A fresh start
On turning to a new chapter
Welcome to Worlds Beyond Worlds! This project has been in the works for a few years and I’m finally taking the plunge. My dream is that this space is a place for me to publish essays and eventually podcasts related to different ways we construct ways of being human. Sometimes that includes thinking about dragons (roar!). Sometimes it’s about space ships. Sometimes it’s about disability. In all cases, I’m thinking through who gets included and excluded from being considered fully human, how/why it happens, and working through how none of these things happen naturally but instead are the result of choices that we each make.
Who am I?
My name is Patrick J. D’Silva. I’m a scholar of religion who has taught primarily at several different universities in Colorado. My specific academic training is in Islamic Studies and my super-specific field in which I’ve published is Muslim engagement with yoga (or Yoga? Hmmmm). As a lifelong sci-fi fan, I’ve recently started teaching and writing about the intersection of religion, race, and science fiction (as well as fantasy, really all forms of speculative fiction). I’ve published a few public-facing essays looking at how these themes show up especially in Dune as well as The Wheel of Time.
The hope is that in the months ahead I will be use this space to publish essays as well as share interviews with authors, critics, and activists. Here’s a list of topics I plan to publish on in the near future:
Frank Herbert and Marshall Hodgson: How Dune Tests the Limits of “the Islamicate”
Citizen Dragons: Race and Identity in the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik
Dragonology in 20th-21st CE (reviewing how scholars from different disciplines like psychology and anthropology analyze the presence of dragon myths around the world)
Yoga and the Flexible West (looking at how some Jews, Christians, and Muslims incorporate yoga within their religious practices )
Thanks for checking out Worlds Beyond Worlds! Please let me know what you think about the content I post, and I’m always up for suggestions on things to consider writing about down the road.