The 36th ANNUAL CONFERENCE
of the
Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS)

Perils of Empire: Islamophobia, Religious Extremism and the New Imperialism

Cosponsored by:
The Department of Government and Politics
University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
October 26 – 28, 2007

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Conference Announcement

• Call for Papers
• Program
• Abstracts
• Final Papers
• Conference Report

Call for Papers

"The web of racism, cultural stereotypes, political imperialism, dehumanizing ideology holding in the Arab or the Muslim is very strong indeed …” (Said, 1979)

The late Edward Said reminds us of the lasting legacy of colonial narratives and imperial practices relating to Islam and Muslims. The tangled web of racism, Islamophobia, political and economic imperialism maintains currency in a complex dialectic with religious extremism. The “war on terror” has engendered a Manichean dualism carving the world into rigid and culturally irreconcilable enclaves. Through this binary formulation of the “West and the rest” Islam and Muslims have become the foils for modernity, freedom and the civilized world, thereby justifying violent military action against them. Such moves have strengthened and galvanized radical religious insurgencies and lent credence to extreme Islamist ideologies and movements purveying anti-Western/ anti-American politics. Nationalist politics rooted in the complex inequalities of race, gender, class and ethnicity deepen civilizational divides through xenophobic security and immigration policies in the West such as the controversies that erupted over the banning of Islamic headscarves in France, the Dutch immigration videos and the volatile cultural politics ignited by the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The global dynamics and dialectics of Islamophobia, religious extremism and imperialism requires new spaces for theorizing the postmodern ruptures, cultural dislocations and genealogies of difference that mark and divide the new world order. Problems of institutional governance, intra-Muslim rifts, and over-reactions to provocations among Muslims often contribute to the generation of these spaces.

This conference seeks to bring a wide range of scholarly voices in the social sciences to address the politics of the new imperialism and its relationship to both Islamophobia and extremist movements. We are also interested in the challenges and possibilities that arise in pursuing correctives to these problematics including possibilities for envisioning anti-Islamophobic and anti-imperial futures.

We invite papers that address but are not limited to the following themes:

• Terrorism/anti-terrorism: Security Policies and the Culture of Fear
• Economic Islamophobia: Policing Muslim Finances and Donor Activities
• Vulnerabilities of Muslim Institutions
• Race, Religion and Gender and the War on Terror
• Gendered Orientalism/ Islamophobia
• Racialization of Religion
• International Development as Imperial Practice
• Post-colonialism and Islam: Theory, Politics and Praxis
• Individual, Ideological and Systemic Dimensions of Islamophobia
• Everyday Islamophobia in Schools and the Workplace
• Neo-Orientalism: New Genres of Cultural and Literary Production
• Tropes of Empire: Debunking “Islamofacism”
• Muslim Anti-Americanism
• Islamist Social Movements
• Gender and Islamism
• Radicalism and Muslim Youth: Islamophobia and the Politics of the “Jihadist Generation”
• Saving Muslim Women: Imperialist Feminism
• The Empire Strikes Back- Anti-colonial Resistance
• Anti-Islamophobia Education
• Post-colonial Ruptures: Subaltern Muslim Identities
• Cultural Politics in Muslim Diasporas in the West
• Muslim Reactions to Provocation

Abstracts (250 words) are due June 15, 2007.

Accepted papers must be submitted by September 15, 2007.

Send abstracts and papers to Conference Coordinator Ms. Layla Sein at conferences@amss.net.

Conference Chair: Dr. Charles Butterworth
University of Maryland, College Park, MD

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Abstracts

• Abdul Karim Bangura: “How the United States’ “War on Terrorism” in Africa Will Inflame Regional Conflicts and Spur More Terrorism”
• Abdullah A. al-Arian: “A Wonderful Inspiration: Colonialism and the Rise of Islamic Political Movements”
• Adel Ait-Ghezala: “At Home Abroad: Tourism and the New Anti-Colonialism in the Middle East and South East Asia"
• Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu: “Muslims in the West and the post-9/11 Security Paranoia: Contributions of the Critical Security Studies Approach”
• Alejandro J. Beutel: “Breach of Law, Breach of Security: A Muslim American Analysis of US Counterterrorism Policies”
• Christina Hellmich: “Creating the Ideology of al-Qaeda: From Hypocrites to Salafi-Jihadists”
• Dragos Stoica: “Two Faces of Fear: A Case Study of Modern Islamophobia in the City of Heureuxville, Canada, 2007”
• Etin Anwar: “Islamist Anti-Americanism: The Dialectics of Islamophobia and Radicalism in Indonesia”
• Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad: “Grand Jury Abuse in the Service of Islamophobia”
• Itrath Syed: “Toward an Autonomous Muslim Feminist Praxis.”
• Judith Rahima Jensen: “Combating Islamophobia at the University Level: The Challenge of Developing Relevant Dialogues in the Fast-Changing Middle East”
• Junaid S. Ahmad:: “Islamo-fascism and Emergence of the New Imperialism”
• Louay M. Safi: “Islamophobia: Prejudice and Strategy”
• Maliha Chishti: “The Imperial Humanitarian-International”
• Marvin H. Shaub: “Acculturation of Immigrants in America: Where Do Muslims Fit In?”
• Mazen Hashem: “Muslim Minorities in Muslim Societies: Inquiry into Projected Outcomes”
• Michelle D. Byng: “Representing Hijab: Newspaper Stories and the Meaning of Veiling in Western Nations”
• Muhamad Shafiq and Mohammed Abu-Nimer: “Islamic Approaches to Dialogue: Challenges and Lessons”
• Robert D. Crane: “Religious Demonization: The Role of Academics in Confronting the Totalitarian Mind”
• Robert W. Lawrence: “Advertising and Empire: Selling America in the Middle East" 
• Saeed A. Khan: “The Phenomenon of Dual Nihilism among the British Muslim Youth of Bradford, England”
• Sarah Swick: “Dubbing a Western Muslim Culture”
• Shabana Mir: “Stigma, Ordinariness and Essentialism: American Muslim Women on Campus”
• Shanna Edwards: “Misunderstandings, Culture, and Dialogue: Achieving Peace and Security in America and the Middle East”
• Timothy Elhami Kaldas: “French Feminists to the Rescue: A Centenary of Metropolitan Discourses on the Salvation of the ‘Distressed Muslim Woman,’ 1900 and the Present”
• Usamah Yasin Ansari: “Naming the Muslim Through Citation in Bollywood’s Lucknow Muslim Social Films”

Final Papers