History Speaks EP10 | Between Worlds: Muslim Women and Campus Life | Roshan Iqbal with Shabana Mir

In this episode of History Speaks, Dr. Roshan Iqbal talks with Dr. Shabana Mir, Associate Professor of Anthropology at American Islamic College and author of the award-winning book Muslim American Women on Campus. Drawing from rich ethnographic research, Dr. Mir explores how Muslim women navigate elite U.S. university spaces while negotiating the pressures of visibility, belonging, and religious identity. We discuss everything from drinking culture and modesty to dating, politics, and what it means to be unapologetically Muslim in a space that often demands compromise. Their conversation is framed by a larger question: what does it mean to belong when your presence is always marked? And what can a win like Zohran Mamdani’s tell us about shifting narratives in American public life?

Shabana Mir is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of Undergraduate Studies at American Islamic College, Chicago. She is the author of the award-winning book Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity (University of North Carolina Press, 2014). The book has received the Outstanding Book Award from the National Association for Ethnic Studies and the Critics’ Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association (2014).

Shabana also taught at Millikin University, Oklahoma State University, the University of Southern California online, Indiana University, Eastern Illinois University, and the International Islamic University, Islamabad. She has a Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington, her M.A. in English Literature from Punjab University (Pakistan) and an M.Phil. in Education from Cambridge University (U.K.). She has lived, studied, and taught in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Pakistan. She is an international public speaker on gender, religion, education, and politics.