Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>What does it mean to be Muslim at a university that imagines itself as secular?</jats:p> <jats:p>Drawing on three years of immersive ethnographic research at an elite and ostensibly secular institution, Challenging Secularity reexamines how religion and secularity actually take shape within American higher education. While universities often imagine themselves as neutral spaces—either wholly secular or newly “postsecular”—this book reveals how Protestant norms quietly shape the very categories of religion and secularity, and thus continue to structure university life and diversity on campus.</jats:p> <jats:p>Through nuanced portraits of Muslim students navigating academic life, student spaces, and campus diversity initiatives, Challenging Secularity, shows that what passes as “secular” is, in fact, deeply inflected by liberal Protestant assumptions about religion—one that privileges privatization and individual belief. For Muslim students whose experiences and practices often exceed or resist these terms, being “religious” on campus entails constant negotiation.</jats:p> <jats:p>Offering a compelling rethinking of religion’s place in higher education, Challenging Secularity exposes how even the most inclusive institutions reproduce a Protestant legacy—and how Muslim students creatively inhabit, resist, and redefine what it means to belong. Their everyday efforts to live their faith challenge prevailing categories of religion, secularity, and diversity—inviting readers to reconsider what inclusion and pluralism truly mean in the modern university.</jats:p>