Jasbeer Musthafa Mamalipurath, "TEDified Islam: Postsecular Storytelling in New Media" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)

Nov 21, 2025

Jasbeer Musthafa Mamalipurath, a media studies lecturer at Queen's University Belfast, explores the intersection of Islam and modern storytelling in TED Talks. He discusses how personal experiences with Islamophobia fueled his research. Mamalipurath reveals TED's role as a platform that reshapes religious narratives, emphasizing storytelling over theological authority. He also highlights how both Muslim and non-Muslim audiences react differently to these narratives, with concerns about representation and the impact of secular interpretations of Islam. His insights challenge us to reconsider what we think we know about TED Talks.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

Personal Incident Sparked The Research

Jasbeer recounts an Islamophobic encounter with a neighbor in Sydney that motivated his research on representations of Islam.
The experience exposed how prejudice persists despite public claims of diversity and inclusion.

INSIGHT

TED As Mediatized Theology

Jasbeer identifies TED as an emerging site of mediatized theology where faith is repackaged for secular audiences.
TED frames religion through storytelling and secular hermeneutics rather than traditional theological authority.

ADVICE

Triangulate Methods For Media Studies

Use triangulation: combine discourse analysis, interviews with speakers, and audience analysis to study mediatized religion comprehensively.
Include both Muslim and non-Muslim viewers to capture how secular platforms reach diverse publics.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Jasbeer Mamalipurath’s TEDified Islam: Postsecular Storytelling in New Media (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) is the first of its kind in-depth examination of the TedTalk phenomenon and in particular how Islam and Muslim experiences are represented in these talks. Mamalipurath argues that TED Talks on Islam are part of a larger postsecular (the secular's renewed interest in faith) discourse. The book examines the perspectives of Muslim and non-Muslim TED viewers about TED's storytelling strategies. Finally, the book studies aspects of the authority that both Muslim and non-Muslim TED speakers represent and embody as ‘spokespersons of Islam.’ By doing so, this book offers an empirical and context-oriented understanding of postsecular storytelling by problematizing secular translations of Islam that are part of this TED talk universe.

Themes the book explores include the nature of storytelling in a postsecular media environment, insider and outsider dynamics in how Islam is constructed and represented in digital media, the impacts of the 20th and 21st century media environment on how Islam and Muslim lives are translated for primarily non-Muslim audiences, the influence of Jewish and Christian frameworks on how stories of Islam get told, and the role of religion as faith in secular storytelling today. Listeners will certainly never look at TedTalks the same way after learning about the strategies, stories, and consequences of TEDified Islam from Mamalipurath’s research.

Dr. Jasbeer Mamalipurath is a lecturer in media and broadcast studies at the School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University Belfast (UK). His research sits at the intersection of media, society, and culture.

Dr. Jaclyn Michael is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (USA). She is the author of several articles on Muslim cultural representation, performance, and religious belonging in India and in the United States.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network