Graduate Theological Union
Liberal Fundamentalism in the Service of Empire: Feminism, Sexuality, Islamophobia
Munir Jiwa, Director of the Center for Islamic Studies
Sponsored by the Center for Islamic Studies and the Women's Studies in Religion Program
Dinner Board Room, GTU Library, 2400 Ridge Road, Berkeley
Drawing on works in anthropology and critical theory, this presentation focuses on the particular ways that discussions on women, gender, feminism and sexuality have been mobilized by the Euro-American left to discipline and exert power over Islam and Muslims in its own liberal image. This creates an index of “good” and “bad” Islam and Muslims – Islamophilia and befriending Muslims that uphold liberal values, and Islamophobia and intimidation for those who do not. How do we understand colonial conceptions and practices of time and space embedded in terms like “progress/ive” and “universal” so intrinsic to ministry, mission, and empire, colluding on the left and right? How are Western liberalism, secularism, and the “Judeo-Christian civilization” reconfigured vis-à-vis Islam and Muslim subjectivity, especially using the frames of law and citizenship? And, by what stretch of the American imaginary and under what conditions and limits, can we make possible expanded norms of recognition of Islam and Muslim life?
(WSR credit: 2 units)
