Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Thomassen, “British Multiculturalism and the Politics of Representation”

In April, Oxford University Press releases “British Multiculturalism and the Politics of Representation,” by Lasse Thomassen (Queen Mary, University of London).  The publisher’s description follows:

Lasse Thomassen argues that the politics of inclusion and identity should be viewed as struggles over how these identities are represented. He centres thislogoargument through careful analysis of cases from the last four decades of British multiculturalism.

Uses a fresh, poststructuralist approach to reconcile the theoretical and practical issues surrounding inclusion and exclusion – a rare example of how poststructuralism can speak to mainstream concerns and theory

Opens up debates and themes including Britishness, race, the ature and role of Islam in British society, homelessness and social justice

Case studies include public debates about the role of religion in British society; Prime MInisters Gordon Brown and David Cameron>’s contrasting versions of Britishness; legal cases about religious symbols and clothing in schools; and the Nick Hornby novel How to Be Good – most of which have never been covered in such detail before

Examines a number of legal cases: ‘The Queen on the application of Sarika Angel Watkins-Singh v. The Governing Body of Aberdare Girls’ High School and Rhondda Cynon Taf Unitary Authority’, High Court, 2008; ‘Playfoot (a minor), R (on the application of) v Millais School’ High Court 2007; ‘X v Y’, High Court, 2007; and ‘Mandla and another v Dowell Lee and another’, House of Lords, 1983

Posted on by Jason Mansmann

“Victorian Muslim” (Gilham & Geaves, eds.)

In June, Oxford University Press will release Victorian Muslim: Abdullah Quilliam and Islam in the West edited by Jamie Gilham (University of London) and Ron Geaves (Cardiff University). The publisher’s description follows:

Victorian MuslimAfter formally announcing his conversion to Islam in the late 1880s, the Liverpool lawyer William Henry Abdullah Quilliam publicly propagated his new faith and established the first community of Muslim converts in Victorian Britain. Despite decades of relative obscurity following his death, with the resurgence of interest in Muslim heritage in the West since 9/11 Quilliam has achieved iconic status in Britain and beyond as a pivotal figure in the history of Western Islam and Muslim-Christian relations.

In this timely book, leading experts of the religion, history and politics of Islam offer new perspectives and shed fresh light on Quilliam’s life and work. Through a series of original essays, the authors critically examine Quilliam’s influences, philosophy and outlook, the significance of his work for Islam, his position in the Muslim world and his legacy. Collectively, the authors ask pertinent questions about how conversion to Islam was viewed and received historically, and how a zealous convert like Quilliam negotiated his religious and national identities and sought to indigenise Islam in a non- Muslim country.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

“Muslim Students, Education and Neoliberalism” (Haywood & Mac an Ghaill, eds.)

This month, Palgrave Macmillan releases “Muslim Students, Education and Neoliberalism: Schooling a ‘Suspect Community,'” edited by Máirtín Mac an Ghaill (Newman University) and Chris Haywood (Newcastle University).  The publisher’s description follows:

This edited collection brings together international leading scholars to explore why the education of Muslim students is globally associated with radicalisation, Screen Shot 2017-04-06 at 8.35.21 PMextremism and securitisation. The chapters address a wide range of topics, including neoliberal education policy and globalization; faith-based communities and Islamophobia; social mobility and inequality; securitisation and counter terrorism; and shifting youth representations. Educational sectors from a wide range of national settings are discussed, including the US, China, Turkey, Canada, Germany and the UK; this international focus enables comparative insights into emerging identities and subjectivities among young Muslim men and women across different educational institutions, and introduces the reader to the global diversity of a new generation of Muslim students who are creatively engaging with a rapidly changing twenty-first century education system.  The book will appeal to those with an interest in race/ethnicity, Islamophobia, faith and multiculturalism, identity, and broader questions of education and social and global change.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

“Religious Interactions in Europe and the Mediterranean World” (Fukasawa et al, eds.)

