Dr Ala Alhourani

Senior Lecturer and Undergraduate Convener

Dr Ala Alhourani is a senior lecturer in the Department for Study of Religions.  His PhD research is on the aesthetics of Islam and Muslim performances of citizenship, conviviality, and differences in South Africa’s post-apartheid secular state. His post-doctorate research explores the aesthetic of religion and everyday ethics in public life.  His research foregrounds aesthetic experiences of religion as embodied ethics, knowledge, power, and traditions.  His research interests are Islam in Africa, Sufism, anthropology of religion, Islamic Studies, secularisation, art and aesthetics. He is a writer and a filmmaker. 

Publications 

  • Alhourani A.R. 2021. ‘Aesthetic Life of Religion and Ordinary Ethics on Long Street, Cape Town’. Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol 39 (3): 596-615. doi.org/10.1111/jore.12358
  • Alhourani A.R. 2020, ‘Islam, Food and Muslim Performance of Citizenship and Belonging’. Annual Review of Islam in Africa. 17: 31-36.
  • Alhourani. A.R. 2020. ‘Aesthetics and Ethics of Islam: The Art of Being a Gay Muslim”. The African Journal of Gender and Religion Vol. 26.  
  • Alhourani, A. (2019). ‘Aesthetics of Muslim-ness: Art and the Formation of Muslim Identity Politics’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 48(3), 185-203. doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12340142.
  • Alhourani. A. R. 2017. ‘Performative Ethnography: Difference and Conviviality of Everyday Multiculturalism in Bellville (Cape Town)’. Journal of African Cultural Studies, 29.2: 211-226. doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2016.1273764.
  • Alhourani, A.R. 2015. ‘Aesthetics of Muslim Public and Community Formations in Cape Town: observations of an anthropologist’, Anthropology Southern Africa, 38.1&2: 103-119. doi.org/10.1080/23323256.2015.1052825

Anthropological films 
www.youtube.com/@alahourani1441

ORCID
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8108-117X