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Call for Papers: Special Issue ‘Historizing Islamophobia’, Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam

Guest Editor: Randa Abdel-Fattah, Macquarie University

The Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam invites articles for a special issue related to the theme of Historizing Islamophobia. Islamophobia is often explained as a problem of behaviour and attitudes, effacing the world-historical thick contexts in which Islamophobia emerged as a form of racism constitutive in the making of the modern world. As we approach the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, this special issue is interested in papers that take a critical stance towards the dominant framing of 11 September 2001 as the ‘starting point’ of Islamophobia. The global war on terror may have begun on 9/11, ushering in a new ‘crisis’ to justify the criminalization, persecution, incarceration and systematic demonization of Muslims, but Islamophobia’s racial genealogies and modalities, and race, class and sex/gender hierarchical logics, borrow from, and interact with, a world-historical repertoire of key events, practices and racial thinking.

We seek articles that present counter-hegemonic analyses, approaches and concepts, examining Islamophobia as a longer and more complex phenomenon. We are especially interested in papers which examine how settler-colonial projects against Indigenous communities and colonized communities have informed Islamophobia formations across varying national, social and political contexts.