In June, Routledge will release “Religious Interactions in Europe and the Mediterranean World: Coexistence and Dialogue from the 12th to the 20th Centuries,” edited by Katsumi Fukasawa (Kyoto-Sangyo University), Benjamin J. Kaplan (University College London), and Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire (University of Nice Sophia Antipolis).  The publisher’s description follows:

 The religious histories of Christian and Muslim countries in Europe and Western Asia are often treated in isolation from one another. This can lead to a limited and 9781138743205simplistic understanding of the international and interreligious interactions currently taking place. This edited collection brings these national and religious narratives into conversation with each other, helping readers to formulate a more sophisticated comprehension of the social and cultural factors involved in the tolerance and intolerance that has taken place in these areas, and continues today.

Part One of this volume examines the history of relations between people of different Christian confessions in western and central Europe. Part Two then looks at the relations between Western and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Islam and Judaism in the vast area that extends around the Mediterranean from the Iberian Peninsula to western Asia. Each Part ends with a Conclusion that considers the wider implications of the preceding essays and points the way toward future research.

Bringing together scholars from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and America this volume embodies an international collaboration of unusual range. Its comparative approach will be of interest to scholars of Religion and History, particularly those with an emphasis on interreligious relations and religious tolerance.

Posted on by Liam Ray

Coope, “The Most Noble of People”

In April, the University of Michigan Press will release The Most Noble of People: Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Identity in Muslim Spain by Jessica A. Coope (University of Nebraska). The publisher’s description follows:

noble-peopleThe Most Noble of People presents a nuanced look at questions of identity in Muslim Spain under the Umayyads, an Arab dynasty that ruled from 756 to 1031. With a social historical emphasis on relations among different religious and ethnic groups, and between men and women, Jessica A. Coope considers the ways in which personal and cultural identity in al-Andalus could be alternately fluid and contentious.

The opening chapters define Arab and Muslim identity as those categories were understood in Muslim Spain, highlighting the unique aspects of this society as well as its similarities with other parts of the medieval Islamic world.The book goes on to discuss what it meant to be a Jew or Christian in Spain under Islamic rule, and the degree to which non-Muslims were full participants in society. Following this is a consideration of gender identity as defined by Islamic law and by less normative sources like literature and mystical texts. It concludes by focusing on internal rebellions against the government of Muslim Spain, particularly the conflicts between Muslims who were ethnically Arab and those who were Berber or native Iberian, pointing to the limits of Muslim solidarity.

Drawn from an unusually broad array of sources—including legal texts, religious polemic, chronicles, mystical texts, prose literature, and poetry, in both Arabic and Latin—many of Coope’s illustrations of life in al-Andalus also reflect something of the larger medieval world. Further, some key questions about gender, ethnicity, and religious identity that concerned people in Muslim Spain—for example, women’s status under Islamic law, or what it means to be a Muslim in different contexts and societies around the world—remain relevant today.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Saeed, “Islamophobia and Securitization”

In September, Palgrave Macmillan will release “Islamophobia and Securitization: Religion, Ethnicity and the Female Voice,” by Tania Saeed (Lahore University of Management Sciences).  The publisher’s description follows:

This book explores everyday realities of young Muslim women in Britain, who are portrayed as antithetical to the British way of life in media and political discourse. Screen Shot 2016-05-27 at 12.29.47 AMThe book captures how geo-political events, and national tragedies continue to implicate individuals and communities at the domestic and local level, communities that have no connection to such tragedies and events, other than being associated with a religio-ethnic identity. The author shows how Muslim women are caught within the spectrum of the vulnerable-fanatic, always perceived to be ‘at risk’ of being ‘radicalized’. Focusing on educated Muslim females, the book explores experiences of Islamophobia and securitization inside and outside educational institutions, and highlights individual and group acts of resistance through dialogue, with Muslim women challenging the metanarrative of insecurity and suspicion that plagues their everyday existence in Britain. Islamophobia and Securitization will be of interest to scholars and students researching Muslims in the West, in particular sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists. It will also appeal to analysts and academics researching security and terrorism, race and racialization, as well as gender, immigration, and diaspora.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

“Law and Religious Minorities in Medieval Societies” (Echevarria et al, eds.)

