Cemil Aydin, “The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History” (Harvard UP, 2017)

05/01/17 • 67 min

Almost daily in popular media the Muslim World is pinpointed as a homogeneous entity that stands separate and parallel to the similarly imagined West. But even scratching the surface of the idea of a Muslim World reveals the geographic, social, linguistic, and religious diversity of Muslims throughout the world. So what work is performed through the employment and use of this phrase? And in what context did the idea of the Muslim World emerge?

Cemil Aydin, Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, tackles these questions in his wonderful new book The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History (Harvard University Press, 2017). It in he weaves distant and interconnecting social, intellectual, and political histories of modern Muslims societies with clarity and detail. Altogether, he reveals the complex story of how the concept is constructed as a device intended to point to a geopolitical, religious, and civilizational unity among Muslims. The term is defined and employed by Muslim and non-Muslim actors alike across imperial and national contexts over the past nearly 150 years. In our conversation we discussed the justifications for imperial conflicts, the effects of Christian nationalistic liberation and the colonization of Muslims, orientalism, social Darwinism, the racialization of Muslims, the global role of the Ottomans, European and Russian imperialism, Muslim modernists thinkers, the effects of the World Wars, and the changing political landscape of the late 20th century.

Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His research and teaching interests include Theory and Methodology in the Study of Religion, Islamic Studies, Chinese Religions, Human Rights, and Media Studies. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at [email protected].

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Previous Episode

Allison E. Fagan, “From the Edge: Chicana/Chicano Border Literature and the Politics of Print” (Rutgers UP, 2016)

What is a book? The answer, at first glance, may seem apparent: printed material consisting of a certain amount of pages. However, when a printed item goes under the scrutiny of readers, writers, editors, scholars, etc., the discussion gets complicated. The matter is that, when read, discussed, or analyzed, a book is situated in a specific environment that creates additional layers for consideration; furthermore, a printed item itself shapes the environment, revealing and producing further developments and proliferations. In From the Edge: Chicana/Chicano Border Literature and the Politics of Print (Rutgers University Press, 2016), Allison E. Fagan invites her readers to explore not only a magic world of the literature that arises out of collaboration of national, ethnic, political, social, literary borders, but also multilayered networks produced by books, which infiltrate readers’, writers’, editors’, publishers’, and translators’ communication.

As the title prompts, From the Edge discusses border literature; however, Fagan makes a step further and includes in her analysis books which do not fall under the category of conventional border literature. Through this gesture, From the Edge broadens the area of inquiry and brings a wider scope of questions for the discussion: what is border literature and what borders do we (or should we) consider? The borders Fagan discusses and negotiates are connected with books as printed items. Outlining a theoretical framework which to some extent relies on the postmodern principles, Fagan seems to initiate a conversation about books as in-flux items: when printed and circulated among the participants of readership (understood in its broadest sense), books not only deliver different stories about writing, reading, and publishing, but also shape current discourses strengthening some aspects and weakening others.

From the Edge shifts conventional margins to centers. This research offers a detailed discussion of paratextual elements: glossaries, typography, editorial paratexts, readers notes. In “My Book Has Been the Light of Day,” Fagan brings attention to recovery projects: books that were re-discovered and re-introduced to readers. While the stories about books that were once considered lost are intriguing and captivating, an academic inquiry brings forth a wide range of discussions: How are books re-discovered? How is their readership established? What do recovered books communicate about the past and present reading environments? What is accomplished through recovery projects? In her research, Fagan initiates, among others, these questions and invites readers, writers, editors, critics, scholars, translators to shift the boundaries of the existing conversations about print cultures and communication, literary traditions and language, ethnicity and nationality, self and identity.

Allison E. Fagan is an assistant professor of English at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

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Next Episode

Territory-A Literary Project about Maps: Discussion with Tommy Mira y Lopez

As our name makes clear, the New Books Network focuses on books. And as a host who looks at contemporary literature, I have the pleasure of interviewing authors with new books, ones often published by smaller presses without the huge PR machines of larger presses and ones that consequently are often overlooked by larger media outlets. For me, thats one of the rewards of hosting at the New Books Network: I have the chance to showcase important work that you might otherwise miss, work that adds to the richness and diversity of our national literary culture.

Now you might be thinking that I’m about to ask you for a donation. I’m not. Though if you want to contribute to the New Books Network and its public mission to widen the intellectual life of America, by all means please do so. We’d appreciate it. No, what I want to do is make the point that, while books from small literary presses are one place that our literary culture thrives, it’s not the only one. Crucial to our national literature are the small journals and reviews that publish our writers. These venues–and there are hundreds of them in print and, increasingly, online–foster our younger writers and promote the work of our established one, especially work that is non-commercial or experimental. Literary journals and reviews offer readers diverse voices and diverse aesthetics. They’re the forum through which our literary culture thrives and expands and reinvigorates itself. And they are usually run by editors who work for almost nothing, on almost-nothing budgets, editors who believe in literature as much as the authors they publish.

Today I talk to one of those editors. Tommy Mira y Lopez is the co-founder and co-editor of Territory, a new venue that has not only taken up the time-honored task of providing readers with new work from newer writers, but that’s also creating something like a new micro-genre of literature, one that combines visual maps and literary text. If you’ve ever found yourself looking at an old map and thinking how intriguing it is or, when reading a story, if you’ve ever imagined yourself picturing its imaginary landscape, you’ll be excited to explore Territory and the new terrains of literature its fostering.

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