Indiana University Press, 2010, 250 pages
"Islamophobia" is a term that has been widely applied to anti-Muslim ideas and actions, especially since 9/11.
The contributors to this provocative volume explore and critique the usefulness of the concept for understanding contexts ranging from the Middle Ages to the mode day. Moving beyond familiar explanations such as good Muslim/bad Muslim stereotypes or the "clash of civilizations," they describe Islamophobia's counterpart, Islamophilia, which deploys similar oppositions in the interest of fostering public acceptance of Islam. Contributors address topics such as conflicts over Islam outside and within Muslim communities in . . .
Contents
Acknowledgments
This book grows out of intellectual exchanges that began in October 2007 at "Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend," the inaugural conference of the Islamic Studies Initiative (ISI) at the University of Michigan. I would like to thank Mark Tessler, director of the Inteational Institute at the University of Michigan, for the generous support he has given.
Introduction: Islam as an Object of Fear and Affection
The twenty-first century is still young, but it is already proving to be an especially bad time for relations between the Muslim world and the West. Or so it would seem, if we accept the grand collapse of geography, culture, and history conveyed in terms like "the Muslim world" and "the West." To speak more precisely, the U.S. military now occupies two Muslim-majority countries, where it faces multiple armed .
Part One: Continuities and Transformations
Weste Hostility toward Muslims: A History of the Present
Islamophobia is a new word but not a new phenomenon. The term is a close cousin of xenophobia, and like other words in this family, it has proven useful in recent decades as transregional immigration and shifting national boundaries have produced political climates in which fearful, or overtly antagonistic, relationships to difference are resurgent.
The Khalil Gibran Inteational Academy: Diasporic Confrontations with an Emerging Islamophobia
Reactions to the establishment of the Khalil Gibran Inteational Academy (KGIA), the first New York City public school to teach an Arabic dual curriculum with a focus on Arab history and culture, were intense. Over the summer.
Part Two
The God that Failed: The Neo-Orientalism of Today's Muslim Commentators
Thirty years ago, Edward Said published Orientalism, the highly influential study challenging the authority of Weste representations of the Orient through the twin prisms of knowledge and power. Said identified Orientalism.
Gendering Islamophobia and Islamophilia: The Case of Shi'i Muslim Women in Lebanon
In the ten years that I have been conducting field research in the southe suburb of Beirut, there has been a drastic shift in the geopolitical climate in relation to my interlocutors, many of whom are supporters of the Lebanese.
Bridging Traditions: Madrasaas and Their Inteal Critics
Of the many thoy debates on issues relating to Islam and modeity, questions of educational reform are among the most contentious. What sort of education should Muslims receive in order to meet the challenges of changing.
Part Three
The Fantasy and Violence of Religious Imagination: Islamophonia and Anti-Semitism in France and North Africa
In a particularly poignant moment in Matthieu Kassovitz’s celebrated 1995 film, La Haine—a bleak, neorealist portrayal of marginalization and violence in the Parisian outer-city (banlieue) housing projects (les cit?s)—the white.
German Converts to Islam and Their Ambivalent Relations with Immigrant Muslims
I would never have become a Muslim if I had met Muslims before I met Islam. I heard these words over and over again during my yearlong ethnographic research among ethnic German converts to Islam in Berlin.1 The first time,.
Part Four: Attraction and Repulsion in Shared Space
Muslim Ethnic Comedy: Inversions of Islamophobia
The association of Muslims with terrorism after 9/11 has prompted a search for the comic side of being Muslim. Do these people ever laugh? The simplistic idea that Muslims hate us has simultaneously produced rigid stereotypes.
Competing for Muslims: New Strategies for Urban Renewal in Detroit
Masjid Mu‘ath bin Jabal is a Yemeni mosque located in Detroit, on the outskirts of Hamtramck, a working-class, historically Polish city that is bounded on all sides by Detroit and isolated further by a ring of industrial factories and.
