Islam and Futurism in Dune: A Discussion with Haris Durrani
на канале: The Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Stanford University
On Wednesday, August 17th 2022, the Abbasi Program hosted Haris Durrani to discuss themes of Islamic Futurism in Herbert's Dune as part of the SGS Summer Film Festival, “Common Worlds, Limitless Realities: Futurism and Fantasy in Global Cinema.”
Dune Part One is the 6-time Academy Award winning, 2021 American epic science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve, it is the first of a two-part adaptation of the 1965 epic novel by Frank Herbert. Punctuated by obvious Middle Eastern and Islamic themes/names/setting, Dune is set in the distant future in the year 20,000, the film follows the story of the Fremen, and Paul Atreides, a messianic like figure, who is thrust into a war for the deadly and inhospitable desert planet Arrakis.
Discussant:
Haris Durrani is a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University where he studies the histories of law, technology and empire. Previously, he earned a J.D. and B.S. from Columbia University and an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge. He is also a fiction writer himself! His debut book is “Technologies of the Self” and his recent work has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction (Vol. II). He was interviewed by NPR for his work on Dune and he has written about Herbert, Islam and Dune in the Washington Post, Tor.com and Newlines magazine.