New Books In Middle Eastern Studies

Winner of the 2015 American Anthropological Associations Robert B. Textor and Family Prize for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology and the 2014 JMEWS Book Award of the Association for Middle East Womens Studies, The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2012) by Marcia C. Inhorn challenges the Western stereotypical image of the Arab man as terrorist, religious zealot, and brutal oppressor of women. Through stories of ordinary Middle Eastern men as they struggle to overcome infertility and childlessness through assisted reproduction, Inhorn draws on two decades of ethnographic research across the Middle East with hundreds of men from a variety of social and religious backgrounds to show how the new Arab man is self-consciously rethinking the patriarchal masculinity of his forefathers and unseating received wisdoms. This is especially true in childless Middle Eastern marriages where, contrary to popular belief, infertility is more commo

In the late nineteenth century, Jewish immigrants inspired by Zionism began to settle in Palestine. Their goal was not only to establish a politically sovereign state, but also to create a new, modern, Hebrew nation. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Zionist movement realized its political goal. It then sought to acculturate the multitude of Jewish immigrant groups in the new state into a unified national culture. Yael Raviv highlights the role of food and cuisine in the construction of the Israeli nation. Raviv’s book, Falafel Nation: Cuisine and the Making of National Identity in Israel (University of Nebraska Press, 2015) examines how national ideology impacted cuisine, and vice versa, during different periods of Jewish settlement in Palestine and Israel. Early settlers, inspired by socialist ideology and dedicated to agricultural work, viewed food as a necessity and treated culinary pleasure as a feature of bourgeois culture to be shunned. Working the land, and later buying “Hebr

In Islam’s Jesus (University of Florida Press, 2015), Zeki Saritoprak explores an old topic from a fresh perspective. The status of Jesus in Islam has been of interest for centuries, and relates to both Christianity and Islam, but the level of synthesis that Professor Saritoprak’s monograph offers is remarkable. He draws on a variety of Islamic literature, including commentaries on the Qur’an, works of theology, and collections of prophetic sayings. Moreover, he surveys not only the vast Arabic sources on his topic but also Turkish sources, and his research covers multiple schools of thought and time periods. Another hallmark of the monograph is the attention it gives to Jesus’ role in Islamic eschatology. Notably, Saritoprak demonstrates how mainstream as well as lesser known Islamic discourses on eschatology encompass numerous hermeneutical strategies; some, for example, understand the descent of Jesus as a physical phenomenon while others understand it as a non-material, spiritual phenomenon. The book high

In Conscientious Objectors in Israel: Citizenship, Sacrifice, Trials of Fealty (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), Erica Weiss, assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University, examines the lives and choices Israeli conscientious objectors, those who have refused to perform military service for reasons of conscience. As an ethnographer, Weiss takes us into the the lives of two generations of conscientious objectors in a state that valorizes what she calls the “economy of sacrifice.” The tale of the Israeli conscientious objection sheds light on the nature of contemporary citizenship more broadly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Imagining the Kibbutz: Visions of Utopia in Literature and Film (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015), Ranen Omer-Sherman, a professor at the University of Louisville, looks at literary and cinematic representations of the kibbutz, what he calls the world’s most successfully sustained communal enterprise. Complementing historical works on the kibbutz, Omer-Sherman explores how the kibbutz is depicted in novels, short fiction, memoirs, and films by both kibbutz “insiders” and “outsiders” to reveal an underlying Israeli tension between the individual and the collective. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We tend to think of Philosophy as a professional academic subject that is taught in college classes, with its own rather specialized problems, vocabularies, and methods. But we also know that the discipline has its roots in the Socratic activity of trying to incite debate and critical reflection among our fellow citizens. That is, we acknowledge that, apart from its existence as a technical discipline, Philosophy is a kind of civic activity that, we hope, can help us to address life’s biggest questions, even when we find ourselves deeply divided over their answers. In Teaching Plato in Palestine: Philosophy in a Divided World (Princeton University Press, 2015), Carlos Fraenkel tells the tale of his attempts to recapture Philosophy’s Socratic dimension. He recounts his adventures in doing philosophy in nonstandard contexts, with atypical interlocutors, and in unfamiliar places. Along the way, we see a hopeful and encouraging vision of philosophy emerge as a collection of rational techniques and intellectual v

Jorg Matthias Determann‘s new book looks at the history of modern biology in the Arab Gulf monarchies, focusing on the treatment of evolution and related concepts in the publications of biologists who worked in the Gulf states. Researching Biology and Evolution in the Gulf States: Networks of Science in the Middle East (I. B. Tauris, 2015) begins by describing a fatwa against Pokemon and opens out into an introduction of the sensitive nature of discussions related to evolution and creation in the Gulf. The ensuing chapters approach and answer a major question: given this sensitivity, what enabled scientists to nevertheless employ evolution in the political, religious, social, and natural environments of the Gulf? At least part of the answer lies in the importance of networks between scientists, plants, princes, local tribes, European businesses, animals, and other historical actors. The history of those networks – and the botanical, zoological, ornithological, and paleontological research they enabled – is a

