Here's a new review essay on German Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch and his intriguing book Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left. It's long been an interest of mine to put the Marxist tradition into dialogue with Islamic thought so naturally such a text is of profound interest to me. Give the piece a read here and …
Continue reading "The Materialism of Warm-Stream Marxism: Ernst Bloch on Ibn Sina"
You can attend a workshop I'm pleased to offer on the topic of "Islam and Psychoanalysis" at Georgetown University. Here are the details and a link to the suggested reading: Daniel Tutt: “Islam and Psychoanalysis” Time:Wednesday, February 28th, 12:30pm Location: Georgetown University, ICC 450 **Open to the public. Food provided The Department of Arabic and Islamic …
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What if Trump's upcoming speech in Saudi Arabia signifies a shift at the level of discourse -- one that effectively propels international relations into a new, post clash of civilizations framework? A post clash framework no longer requires any allusion to the idea that the west has a moral duty to help Islam revive its lost greatness, …
Review of The Psychopolitics of the Oriental Father: Between Omnipotence and Emasculation by Bülent Somay
Sayyid Qutb famously argued that Islam is in a state of jahaliya, or pre-Islamic ignorance in the modern world. This condition was total, extending both within and outside of Islamic majority societies. Qutb is considered a godfather of Islamist intellectuals because his position opened Islam to the political, and the consequence of Qutub’s idea calls …
I have a new essay on Wael Hallaq's book, The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament at the very excellent publication Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate World (http://sctiw.org/sctiw_review) coming out on February 10th. My main interest in this essay, in addition to reviewing the book, is to start a dialogue with Islam and continental philosophy …
Continue reading "Excerpt: Thinking Islamic Governance with Continental Philosophy"
The political philosopher Charles Taylor made an excellent observation recently when he pointed out that in those instances when multiculturalism fails to in its effort to promote a set of neutral and universal values int eh public sphere, it is often Islam that causesis often the cultural exc. The banning of the veil is an example …
Continue reading "The Veil in Islam: A Psychoanalytic Perspective"
Is what Freud did to Judaism in Moses and Monotheism taking place in the work of Fethi Benslama, a leading Lacanian Islamic studies scholar today?
American religious history is a vicious beast. Americans know how to demonize the other. A look at the historical record makes today's Islamophobia feel lightweight by comparison to the often violent persecution that religious others faced. Today's version of denigration, while it comes in the form of a clever Facebook "meme", or a derogatory YouTube …
Continue reading "Bigotry Towards the Other Islam of America: Mormonism"
In the literature on psychoanalysis and Islam there are two general paradigms of the subject. These two paradigms are primarily limited because they limit the question of subjectivization to the phenomenon of Islamism, violence, and fundamentalism, and they remain caught within a certain desire to impose a model of secularism that is rooted in a …
Continue reading "Two Paradigms of Islam and Psychoanalysis"
