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De-Constructing Islamophobia:
Immigration, Globalization and Constructing the Other
Center for Race and Gender, University of California, Berkeley is sponsoring a conference on “De-Constructing Islamophobia: Globalization, Immigration, and Constructing the Other.”
The two day conference will be held on April 25, 26, 2008 at the Borrows Hall.
According to the UC Berkeley website, the conference on “De-Constructing Islamophobia: Globalization, Immigration, and Constructing the Other” seeks to develop a theoretical framework through which we can understand the relationship between Islamophobia as the most recently articulated structural organizing principle and its implications in the unfolding colonial present.
In today’s world, Islam and Muslims are the feared “other” and the threat they pose is already connected to every local, regional and global process. The process of “othering Islam and Muslims” is already well under way with devastating consequences and a virtual state of siege has set-in, not only in the affected communities, but also in academic circles where the subject has yet to receive a comprehensive treatment. Islamophobia, as the present structural organizing principle, is employed by the power elite in order to extend and maintain the patterns of racial, gender, colonial, ethnic and religious discrimination.
In the past, the existing methodological approaches in race and gender studies remained distant from the subject and, up to this point, have not yet adjusted to incorporate a closer examination of
“othering Islam and Muslims." The conference seeks to provide an open scholarly exchange, exploring new approaches to the study of the current period, de-constructing the organizing process that gave birth to Islamophobia, and studying its interconnectedness to existing and historical otherness in the areas of race, gender and “post-colonial” studies.
The conference will explore and pose a number of questions that can be the springboard for further collaborative and multidisciplinary approaches to de-constructing Islamophobia. How should we approach Islamophobia and can we think of it within the field(s) of post-colonial studies and/or Ethnic Studies? What would be Islamophobia's impact on the move from a post-colonial approach into a de-colonization, and its centrality in the development of a new paradigm? What new or modified theoretical frameworks should be employed? Are existing academic fields with their current methodologies able to de-construct Islamophobia or do we need adjustment; and if it is needed then what, where and how?"
The conference participants:
Mohammad Tamdgidi, UMass Boston
Mayanthi Fernando, Washington Univ. in St. Louis
Enrique Dussel, University of Mexico
Khaldoun Samman, Macalester College
Madina Tlostanova, Duke University
Kathleen Moore, UC Santa Barbara
Salman Sayyid, Univesity of Leeds
Tariq Modood, University of Bristol
Peter Gottschalk, Wesleyan University
Ferruh Yilmaz, UC San Diego
Suad Joseph, UC Davis
Sunaina Maira, UC Davis
Mustafa Abu Swaya, Al-Quds University
Rabab Abdulhadi, San Francisco State
Nadine Naber, University of Michigan
Louise Cainkar, Marquette University
Hisham Aidi, Columbia University
Nelson Maldonado-Torres, UC Berkeley
Ella Shohat, New York University
Dina al-Kassem, UC Irvine
Ula Taylor, UC Berkeley
Munir Jiwa, Graduate Theological union
Hatem Bazian, UC Berkeley
Evelyn Glenn, UC Berkeley
Samera Esmeir, UC Berkeley
Ramon Grosfoguel, UC Berkeley
Hamid Algar, UC Berkeley
Sonia S’hiri, UC Berkeley
Zaid Shakir, Zaytuna Institute
Parvez Ahmed, CAIR
http://events.berkeley.edu/?event_ID=7871&date=2008-04-25&tab=all_events
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