While Ahmed’s descriptive claim is a compelling deconstructive critique of Islamic law, I think hacking will become an untenable tool…
Hacking and intentionality
Book blog
Scholars from varying disciplines engage in critical discussions of recent books. Additionally, scholars introduce their books with an original essay or, occasionally, an original essay reviews an important new book, connecting it to other threads of conversation in the academy and beyond.
You can read our very first book forum, on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age and the continued discussion around Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age here.
Islamic law from below: Between trust and distrust
Rumee Ahmed’s Sharia Compliant begins with a letter to his Muslim readers. The Arabic term for “letter” is risala, a…
The world love jam
Before I read Houria Bouteldja’s Whites, Jews, and Us in full, I heard about the controversy that accompanied its initial…
Wording and worlding: On the form of Bouteldja’s writing
Reading Whites, Jews, and Us may tell me plenty about racism and sexism, but mostly, firstly, not exclusively, it shows…
Ending complicities, revolutionizing companionships
The manifesto can be read from beginning to end as an acknowledgement of complex positionalities, a denunciation of systemic complicities,…
Love in dark times
Bouteldja’s “we” is resolutely impure, as is the “you” she addresses. And because it is impure, it is political. It…
On impasse and hypocrisy
Bouteldja’s book is a takedown of white supremacy in its cultural, economic, and political forms. Yet the white supremacy that…
The Kingdom of God Has No Borders—An introduction
The Kingdom of God Has No Borders is a historical study, but it can help us understand the role of…
Imperialists in cassock?
It is one thing to write a good book. It is another thing entirely to write a timely book, and…
I know I am, but what are you?
For Bouteldja, though boundaries of identity are real and significant, they are also porous, and they must be made ever…