In her shining new book Sexual Violation in Islamic Law: Substance, Evidence, and Procedure (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Hina Azam, Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas-Austin, explores the diversity and complexity of pre-modern Muslim legal discourses on rape and sexual violation. The reader of this book is treated to a thorough and delightful analysis of the range of attitudes, assumptions, and hermeneutical operations that mark the Muslim legal tradition on the question of sexual violation. Indeed, the most remarkable aspect of this book is the way it showcases the staggering range and diversity of approaches to defining and adjudicating rape that populate the Muslim legal tradition. Focusing primarily on the Maliki and Hanafi schools of law, Azam convincingly demonstrates that Muslim legal discourses on rape were animated and informed by competing ways of imagining broader categories such as sovereignty, agency, property, and rights. In our conversation, we talke

In Obligation in Exile: The Jewish Diaspora, Israel and Critique (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), Ilan Baron, Lecturer in International Political Theory in the School of Government and International Affairs and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Jewish Culture, Society and Politics at Durham University, explores the transnational political obligation of Diaspora Jewry to have a relationship with Israel, including one of critique. The book, featuring Baron’s interviews about the Israel-Diaspora relationship with key figures and community leaders in North America, the UK, and Israel, combines empirical work with political theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While “fundamentalism” and “authoritarian secularism” are commonly perceived as the two mutually exclusive paradigms available to Muslim majority countries Naser Ghobadzadeh‘s new book Religious Secularity: A Theological Challenge to the Islamic State (Oxford UP, 2014) highlights the recent political developments that challenge this binary perception. Ghobadzadeh examines the case of Iran which has been subject to both authoritarian secularization and authoritarian Islamization over the last nine decades. While politico-religious discourse in Iran is articulated in response to the Islamic state, it also bears signs of a third discourse. Ghobadzadeh conceptualizes this politico-religious discourse as religious secularity. He uses this apparent oxymoronic term to describe the Islamic quest for a democratic secular state. Naser Ghobadzadeh is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Justice, the Australian Catholic University (ACU). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Skepticism is a familiar term to many of us conjuring up notions of doubt, uncertainty, and perhaps even unbelief. Yet, Skepticism did not always have such a narrow meaning. In fact Skepticism has helped formulate a number of important religious and intellectual positions throughout history. Paul L. Heck‘s new book Skepticism in Classical Islam: Moments of Confusion (Routledge, 2013) is perhaps the first major treatment of skepticism in the Islamic context. This book explores the critical role skepticism played in the development of Islamic theology from the 10th through 14th centuries. Paul Heck suggests we should not understand skepticism as atheism. Rather, it is the admission that one cannot convincingly demonstrate a truth claim with certainty. Heck surveys a number of important Islamic scholars, such as Al-Jahiz, al-Amiri, Al-Ghazali, and Ibn Taymiyya, concluding they all acknowledged such impasses only to be inspired to find new ways to resolve the conundrums they faced. In his book Paul Heck examines

In Gender Hierarchy in the Qur’an: Medieval Interpretations, Modern Responses (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Dr. Karen Bauer tackles one of the foremost hot-button questions of the day: What is the role of gender in the Qur’an? Dr. Bauer’s adroit study will leave the reader informed but perhaps also disrupted, given the vast spectrum of competing, sometimes contradictory, interpretive paradigms that she explores. A key strength of the text, moreover, is that in addition to its meticulous investigation of primary texts from medieval and modern traditions of Qur’anic exegesis, Dr. Bauer also conducts numerous in-person interviews with prominent scholars across the Muslim world, including Iran and Syria. Thus, from a literary perspective, the text presents the reader with a compelling style seldom found in Qur’anic studies publications, seamlessly weaving together close textual analysis and ethnographic fieldwork. Notably, Bauer also gives attention to Sunni as well as Shi’i perspectives on her study, thus

