Judith Surkis's Sex, Law, and Sovereignty in French Algeria, 1830-1930 (Cornell UP, 2019) traces the intersection of colonialism, law, land expropriation, sex, gender, and family during the century after the French conquest of Algeria in 1830. Seeking to assimilate Algerian land while differentiating Algerian Muslims from European settlers, colonial authorit ... Show More
Oct 3
Jamal J. Elias, "After Rumi: The Mevlevis and Their World" (Harvard UP, 2025)
Jamal J. Elias' new book After Rumi: The Mevlevis & Their World (Harvard UP, 2025) takes us on a historical journey through the development of the Mevlevi community after Jalaluddin Rumi’s passing in 1273. He frames the Mevlevis as an “emotional community” that is anchored in aff ... Show More
1h 2m
Sep 29
Gina Vale, "The Unforgotten Women of the Islamic State" (Oxford UP, 2024)
The Unforgotten Women of the Islamic State (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Gina Vale explores the governance of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization through the lives and words of local Iraqi, Syrian, and Kurdish women. While the roles and activities of foreign (p ... Show More
56m 55s
Sep 22
Wendell Marsh, "Textual Life: Islam, Africa, and the Fate of the Humanities" (Columbia UP, 2025)
Textual Life: Islam, Africa, and the Fate of the Humanities (Columbia University Press, 2025), is a groundbreaking book that recasts the role of knowledge in the making of a colonial and postcolonial nation. It makes a case for a new literary and intellectual-historical approach ... Show More
53m 46s
Feb 2020
Todd Shepard, "Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962-1979" (U Chicago Press, 2017)
Departing from the bold and compelling claim that we cannot fully understand the histories of decolonization and the so-called “sexual revolution” apart from one another, Todd Shepard’s Sex, France, and Arab Men, 1962-1979 (University of Chicago Press, 2017) is a complex analysis ... Show More
1h 1m
Apr 2021
72/ The Inherent Toxicity of France’s ‘Islamo-Leftism’ Obsession (with Rim-Sarah Alouane)
This is a conversation with Rim-Sarah Alouane. She’s a French legal academic, commentator, and PhD candidate in law researching religious freedom, human rights, and civil liberties in France, Europe & North America.
We spoke about a recent piece she wrote entitled ‘A Spectre in ... Show More
1h 52m
Mar 2018
Mehammed Mack, “Sexagon: Muslims, France, and the Sexualization of National Culture” (Fordham UP, 2017)
In the recent past, anti-Muslim hate crimes and rhetoric have surged across America and Europe. Much of this public discourse revolves around questions of assimilation and where Muslim positions on sexuality and gender fit into national unity. In Sexagon: Muslims, France, and the ... Show More
1h 19m
Sep 2023
The Algerian Revolution I (1954-65): Decolonization, Self-Management and Internationalism
Rob, Eric and Rudy delve into the Algerian revolution, tracing its roots back to French colonization, through the liberation war, and the Ben Bella period. This first part of the discussion on Algeria explores the 19th-century French settlement of Algeria and the various phases o ... Show More
1h 16m
Apr 2022
#89 - Laïcité et République, une histoire à relire
On vante souvent la laïcité ou la sécularisation comme des spécificités occidentales, voire françaises. Elles renverraient à un affranchissement des principes religieux, et permettraient de mieux entériner les principes de la République dans notre société. Or c’est sur ces princi ... Show More
44m 4s
Jan 2024
Rishad Choudhury, "Hajj Across Empires: Pilgrimage and Political Culture After the Mughals, 1739-1857" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
In Hajj Across Empires: Pilgrimage and Political Culture After the Mughals, 1739-1857 (Cambridge UP, 2023), Rishad Choudhury presents a new history of imperial connections across the Indian Ocean from 1739 to 1857, a period that witnessed the decline and collapse of Mughal rule a ... Show More
1h 25m
Nov 2021
Andrew Farrand, "The Algerian Dream: Youth and the Quest for Dignity" (New Degree Press, 2021)
"Algeria is different." Africa's largest country is a place that few western academics have studied or been able to travel to. The modern nation, forged in the anticolonial struggle against French colonialism between 1957 and 1963, has been bolstered by the discovery of oil short ... Show More
59m 42s