrative strategy, birth a new human subject(ivity) at home in modernity. Ahmed’s other research interests include digital culture, techno-spirituality, and the history of history.