Tom Sperlinger, Reader in English Literature and Community Engagement at the University of Bristol, joins New Books in Education to discuss Romeo and Juliet in Palestine: Teaching Under Occupation (Zero Books, 2015). The book is an account of Tom’s time teaching English literature at Al-Quds University, located in the Occupied West Bank. Because of their unique environment and perspective, the students in his class had interpretations of Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and other seminal English literature works that struck a chord with the author. Through his book, he provides a glimpse into the everyday aspects of a place that is not often discussed in terms of higher education. You can find the author on Twitter at @TomSperlinger. For questions or comments on the podcast, you can also find the host at @PoliticsAndEd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The assassination of the Armenian-Turkish activist Hrant Dink in 2007 raised uncomfortable questions about a historical tragedy that the leaders of the Turkish Republic would like people to forget: the Armenian genocide. In his new book Open Wounds: Armenians, Turks, and a Century of Genocide (Oxford UP, 2015), the journalist/historian Vicken Cheterian offers a scholarly, yet high readable account of this injustice and the century-long silence surrounding it. With engaging prose, he explains how and why this genocide took place, including a description of the violence that Kurds carried out against Armenians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He also helps readers better grasp the continuities in how Sultan Abudhamid II, the Young Turks, and Mustafa Kamal's Turkish Republic employed violence to deal with their "Armenian problem" and other "internal enemies" such as Greeks, Assyrians, and the Yezidis. Not one to mince words, Cheterian offers a fascinating description of the Turkish efforts t

How can a perspective on Islamic law and jurisprudence be constructed responding to the lives and practices of diasporic Muslims while remaining deeply grounded in the foundational texts of the religion? In The Islamic Worldview: Islamic Jurisprudence–An American Muslim Perspective, Volume One, feminist philosopher and legal scholar Azizah al-Hibri (Univ. of Richmond Law School) engages in precisely this task. Providing an overview of the central sources and methods of law and jurisprudence in the Islamic tradition, al-Hibri elaborates what she calls the “Islamic worldview,” based in principles of harmony, equality, and justice. This guides her work to engage in sustained textual analysis of passages from the Qu’ran and hadith and to think through questions of gender, the family, and politics in Islam.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Second Formation of Islamic Law: The Hanafi School in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge UP, 2015) is a new contribution to the study of Islam and more specifically to the history of Islamic Law and its development. Guy Burak, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies librarian at New York University, explores the Ottomans’ adoption of one branch of the Hanafi legal tradition as the official school (madhhab) of the dynasty. The period of time in which this process occurred was during the 15th to 18th centuries, and Burak focuses on the lands of Greater Syria. What Burak seeks to illustrate is that through the adoption of an official school of law, the Ottoman hierarchy played a significant role in how the school of law was shaped. Examples Burak provides to demonstrate this phenomenon are the institutionalization of the position of mufti, the formalization of genealogical literature (tabaqat), and the canonization process of books essential to the school. In addition to examining the propagators of offic

Neha Vora‘s Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora (Duke University Press, 2013) is a wonderfully rich and engaging account of middle class Indians who live and work, supposedly temporarily, in Dubai. Through an analysis of these perpetual outsiders, that are crucial to the Emirati economy, Vora sheds new light on our understanding of citizenship, belonging and Dubai itself. In the finest tradition of anthropology, the book is simultaneously minutely detailed in its descriptions and global in its analytical reach, opening up new ways of thinking about migrants in the contemporary world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this interview Gerard Russell talks about his vivid and timely new book Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East (Basic Books, 2014). Russell’s experience as a British diplomat in a rapidly changing region gives the book remarkable breadth, providing a valuable insight into the lives of minority communities from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to Egypt: Mandaeans, Yazidis, Zoroastrians, Druze, Samaritans, Copts and Kalasha. Russell’s account pays particular attention to the circulation of stories, symbols and practices between these groups and reveals a history or extraordinary diversity and interdependence. His journey through this symbolic ecosystem, struggling to survive in its lands of origin, leads him eventually to diaspora communities in America and Europe. Is this the final domain of these forgotten kingdoms? Gerard Russell’s account of these colorful pasts, precarious presents and unknown futures will be of interest to scholars of religion, culture,

In Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism, and Language Diversity in Palestine, 1920-1948 (Yale University Press, 2015), Liora R. Halperin, an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the Program in Jewish Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, argues that multilingualism persisted in Palestine after World War I despite the traditional narrative of the swift victory of Hebrew. Halperin looks at the intertwined nature of language, identity, and nationalism, and how language was a key factor in Jews’ relationships with Palestinian Arabs, the British, and others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are some of the key features and characteristics of the Muslim feminist Qur’an exegetical tradition and what are some of the tensions and ambiguities found in that tradition? Those are the central questions addressed by Aysha Hidayatullah, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Theology at the University of San Francisco, in her path clearing new book, Feminist Edges of the Qur’an (Oxford University Press, 2014). In this shining book, Hidayatullah presents a detailed and nuanced explanation of the varied paradigms of Muslim feminist Qur’an exegeses, primarily though not exclusively focusing on the work of scholars in the US. She also considers and highlights some of the limitations of such feminist exegetical projects, concluding that perhaps patriarchal readings of the Qur’an cannot be entirely or conclusively dismissed as impossible. In this book, Hidayatullah seamlessly and brilliantly combines intellectual history, discursive analysis, and critical theological reflections. Written with exemplar