BA, BEd, and MA (York University)
PhD (Wilfrid Laurier-Waterloo University)
Theological Hall 406
613.533.6000 x74320
Shobhana.Xavier@queensu.ca
Curriculum Vitae for M. Shobhana Xavier
Research Focus:
Dr. Xavier works on Islam, Sufism, and popular spirituality, especially in the United States, Canada, and Sri Lanka (North America and South Asia). She explores developments and practices of contemporary Sufism through the lens of migration, diaspora, gender, popular culture, rituals, spaces, and institutions.
She is the author of Dervishes of the North: Rumi, Whirling and the Making of Sufism in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2023), the first monograph study on Sufism in Canada. She is also the author of Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism: Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and Contemporary Shrine Cultures (Bloomsbury Press, 2018) and a co-author (with Meena Sharify-Funk and William Rory Dickson) of Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics and Popular Culture (Routledge, 2017). She is currently working on a book project on contemporary Sufi shrines in Sri Lanka amidst growing anti-Sufism on the island.
