Millennial Muslims and Lebanese-Australian Literature: Dr Ibrahim Abraham in Conversation with Professor Karima Laachir (CAIS Director)

A recent, strong wave of Lebanese-Australian literature, emerging from the western suburbs of Sydney, sheds light on the complexity and diversity of Muslim identity, belief and practice in contemporary Australia. Focusing primarily on the ambiguously semi-autobiographical coming-of- age novels of Omar Sakr and Michael Mohammed Ahmad, drawing in the literary theory of Franco Moretti and the sociology of Olivier Roy, this work-in-progress presentation situates millennial Muslims in unstable societies and identities.
This contemporary Lebanese-Australian literature portrays the entropy of vernacular religious practices, with Islam in particular becoming fragmentary, individualistic and illusive. Drawing upon insights from broader literature of the Arab diaspora, this presentation also ponders the spiritual significance of fathers who go missing through migration.

Bio
Ibrahim Abraham is Lecturer in Sociology at Federation University Australia and Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Humanities Research Centre, ANU, where he was formerly Hans Mol Research Fellow in Religion and the Social Sciences and Convenor of the Freilich Project for the Study of Bigotry. His books include, most recently, Race, Class and Christianity in South Africa (Routledge, 2021).