Based on fourth century Christological debates and the travels
of an Egyptian monk, the Arabic novel Azazeel (2008) was accused of defaming Christianity and fomenting Christian-Muslim sectarian strife in Egypt by the Coptic Orthodox Church. The conflict over the novel was quickly characterized as a standoff between religious proscription, and the secular liberal commitment to freedom of artistic and literary expression. This way of casting the debate failed to comprehend the complex stakes Azazeel mobilized, eliding substantive disagreements about religion, history, and literature. Through a careful reading of the novel, the response it elicited from the church as well as the Christological debate at the heart of the novel, this talk forces us to reconsider what it means to claim the autonomy of literature from history; to cast religion as a human invention; and to ponder the humanity of Christ.
Saba Mahmood teaches in the department of anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (2005), and a co-author of Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech (2009). Her work focuses on questions of secularism, religious politics, and gender in the Middle East.
Mahmood is currently working on a book entitled Political Secularism, Geopolitics and Minority Rights: Reflections from Egypt while in residence at the American Academy in Berlin. She is the recipient of a number of awards including from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Henry Luce Foundation.
Information on participating / attending:
Registration is not required.
Date:
05/30/2013 18:00 - 05/30/2013 20:00
Event venue:
Zentrum Moderner Orient
Kirchweg 33
14129 Berlin
Berlin
Germany
Target group:
Journalists, Scientists and scholars
Email address:
Relevance:
transregional, national
Subject areas:
Cultural sciences, History / archaeology, Language / literature, Religion, Social studies
Types of events:
Presentation / colloquium / lecture
Entry:
05/22/2013
Sender/author:
Regina Sarreiter
Department:
Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO)
Event is free:
yes
Language of the text:
English
URL of this event: http://idw-online.de/en/event43738
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