Max Johnson Dugan

Max is a fourth-year doctoral student specializing in Islam. His research focuses on Islamic materiality in the twenty-first century, especially in North America. Max is currently developing a dissertation project that will examine Islamic tattooing and Halal consumption using a combination of ethnographic methods and digital humanities. The project will speak to issues of class, gender, ethnicity, and communal authority, while offering insight into non-elite, lived Islam in the United States. In addition to his dissertation, Max has ongoing research projects on the circulation of Islamic ethics by Islamic wall art, the pedagogies of affect in Salat instructional videos, and the incorporation of basketball courts into Islamic centers in the United States.

Before arriving at Penn, Max received a BA in religious studies with highest honors from Kenyon College. His experience teaching, administering educational programs, and doing community development in the Philadelphia area between Kenyon and Penn provided many of the sparks which Max continues to explore in his academic research.