Our Apocalypse Problem from Baghdadi to Bannon (Part 2) Between Radical Jihad and the Radical Right Michael Pregill | April 27, 2017 Critical Approaches / Current Events AboutCritical Approaches Several statements and policy decisions made by the new Trump administration after the inauguration in January 2017 have confirmed many observers’ fears that the extreme behavior, language, and proposals associated with the Trump campaign were in fact mere hints of worse to come. The now-notorious “American carnage” speech Trump delivered at his inauguration established that apocalyptic urgency and messianic deliverance would continue to be defining themes of his presidency, moderated only by the more tedious realities of governance that have inevitably interfered... Read the rest of this entry
Our Apocalypse Problem from Baghdadi to Bannon (Part 1) The Mainstreaming of Apocalyptic Politics in America Michael Pregill | April 13, 2017 Critical Approaches / Current Events AboutCritical Approaches The apocalyptic ideology of ISIS needs to be appraised in a balanced, nuanced way. If we are serious about confronting the apocalyptic tendencies and perspectives of fringe groups as they not only potentially radicalize populations but may eventually lead to – and legitimate – violence, then we must be ready to acknowledge that this is not only a problem “over there,” but rather also constitutes a problem much closer to home. As recent events have made clear, this is a problem with tangible consequences for our society, our discourse, and our politics, and so such comparative analysis proves to be much more than a merely academic exercise. Read the rest of this entry
A Genealogy of Islamic Law A Critical Approach to Late Antique Islamic Legal History Lena Salaymeh | March 23, 2017 Critical Approaches, Global Late Antiquity AboutCritical Approaches AboutGlobal Late Antiquity How to evaluate narrative-historical sources is the subject of intense controversies in Islamic Studies and beyond. Arguably, no student of Islamic history can escape the conundrum of debates surrounding these sources. Chase Robinson aptly observed, “it is a measure of just how conservative the professional study of Islamic history remains that the noisiest controversy of the last 25 years concerns the reliability of our written sources, rather than the models according to which we are to understand and use them.” When a scholar makes a claim about the supposed “unreliability” of late antique Islamic sources, she often operates under the positivist assumption of the existence of an “original Truth” that can be discovered through a specific methodology... Read the rest of this entry