Bridget Blomfield

Assistant Professor
Director, Islamic Studies
Ph.D. Claremont Graduate University
AS 205A
402.554.2940
bblomfield@unomaha.edu 

Bridget Blomfield teaches World Religions and Islamic Studies. Among the courses that she offers are: Muslims in America, Islam, Women in Islam, Sufism and other classes that engage special topics. Many of her classes participate in the Service Learning Program and she encourages ethnographic research methods that take students into the Lincoln and Omaha Muslim communities to build bridges of dialogue and understanding. Her students are well grounded in Islam the religion and contemporary issues that face Muslims today.  Students have produced power point presentations and films that have been shown at conferences in the academic and community settings. Every summer she takes students abroad to study Islam and culture to such places as Turkey and Morocco.

Her research interests are Shi’a Muslim women and American Sufism. Most recent research has involved the study of Mevlevi Sufis in the United States. She has also started research in Lincoln, NE with Iraqi Shi’a refugees. As an ethnographer she records the narratives of Muslim practitioners in their own words juxtaposing those stories with theories of ritual enactment, religious and ethnic identity construction and Islamic feminism. Dr. Blomfield examines the lived religious experience of American Muslims.

As director of the UNO Islamic Studies program she collaborates with numerous UNO departments and local organizations to bring activists and scholars to UNO and Omaha for the better understanding of Islam in the academic and local communities. Dr. Blomfield is also on the faculty of Women’s Studies and International Studies.

PUBLICATIONS
Books
The Language of Tears: An Ethnographic Study of Shi'a Muslim Women's Religious Rituals  forthcoming, White Cloud Press

Articles
“Imagery of Fatimah” in Islamic Imagery: Studies in Sacred Symbolism McFarland and Co, Publishers.

“Women in Shi'ism” Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion Springer

“From Ritual to Redemption: World-View if Shi’a Muslim Women in Southern California” edited by Zayn Kassam, in Women and Islam.  Women and Religion in the World Series.  Santa Barbara, CA:  Praeger, ABC-CLIO.

"The Heart of Lament: Pakistani-American Muslim Women's Azadari Rituals" in Eternal Performance: Taziyah and Other Shiite Rituals, edited by Peter Chelkowski, University of Chicago Press.

“Hijab, Hip-Hop, and Haram: Identities of Shi’a Muslim College Women” in Women, Gender and Religion, Journal of Religion and Society, Creighton University Omaha, NE.