Contributors
Index
"Islamophobia" is a term that has been widely applied to anti-Muslim ideas and actions, especially since 9/11.
The contributors to this provocative volume explore and critique the usefulness of the concept for understanding contexts ranging from the Middle Ages to the mode day. Moving beyond familiar explanations such as good Muslim/bad Muslim stereotypes or the "clash of civilizations," they describe Islamophobia's counterpart, Islamophilia, which deploys similar oppositions in the interest of fostering public acceptance of Islam. Contributors address topics such as conflicts over Islam outside and within Muslim communities in . . .
Contents
Acknowledgments
This book grows out of intellectual exchanges that began in October 2007 at "Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend," the inaugural conference of the Islamic Studies Initiative (ISI) at the University of Michigan. I would like to thank Mark Tessler, director of the Inteational Institute at the University of Michigan, for the generous support he has given.
Introduction: Islam as an Object of Fear and Affection
The twenty-first century is still young, but it is already proving to be an especially bad time for relations between the Muslim world and the West. Or so it would seem, if we accept the grand collapse of geography, culture, and history conveyed in terms like "the Muslim world" and "the West." To speak more precisely, the U.S. military now occupies two Muslim-majority countries, where it faces multiple armed .
Part One: Continuities and Transformations
Weste Hostility toward Muslims: A History of the Present
Islamophobia is a new word but not a new phenomenon. The term is a close cousin of xenophobia, and like other words in this family, it has proven useful in recent decades as transregional immigration and shifting national boundaries have produced political climates in which fearful, or overtly antagonistic, relationships to difference are resurgent.
The Khalil Gibran Inteational Academy: Diasporic Confrontations with an Emerging Islamophobia
Reactions to the establishment of the Khalil Gibran Inteational Academy (KGIA), the first New York City public school to teach an Arabic dual curriculum with a focus on Arab history and culture, were intense. Over the summer.
Part Two
The God that Failed: The Neo-Orientalism of Today's Muslim Commentators
Thirty years ago, Edward Said published Orientalism, the highly influential study challenging the authority of Weste representations of the Orient through the twin prisms of knowledge and power. Said identified Orientalism.
Gendering Islamophobia and Islamophilia: The Case of Shi'i Muslim Women in Lebanon
In the ten years that I have been conducting field research in the southe suburb of Beirut, there has been a drastic shift in the geopolitical climate in relation to my interlocutors, many of whom are supporters of the Lebanese.
Bridging Traditions: Madrasaas and Their Inteal Critics
Of the many thoy debates on issues relating to Islam and modeity, questions of educational reform are among the most contentious. What sort of education should Muslims receive in order to meet the challenges of changing.
Part Three
The Fantasy and Violence of Religious Imagination: Islamophonia and Anti-Semitism in France and North Africa
In a particularly poignant moment in Matthieu Kassovitz’s celebrated 1995 film, La Haine—a bleak, neorealist portrayal of marginalization and violence in the Parisian outer-city (banlieue) housing projects (les cit?s)—the white.
German Converts to Islam and Their Ambivalent Relations with Immigrant Muslims
I would never have become a Muslim if I had met Muslims before I met Islam. I heard these words over and over again during my yearlong ethnographic research among ethnic German converts to Islam in Berlin.1 The first time,.
Part Four: Attraction and Repulsion in Shared Space
Muslim Ethnic Comedy: Inversions of Islamophobia
The association of Muslims with terrorism after 9/11 has prompted a search for the comic side of being Muslim. Do these people ever laugh? The simplistic idea that Muslims hate us has simultaneously produced rigid stereotypes.
Competing for Muslims: New Strategies for Urban Renewal in Detroit
Masjid Mu‘ath bin Jabal is a Yemeni mosque located in Detroit, on the outskirts of Hamtramck, a working-class, historically Polish city that is bounded on all sides by Detroit and isolated further by a ring of industrial factories and.
Contributors
Index