معرفی
M. Shobhana Xavier is an Associate Professor at Queen's University's School of Religion, cross-appointed with the Department of Gender Studies. Her research examines contemporary global Sufism and Islam across North America (United States/Canada) and South Asia (Sri Lanka), focusing on sacred spaces, rituals, gender dynamics, and transnational networks.
She earned her BA, BEd, and MA at York University before completing her PhD at Wilfrid Laurier-Waterloo University. Her recent monograph Dervishes of the North: Rumi, Whirling and the Making of Sufism in Canada (2023) explores Canada's Sufi traditions, while Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism (2018) analyzes shrine cultures in North America.
Current projects include documenting Sufi shrines in Sri Lanka amid rising anti-Sufi sentiment and co-authoring studies on gender in contemporary Sufism. She supervises RELS MA and Cultural Studies PhD students and maintains transnational research collaborations with institutions in Canada, the U.S., and Sri Lanka.
