Digital religion · media · infrastructure
Scholar of digital religion and media.
Research · method · teaching
I'm Hassan Asif, a scholar of digital religion and media. I study what happens when digital technology meets religious life. I look at how people make, edit, share, and remix devotional sound, sermons, and sacred images across platforms, and how that work reshapes doctrine, authority, and aesthetic form.
My work sits where platform studies, sound studies, and digital religion meet. It moves across sound and image, from recitation and sermons to memes and deepfakes.
I work qualitatively, through ethnography, close reading of audiovisual remixes, and media genealogy. My fieldwork spans South Asia, the Gulf, East Asia, and Europe.
I also teach, from global copyright to religion in popular culture. Scroll on for my writing, teaching, and talks, and for a small playground of interactive work.
Selected · full list on the CV
Between erasure and preservation in South Asian digital diasporic archives
Media, Culture and Society, 47(8), 1599 to 1618.
How two small online archives keep South Asian music alive when the big platforms forget it: Discostan (Los Angeles record label) and Hamnawa (a publication on Pakistani pop).
Devotion's signal chain
HELIOTROPE. Field essay with photographs.
A walking essay through the Lahore electronics market that keeps Pakistan's religious music industry running. Shops, repair stalls, small studios.
Media remix and digital technocultural practice in Pakistan
Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture, 13(3), 363 to 386.
YouTube remixers in Pakistan cut, blur, and rebuild religious sermons. What happens to a preacher's authority when his words get edited and reshared?
Heritage transactions in Taxila, Pakistan
With Trinidad Rico. In T. Rico (Ed.), The Making of Islamic Heritage. Palgrave Macmillan.
AI in digital Islamic sermons and the case of Engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza
In D. Sundaram and C. Tekobbe (Eds.), Social Media, Religion, and Culture. Routledge.
Reading, bending, and exposing the image game
In J. Tulasiewicz, S. Jovicic, and X. Zhan (Eds.), Ethnographies of Digital Addiction, Harm, and Repair. Bloomsbury Academic.
Remix and the Craft of Praise in Pakistan
Book manuscript, in preparation. Drawn from the dissertation, "Remixing Devotion: Digital Media Practices in Pakistan."
Knowledge sharing, piracy, and Islamic devotional remixing in Pakistan
For submission to Digital Humanities Quarterly.
On software piracy and devotional media production in Pakistan. Full argument in the article when it appears.
For submission to the Journal of Media and Religion.
Full publication list on the CV.
Courses
A graduate seminar on how copyright works around the world and how it might work better.
UofT iSchool · four sections
An undergraduate course on how religion shows up in movies, TV, and online.
UTM ICCIT · two sections
A course on how people talk to and through machines, from chatbots to algorithms.
UTM · instructor of record · deferred
A course on how digital platforms work in different parts of the world.
UTM · instructor of record · deferred
TA work on more than a dozen courses on the CV.
Recent talks · full list on the CV
Features and coverage · 2024 to 2026
Interactive works · sound · games · maps
Research you can press. Four small machines from the dissertation years: a procession you can walk, a rhythm you can program, a studio chain you can wire, and an 8-bit cassette run. Each one opens full screen, like a small arcade cabinet, on phone and desktop alike. Sound on helps.
Full record · updated October 2026
Scholar of digital religion and media. I study what happens when digital technology meets religious life: how devotional sound, sermons, and sacred images are made, edited, shared, and remixed across platforms, and how those practices reshape doctrine, authority, and aesthetic form. My work combines ethnography, close reading of audiovisual remixes, and media genealogy. Contact: h.asif@mail.utoronto.ca. A one-page version is available on request.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters
Other Contributions
Works in Progress
Full list of grants and awards available on request.
Additional curatorial and professional roles available on request.
Courses Taught
Teaching Assistant
Contact and links · all profiles
Send a message. h.asif@mail.utoronto.ca
Build a short loop. Four percussion tracks, sixteen steps, one tempo. Click the cells to switch them on, hit play, and adjust as it loops. Sounds are loosely modeled on the percussion you would hear at a mehfil. Try the presets below. Headphones recommended.
Drag each piece of audio gear into the slot where you think it belongs, or on a phone tap a piece to pick it up and tap a slot to drop it. The chain reads left to right. When all six slots are filled, press check to see if you got it right. If the chain is correct, you can play a synthesized naat through it.
An 8-bit delivery run through Lahore's informal media economy. You are the bootleg cassette itself, reels spinning. Four routes across Lahore, from Hall Road to an Urs night, each one tighter than the last. Drop the reel at every mehfil, masjid, madrasa, shop, dhaba, and mazar. Arrow keys or WASD to move, or use the pad. Deliver all four without getting caught.