Search

Begin New Search Topic Post Colonialism Content Type Book Publication Year within 10 Years

1. GOING TO PENTECOST An Experimental Approach to Studies in Pentecostalism

Author:
Annelin Eriksen, Roy Llera Blanes, and Michelle MacCarthy
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Berghahn Books
Abstract:
Co-authored by three anthropologists with long–term expertise studying Pentecostalism in Vanuatu, Angola, and Papua New Guinea/the Trobriand Islands respectively, Going to Pentecost offers a comparative study of Pentecostalism in Africa and Melanesia, focusing on key issues as economy, urban sociality, and healing. More than an ordinary comparative book, it recognizes the changing nature of religion in the contemporary world – in particular the emergence of “non-territorial” religion (which is no longer specific to places or cultures) – and represents an experimental approach to the study of global religious movements in general and Pentecostalism in particular.
Topic:
Post Colonialism, Religion, Economy, and Colonialism
Political Geography:
Africa, Asia, Australia, Angola, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea

2. The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity's Moral Predicament

Author:
Wael B. Hallaq
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Wael B. Hallaq boldly argues that the "Islamic state," judged by any standard definition of what the modern state represents, is both impossible and inherently self-contradictory. Comparing the legal, political, moral, and constitutional histories of premodern Islam and Euro-America, he finds the adoption and practice of the modern state to be highly problematic for modern Muslims. He also critiques more expansively modernity's moral predicament, which renders impossible any project resting solely on ethical foundations. The modern state not only suffers from serious legal, political, and constitutional issues, Hallaq argues, but also, by its very nature, fashions a subject inconsistent with what it means to be, or to live as, a Muslim. By Islamic standards, the state's technologies of the self are severely lacking in moral substance, and today's Islamic state, as Hallaq shows, has done little to advance an acceptable form of genuine Shari'a governance. The Islamists' constitutional battles in Egypt and Pakistan, the Islamic legal and political failures of the Iranian Revolution, and similar disappointments underscore this fact. Nevertheless, the state remains the favored template of the Islamists and the ulama (Muslim clergymen). Providing Muslims with a path toward realizing the good life, Hallaq turns to the rich moral resources of Islamic history. Along the way, he proves political and other "crises of Islam" are not unique to the Islamic world nor to the Muslim religion. These crises are integral to the modern condition of both East and West, and by acknowledging these parallels, Muslims can engage more productively with their Western counterparts.
Topic:
Islam, Post Colonialism, Fragile/Failed State, and Governance
Political Geography:
Middle East and Arab Countries
Publication Identifier:
9780231162579
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

3. Islam Through Western Eyes: From the Crusades to the War on Terrorism

Author:
Jonathan Lyons
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Despite the West's growing involvement in Muslim societies, conflicts, and cultures, its inability to understand or analyze the Islamic world threatens any prospect for East-West rapprochement. Impelled by one thousand years of anti-Muslim ideas and images, the West has failed to engage in any meaningful or productive way with the world of Islam. Formulated in the medieval halls of the Roman Curia and courts of the European Crusaders and perfected in the newsrooms of Fox News and CNN, this anti-Islamic discourse determines what can and cannot be said about Muslims and their religion, trapping the West in a dangerous, dead-end politics that it cannot afford. In Islam Through Western Eyes, Jonathan Lyons unpacks Western habits of thinking and writing about Islam, conducting a careful analysis of the West's grand totalizing narrative across one thousand years of history. He observes the discourse's corrosive effects on the social sciences, including sociology, politics, philosophy, theology, international relations, security studies, and human rights scholarship. He follows its influence on research, speeches, political strategy, and government policy, preventing the West from responding effectively to its most significant twenty-first-century challenges: the rise of Islamic power, the emergence of religious violence, and the growing tension between established social values and multicultural rights among Muslim immigrant populations. Through the intellectual "archaeology" of Michel Foucault, Lyons reveals the workings of this discourse and its underlying impact on our social, intellectual, and political lives. He then addresses issues of deep concern to Western readers--Islam and modernity, Islam and violence, and Islam and women--and proposes new ways of thinking about the Western relationship to the Islamic world.
Topic:
Islam, Post Colonialism, Political Theory, and Culture
Political Geography:
Middle East and Arab Countries
Publication Identifier:
9780231158954
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN