From the Editors
Our One-Year Anniversary of Status/الوضع Audio Journal is sooooo Live! Click!
The new mammoth issue of the Arab Studies Journal is out! Click here.
This year, Jadaliyya turned five! Read about it here.
The New York Times says Jadaliyya "Brings New Life to Arab Studies." Read about it by clicking here.
Don't miss Tadween Publishing's new blog, Al-Diwan. Click here.
Jadaliyya was featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Click here for the story.
Check out our flourishing REPORTS PAGE and catch up on news and events. Click here.
Want to find out about new books? Visit our expanding NEWTON page. Click here.
Interested in writing a Review for Jadaliyya? Visit our Call for Reviews here.
Jadaliyya's Photography Page. Click here!
Call for Photos: Become a Contributing Photographer at Jadaliyya
France
الإرث الفكري لفرانز فانون
تُوُفّيَ فرانز فانون قبل أشهر قليلة من استقلال الجزائر في شهر يوليو عام 1962، ولم يعش ليرى بنفسه تحرر بلده بالتبني من الهيمنة الاستعمارية الفرنسية، وهو شيء كان يعتقد أنه أصبح أمرًا حتميًا. وكان هذا المفكر الراديكالي والثوري قد كرّس نفسه وجسده وروحه للتحرر الوطني الجزائري، وكان يُعَدّ مرآة من خلالها فهِم عدد كبير من الثوريين الموجودين في الخارج الجزائر ، وأحد الأسباب التي ساهمت في أن تصبح البلاد مرادفًا لثورات العالم الثالث. وبفضل ثِقَل نضالها في الماضي القريب، وعلى وجه الخصوص نضالها الطويل لنيل الاستقلال الذي مثّل نموذجًا يحتذى به للعديد من جبهات التحرير في شتى أنحاء العالم، ونظرًا لدبلوماسيتها الحازمة وسياستها الخارجية الجريئة في عقد الستينيات والسبعينيات من القرن ...
Keep Reading »The Fantasies of Kamel Daoud
[This collective letter, translated by Muriam Haleh Davis, was originally a response to Kamel Daoud’s piece, “Cologne, lieu de fantasmes,” in which he purports to analyze the allegations of sexual violence committed by refugees in Germany that occurred on New Year’s Eve. Both articles – Daoud’s piece and the collective response – appeared in the French newspaper Le Monde on the 31 January and 11 February, respectively. Subsequent to their publication, German investigations have shown that most of the perpetrators were neither refugees nor new arrivals in Europe. Moreover, given Daoud’s piece in the New York Times this past Friday, entitled “The Sexual Misery of the Arab ...
Keep Reading »A Muslim Future to Come?
[This article was first published on Public Books.] Michel Houellebecq, Submission. Translated from the French by Lorin Stein. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2015. The devastating attacks of 13 November on Paris’s tenth and eleventh arrondissements viciously targeted the “progressive” heart of the city. When I am there, that is where I live. Like many other inhabitants and observers, I find it difficult to comprehend why the militants assaulted this historically working-class, vibrant, multicultural, and youthful neighborhood—admittedly often characterized as gentrifying and “bobo”—and not the manicured and touristy “beaux quartiers” to the ...
Keep Reading »Terror Everywhere, Humanity Nowhere
It would surely be more reasonable to wait a few weeks and let the emotions subside. This is what decency and reason require. As a Parisian at heart, I would rather stay quiet. Unfortunately, falcons and fascists, wolves and warmongers, jackals and ministers are not bound by such scruples. They did not wait for the bodies to be buried or the tears to be dried before they started shouting their outrage. Now they call for a strong retaliation, for the closure of borders, for a new round of heavy-handed security measures. We are surrounded. It is impossible to summarize in one article the multiple dynamics at work in the escalation of mass terrorism that successively ...
Keep Reading »Terreur partout, humanité nulle part
Il serait sans doute plus raisonnable d'attendre quelques semaines afin de laisser passer l'émotion. C'est ce que la décence et la raison demandent. Je suis parisien de cœur, et je préférerais me taire. Malheureusement, les faucons et les fascistes, les loups et les va-t-en-guerre, les chacals et les ministres ne s'embarrassent pas de scrupules. Ils n'ont pas attendu que les corps soient en terre, et que les larmes soient sèches, pour commencer leurs vociférations. Ils appellent à la riposte musclée, à la fermeture des frontières, à la montée d'un cran dans le délire sécuritaire. Nous sommes cernés. Il n'est pas possible de rendre compte en un article de la ...
Keep Reading »France Decorates a Moroccan Facing Justice on Bastille Day: A Portrait of Abdellatif Hammouchi
Despite objections from human rights organizations in Morocco and France, on 23 June 2015, the National French Assembly adopted a bill that requires judges to refer legal complaints regarding criminal acts committed in Morocco to Moroccan justice. This would also include cases in which French citizens were subjected to acts of torture. The Senate will ratify this decision on 15 July 2015. This ratification comes a little over a year after the French justice system began raising questions about the head of Morocco's intelligence services, Abdellatif Hammouchi, for whom strong suspicions of complicity in torture did little to impede his rapid rise through the ranks. ...
Keep Reading »Illicit Sex in Ottoman and French Algeria: An Interview with Aurelie Perrier
The association of the Arab world with Western sexual fantasy figured prominently in the artwork and literature that was critiqued so famously by Edward Said in Orientalism. Yet beyond the fantasies embedded in Delacroix’s paintings of odalisques, what did sex actually mean in nineteenth-century Algeria? In Ottoman History Podcast #188, Aurelie Perrier begins to answer this question. Building on the groundbreaking work of scholars like Malek Alloula and Christelle Taraud, her research explores the nature of illicit sex in nineteenth-century Algeria under both Ottoman and French rule. Perrier situates the topic in the fluid boundaries of Ottoman-administered sex ...
Keep Reading »موسى أساريد: أربعة نصوص
-I- روح الصحراء تُفَسّر إحدى الأساطير الرّائعة سببَ بقاء ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Mayanthi L. Fernando, The Republic Unsettled: Muslim French and the Contradictions of Secularism
Mayanthi L. Fernando, The Republic Unsettled: Muslim French and the Contradictions of Secularism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Mayanthi Fernando (MF): When I first went to the field, I imagined a more conventional ethnography of the Islamic revival in France. I was interested in how a French (and more broadly European) context, in which Muslims are a minority, transforms the ritual and hermeneutical practices of the Islamic tradition. I was asking, essentially, what effect does the fact that Muslims born and raised in France are, quite literally, schooled in French republican epistemologies and values have on their ...
Keep Reading »More on Laïcité in Historical Context
[This is the first of three responses to Muriam Haleh Davis’ review essay of books by Joan W. Scott, Naomi Davidson, and Mayanthi Fernando. For Naomi Davidson's response, "The Vagaries of Laïcité," click here.] I find Muriam Haleh Davis’ commentary on Charlie Hebdo and French secularism (by way of a review of three books, one of which is mine) to be clear and to the point. Davis insists on the importance of placing in historical context the paradoxical claim that laïcité is a universal principle peculiar to the French republic, and she does it well. In this brief contribution I want simply to add some more context to the one she has so ably set forth. My ...
Keep Reading »‘A Distinctly French Universalism’: Translating Laïcité after Charlie
Mayanthi L. Fernando, The Republic Unsettled: Muslim French and the Contradictions of Secularism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014. Naomi Davidson. Only Muslim: Embodying Islam in Twentieth-Century France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012. Joan Wallach Scott. The Politics of the Veil. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. It was impossible to avoid the discussion, despite my repeated protests. In Lyon, as in the rest of France, there was nothing else to talk about—especially when I found myself seated across from a colleague who teaches at an international lycée, the crucible of Republican education. He was visibly emotional as he said: “I told my ...
