Twice a year, Muslims from around the country gather in Queens for a speed dating event, with parents watching from the sidelines, hoping that their sons and daughters will find a spouse. The events are a peculiar mix of religious and secular, East and West, freedom and restriction.
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Announcements, events, and opportunities related to topics of interest to TIF readers are posted here. Additionally you may find round-ups of news items and brief commentary on current events.
For a listing of all of the events announcements, click here.
For a listing of announcements regarding books, click here.
events
Panel discussion on Iran’s Green Movement and the upheaval in the Middle East
by Charles GelmanThis Friday, February 25, at 6:00 PM, there will be a panel discussion of the resurgence of the Iranian Green Movement in relation to the recent uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East. The panel will feature Hamid Dabashi, Ervand Abrahamian, Nader Hashemi, Golbarg Bashi, and Danny Postel---all contributors to The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran's Future (Melville House, 2011), edited by Hashemi and Postel.For more information, see here.
February 22, 2011
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Thinking about revolution, religion, and Egypt with Talal Asad
by John D. BoyReflecting on the consequences of the recent events in Egypt for the theory of religion, Carl Raschke writes that the insurrection "probably will cut significantly into the commercial relevance of today's generations of Islamic and religous [sic.] studies scholars." In the face of a major political movement in the Middle East that is---as Slavoj Žižek insists---based upon appeals to universal, secular values, the category of religion, Raschke's reasoning goes, will no longer have much explanatory power. . . . Here, I want to briefly hint at how Talal Asad's thought can help us make sense of religion in the context of the revolution in Egypt.
February 23, 2011
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“The embourgeoisement of the Islamists”: Olivier Roy on the uprisings
by Justin ReynoldsOlivier Roy, writing in the New Statesman, argues that the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa show how secular Islam has become in the region.
February 24, 2011
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A Muslim revolution in Egypt
by Khurram HussainNews organizations reporting on Egypt in the last two and half weeks have repeatedly raised the specter of the Muslim Brotherhood taking over the government in the absence of an organized secular opposition. At the same time, most have been at pains to point out that the protests for reform represent a granular, grassroots movement, largely "secular" in its orientation. The narrative hook of the story is therefore the danger of a secular movement being taken over by more fundamentalist Muslims if the transition is not orderly, or if it is managed incorrectly. The problem with this story, of course, is that the vast majority of Egyptians, those in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, would not describe themselves as secular in any meaningful sense.
February 24, 2011
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Revolution and women’s rights
by Annie Hardison-MoodyTuesday marked the first day of the 55th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women meeting. In addition to conversation about the annual and review themes, the question of women’s right and roles following revolutions in the Middle East has been a key topic of conversation. UN Women hosts a panel today (February 25th) titled, “Breaking New Ground: Arab Women and the Path to Democracy.” Find out how to attend or watch the webcast online here.
February 25, 2011
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States of Devotion, a brand new blog
by Lydia BrawnerThe Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at NYU has recently launched States of Devotion, a trilingual blog serving as "an interactive forum for news, analysis and opinion-making about religion and politics in the Americas."
February 25, 2011
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Religion and the emerging transnational Arab public
by Charles GelmanIn the SSRC's Transformations of the Public Sphere essay forum, Seyla Benhabib considers the recent and ongoing uprisings in the Arab world as a novel hybridization of Muslim and modern politics, suggesting that it "is altogether possible that these young revolutionaries who stunned the world with their ingenuity, discipline, tenaciousness and courage will also teach us some new lessons about religion and the public square, democracy and faith . . . ."
February 25, 2011
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Secular humanism, the Christian Right, and progressive education
by Justin ReynoldsOver at U.S. Intellectual History, Andrew Hartman wants to know why, starting the 1970s, the Christian Right came to see "secular humanism" as a religion in its own right. He writes that we need "an intellectual history of the Christian Right's critique of secular humanism," for a number of reasons.
February 25, 2011
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Religion in Wisconsin
by Grace YukichIn an article at Religion Dispatches, Kim Bobo, the founder and Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice, describes the religious presence at some of the recent protests in Wisconsin. . . . Of course, there is disagreement over what actually counts as religion. Many Tea Party supporters of Gov. Walker's legislation are themselves religious and would likely disagree with the assertion that religion looks like marching on behalf of workers. Stories like this one are important for that very reason.
February 28, 2011