In June, Brepols Publishers will release “Law and Religious Minorities in Medieval Societies: Between Theory and Praxis,” edited by Ana Echevarria (UNED, Madrid) Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala (University of Cordoba), and John V. Tolan (Universit de Nantes). The publisher’s description follows: 

Muslim law developed a clear legal cadre for dhimmīs, inferior but protected non-Muslim communities (in particular Jews and Christians) and Roman Canon law brepols-publishers-logodecreed a similar status for Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe.  Yet the theoretical hierarchies between faithful and infidel were constantly brought into question in the daily interactions between men and women of different faiths in streets, markets, bath-houses, law courts, etc.  The twelve essays in this volume explore these tensions and attempts to resolve them.  These contributions show law was used to attempt to erect boundaries between communities in order to regulate or restrict interaction between faithful and non-faithful—at at the same time how these boundaries were repeatedly transgressed and negotiated.  These essays explore the possibilities and the limits of the use of legal sources for the social historian.
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Ali, “South Asian Islam and British Multiculturalism”

In May, Routledge will release “South Asian Islam and British Multiculturalism” by Amir Ali (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India). The publisher’s description follows:

This book analyses South Asian Islam’s engagement with the West, and routlogoBritain in particular. It traces the roots of British multiculturalism to South Asia and the Deobandi school of Islam. The work shows how the pattern of interaction that initially emerged between the Deobandi Muslims and the colonial British state in late-19th century replicated itself in the British society in the second half of 20th century. The monograph reflects upon Islam’s ‘compatibility’ with liberal democracy as well as explores how it contributed to its origins in the Enlightenment ethos.

A nuanced, sensitive and topical study, this book will be essential to understanding the world in the light of contemporary world events—Paris 13/11 and Charlie Hebdo attacks, the Danish cartoon controversy, and the Trojan Horse incident in certain British schools as well as the much earlier Rushdie affair. It will be of great interest to researchers and scholars of political science, religion, political Islam, British and South Asian Studies, and history.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

“Annotated Legal Documents on Islam in Europe: Latvia” (Danovskis, ed.)

In January, Brill released “Annotated Legal Documents on Islam in Europe: Latvia,” edited by Edvins Danovskis (University of Latvia).  The publisher’s description follows:

This volume of Annotated Legal Documents on Islam in Europe covers Latvia and consists of an annotated collection of legal documents affecting the status of 69066Islam and Muslims. The legal texts are published in the original Latvian language while the annotations and supporting material are in English. By legal documents are meant the texts of legislation, including relevant secondary legislation, as well as significant court decisions. Each legal text is preceded by an introduction describing the historical, political and legal circumstances of its adoption, plus a short paragraph summarising its content. The focus of the collection is on the religious dimensions of being Muslim in Europe, i.e. on individuals’ access to practise their religious obligations and on the ability to organise and manifest their religious life.

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Liviatan on the Changing Function of Law in Europe’s Cultural Debates

Ofrit Liviatan (Harvard U.) has posted From Abortion to Islam: The Changing Function of Law in Europe’s Cultural Debates. The abstract follows.

The Article rethinks the law’s role in present-day European debates over Islam in light of its calming effects on the once fiercely-fought abortion reforms across Western Europe. Using examples from Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Britain, the Netherlands and Switzerland the article demonstrates that the role of the legal process in each of these culture-based debates diverged along its two social functions. Reflecting growing public anxieties, legal actions concerning Muslims typically focused on generating social and cultural change, foreclosing the likelihood of political compromises. In contrast, at the time of abortion reform legal measures acted as mechanisms of social and cultural order, contributing to the pacification of the fierce public controversies even as moral disagreements over abortion endured. Drawing on this comparison, the article suggests that Europe’s constitutional review processes present a compromise-building path to deliberate contemporary conflicts over Islam.

The Article proceeds in three parts. Part II and III analyze the legal developments in the context of Islam and abortion across Western Europe, revealing a contrasting dynamics in the roles of the legal process in each of these debates. Part IV assesses the effects of the legal process in each of the debates and rules out alternative explanations for this divergence. It argues that the factor of time or European secularization cannot account for the current intensity-difference in each of these debates. The article concludes by proposing a path to launch the currently absent constitutional conversation over Islamic-based tensions in Western Europe. Modeled on abortion reform, constitutional courts should reach beyond proportional balancing and dictate policy frameworks addressing both the roots of Muslim disadvantages and the anxieties of the European public.