Merin Shobhana Xavier is an Assistant Professor of Religion in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ithaca College. She teaches courses on Islam specifically, but also religions broadly. Her research interests are on contemporary global Sufism and the transmission and transformation of Sufism in transnational contexts, especially in North America and South Asia. She is the author of
Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism: Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and Contemporary Shrine Cultures (2018) and the co-author of
Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture (2017). She is also one of the co-hosts of the
New Books in Islamic Studies online podcast series.