Keep Reading »Charlie Hebdo et les limites de la République
Tout de suite après le massacre aux bureaux de Charlie Hebdo, les commentateurs se sont émus d’une attaque sur « l’Occident et la démocratie » « les valeurs fondamentales de la République française. » Ces valeurs « républicaines » sont invoquées avec unanimité, sans débat, comme si elles étaient d’une origine parfaitement pure. Mieux, les requêtes se multiplient pour exiger des musulmans qu’ils démontrent qu’ils partagent les valeurs sacrées de la laïcité et de la liberté d’expression. Par une ironie dévastatrice, on exige que les musulmans prouvent leur allégeance à des valeurs qui ont historiquement été construites pour les ...
Keep Reading »Kamel Daoud: Sexual Demonization and the Secularist Select
In a controversial NYT op-ed, the Algerian journalist and prize-winning author Kamel Daoud weighed in on the infamous events of last New Year’s Eve in Cologne, Germany. He wrote of the sexual harassment and rape authored by Muslim migrants and refugees as symptoms of a “sick” relationship with sex and women in general, and that this “disease” was now spreading to Western lands. This spectacular episode of sexual violence had managed to turn what had been general sympathy for refugees fleeing terrorism ...
Keep Reading »« Les organisations policières se trouvent en position de force » entretien avec Emmanuel Blanchard
[Emmanuel Blanchard est historien, spécialiste des pratiques policières en situation coloniale. Il est également engagé de longue date dans la défense des droits des étrangers en France et dans l'Union Européenne. Il a accepté de s'entretenir avec Jadaliyya au sujet de la sécuritisation des politiques migratoires européennes, de l'instauration de l'état d'urgence en France, des dimensions sociales et raciales de la répression, et du renforcement du poids de la police.] Thomas Serres (TS) : Donc cela ...
Keep Reading »A Moveable Feast? Reflections on the French Coverage of the Paris Attacks
Writing on the relationship between acts of terror and the mystification of liberalism in 1947, Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote that, “cunning, violence, propaganda, and realpolitik” appeared “in the guise of liberal principles” and were “the substance of foreign or colonial politics, and even of domestic politics.” [1] He was not writing about religious fanatics, but he was rather concerned with another specter that once faced Europe: Communism. Unlike the Cold War, if France is indeed “at war,” one is at a ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Jeanette S. Jouili, Pious Practice and Secular Constraints: Women in the Islamic Revival in Europe
Jeanette S. Jouili, Pious Practice and Secular Constraints: Women in the Islamic Revival in Europe. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press 2015. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Jeanette Jouili (JJ): I began research for this book in 2002, the year after 9/11. The global impact of that event was made evident in Europe as the media and European scholars increasingly scrutinized the activities and affiliations of young European-born Muslims, many of whom were adopting more visible and orthodox ...
Keep Reading »Daoud’s Camus Fanfiction Is More of the Same
Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation. Translated by John Cullen. New York: Other Press 2015. Algerian journalist Kamel Daoud’s debut novel The Meursault Investigation, recently translated into English, retells the story of Albert Camus’s The Stranger from the point of view of Harun, the brother of the unnamed Arab that Camus's hero, Meursault, murders. The Meursault Investigation has garnered great praise in American media, sparking multiple articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and ...
Keep Reading »Olivier Roy on Laicite as Ideology, the Myth of 'National Identity' and Racism in the French Republic
Following the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Professor Olivier Roy, Head of the Mediterranean Program at the European University Institute discusses the development of the concept of laicite in France, from its emergence as a tool for the management of diversity, to its rebranding as an ideology of exclusion. In this interview, he questions the notion of national identity as a politicized concept and identifies a profound crisis of identity at its root. He also outlines the double-bind faced by French Muslims, ...
Keep Reading »A New Secularism?
[This is the third of three responses to Muriam Haleh Davis’ review essay of books by Joan W. Scott, Naomi Davidson, and Mayanthi Fernando. For Joan W. Scott’s response, “More on Laïcité in Historical Context," click here; for Naomi Davidson’s response, “The Vagaries of Laïcité,” click here.] In bringing the work of Joan Scott and Naomi Davidson together with mine, Muriam Haleh Davis demonstrates the importance of undertaking a history of the present. This history enables us to identify some of the ...
Keep Reading »The Vagaries of Laïcité
[This is the second of three responses to Muriam Haleh Davis’ review essay of books by Joan W. Scott, Naomi Davidson, and Mayanthi Fernando. For Joan W. Scott’s response, “More on Laïcité in Historical Context," click here.] A cartoon by the French cartoonist Gil from 10 January, titled “Communion nationale,” shows a white policeman frisking an ambiguously raced man standing against the wall with his hands in the air. “Je suis Charlie,” says the man, and the policeman replies, “Yeah, yeah, me too.” ...
Keep Reading »Do Muslims Belong in the West? An Interview with Talal Asad
In this discussion, Talal Asad identifies the problematic ways in which the presence of Muslim communities in Western contexts has been characterized in response to outbreaks of violence such as the recent events in Paris. Asad argues that many of the critiques to which Muslims are subjected, namely their dependence on transcendent forces, also inhabit the intellectual assumptions of secular and atheist commentators. He further expresses the need to examine Islam as a ...
Keep Reading »Reconsidering the Rif Revolt (1958-59)
“The people of the North have previously known the violence of the crown prince; it will be best for them not to know that of the king’s.” It is in this way that Hassan II (1961-1999) addressed himself to the inhabitants of northwest Morocco—and to the rest of the population—in reaction to the riots of 1984. Adopting a scornful and serious tone, the monarch reminded his subjects that he is capable of anything for the sake of conserving power. To refresh their memory, he did not hesitate to make a brief ...
Keep Reading »Charlie Hebdo ve Cumhuriyetin Sinirlari
Charlie Hebdo and the Borders of the Republic Charlie Hebdo's office immediately after the attack on the reviewers " West and democracy "," the core values of the French Republic "against a huge thrill to have doors undertaken against these attacks. This "republican" values in an unquestionably, that came up as a completely pure emanating from the origin. Moreover, Muslims demand forces to show that they share the sacred values of secularism and freedom of expression ...
Keep Reading »Charlie Hebdo and the Limits of the Republic
Immediately following the massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, commentators denounced an attack on "Democracy and the West," an attack on "the fundamental values of the French Republic." Everywhere in France, people are rallying around these apparently pure, unproblematic “Republican values.” There have been many requests for Muslims to demonstrate that they share in the Republic’s cherished values of secularism and freedom of speech. It is bitterly ...
Keep Reading »Hot on Facebook
Jadalicious / جدلشس
Pages/Sections
Archive
"The politics of religion pursued in a large number of societies called “Muslim societies” make too many concessions to the forces of traditionalism, while favoring the adoption of all the benefits of material civilization."click | email | tweet
Latest Entries
View All Entries »- Syria Media Roundup (April 13)
- إطلاق العدد 3.1 من مجلة الوضع
- موت الإنترنت: عن الشبكة التي يجب علينا إنقاذها
- New Texts Out Now: Ramy Aly, Becoming Arab in London: Performativity and the Undoing of Identity
- Arabian Peninsula Media Roundup (April 13)
- Art as Interruption: On 'Homeland,' Revolutionary Utterances, Surveillance - A STATUS/الوضع Conversation with Heba Y. Amin
- The Caliphate Beyond ISIS: An Interview with Salman Sayyid (Part Two)
- Egypt Media Roundup (April 11)
- Last Week on Jadaliyya (April 4-10)
- مروان البرغوثي: نحو توليد نخبة سياسية فلسطينية جديدة
- Turkey Media Roundup (April 5)
- Palestine Media Roundup (April 8)
- توقيعه على الأشياء كلها في نسختها العربية
- صدور العدد 106 من مجلة الدراسات الفلسطينية
- Photography Media Roundup (7 April)
- Syria Media Roundup (April 6)
- DARS Media Roundup (March 2016)
- Announcing the 2016 Political Economy Book Prize Competition (Political Economy Project)
- The Panoptic Gaze and the Ivory Tower: A STATUS/الوضع Episode of Reclaiming Academic Freedom
- التعليم في سوريا وفق منهج الترغيب والترهيب