INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Islamism versus Post-Islamism? Mapping topographies of Islamic political and cultural practices and discourses
Dec. 13th – 15th, 2013
Frankfurt, Germany
Normative Orders
https://www.normativeorders.net/en
The general view seems to be that in many countries of the Muslim world the cultural space shaped by Islamic discourses poses a challenge for Max Weber’s thesis that the world is becoming increasingly secularized and disenchanted. Islam is not only a vital religion attracting more and more followers, it has also undergone a number of adaptations to modernity in the course of the past 100 years. In countries with laical or pluralist political traditions, scores of young people join Islamist organizations, Islamic lifestyles are immensely popular, and Islamic utopias are serving as models for social reform. In many countries of the Muslim World, recent political developments have opened a political space to transform utopian Islamic political visions into policy, developments that seem to support some scholars’ assertions of a crisis of liberal democracy and the coming of a post-secular age.
Yet, the political and civic landscapes in which the actors are (re-)negotiating socio-political orders are far more variegated and not in the least limited to purely secularist or post-secular Islamist visions.
In practice, Islamic and Islamist discourses as well as reform efforts are characterized by a great deal of diversity, as well as by ambiguities and paradoxes that touch all fields of social, economic, political, and cultural activity. Not least among the ambiguities and paradoxes are how Islamist movements have been and currently are positioning themselves
visà - vis central principles of liberal democracy, such as pluralism, gender justice and unconditional equality before the law. This has led several scholars to suggest that Islamist movements are not necessarily anti-democratic. Rather, such movement may figure as import forces in the political transformation of regimes in the Muslim World from authoritarian to democratic, a development they identify as a “post-Islamist†turn, the most prominent cases of which are presently Tunisia and Egypt following the “Arab Springâ€.
At the same time, polylsemic signifiers such as “democracyâ€, “justice†and “pluralism†are in practice interpreted in highly contrastive ways, with competing actors ascribing substantially different meanings to them in their struggles for social hegemony and political power. The conference seeks to link empirical research with theoretical debates about contemporary social, political and legal changes in the Muslim World, including developments not only in the Middle East and North Africa, but also in Central and South Asia, the Muslim-majority countries of the ASEAN region as well as in Sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe.
FRIDAY, 13 DECEMBER 2013
11.00 Opening remarks
KEYNOTE I
11.30 Katajun Amirpur (Hamburg): A New Generation of Post-Islamist Thinkers. Occidentosis left behind 12.15 Discussion
12.30 Lunch
EUROPE
Chair: Oliver Bertrand
13.30 Susanne Schröter (Frankfurt): Longing for a Simple Life Salafism in Germany 14.00 Armina Omerika (Frankfurt): The Ethnic Turn?
Tradition and ethnicity in the gender discourses of The Salafiya in the Western Balkans
14.30 Kirsten Wesselhoeft (Cambridge): “The Day of Beauty and Well-beingâ€: Islamic leisure in urban France and the ‘post-secular’ family 15.00 Discussion
15.30 Coffee
TURKEY
Chair: Katja Rieck
16.00 Fabio Vicini (Sienna): Rethinking Solidarity and Justice in Contemporary Turkey. The case of Muslim civil society organizations
16.30 Pierre Hecker (Marburg): Hegemony and Resistance. Turkey’s post-Islamist turn and the meaning of style 17.00 Discussion
Dana Fennert (Marburg) Film (60 Min) Musawah (Equality). The Fight for Gender Equality in Islam. 18.30 Standing dinner reception
SATURDAY, 14 DECEMBER 2013
KEYNOTE II
10.00 Gudrun Krämer (Berlin): Islam and the Principles of Secularism 10.45 Discussion
11.00 Coffee
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Chair: Katja Rieck
11.30 Dorothea Schulz (Cologne): Muslim Activism, Mass Media and the Making of Religious Attachment in Southern Mali
12.00 Rüdiger Seesemann (Bayreuth): Post-Islamism, Postsecularism, and the Politics of Islamic Knowledge. Insights from Africa
12.30 Discussion
13.00 Lunch
NORTH AFRICA I – EGYPT
Chair: Susanne Schröter
14.30 Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen (Copenhagen):
Treatments of the Islamist and Post-Islamist `Alim in Egyptian Fiction. 15.00 Emin Poljarevic (Edinburgh): Is there a Post-Islamist Turn? Differences between the linear and organic progressions of Islamism in Egypt 15.30 Discussion
16.00 Coffee
NORTH AFRICA II – TUNISIA
Chair: Sonia Zayed
16.30 Robert Bianchi (Singapore): The Social Bases of the An-Nahdha Party’s Support in Tunisia
17.00 Karima El Ouazghari (Frankfurt): Islamism in Action. The Tunisian An-Nahdha party within changing contexts 17.30 Discussion
18.00 Dinner reception for invited speakers at the faculty Lounge
SUNDAY, 15 DECEMBER 2013
SOUTHEAST ASIA I
Chair: Gunnar Stange
10.00 Dominik Müller (Frankfurt): Resisting the Post- Islamist Evolution: Pop-Islamist youth politics in Malaysia
10.30 Kristina Großmann (Passau): Totalizing Visions of the Shari’a in Everyday Life. Enforcement, re/ production and transgression of the Islamic dress code for women in Aceh, Indonesia
11.00 Monika Arnez (Hamburg): Islamism or Post- Islamism in Indonesia? A critical analysis 11.30 Discussion
12.00 Lunch
SOUTHEAST ASIA II
Chair: Dominik Müller
13.30 Norshahril Saat (Canberra): Ideological and Utopian Islamism. The Offical ‘Ulama’ in post authoritarian Indonesia and Malaysia 14.00 Frederike Trottier (Frankfurt): Sports and Islam:
Muslim sportswomen in the Islamic Solidarity Games
14.30 Discussion
15.00 Conference ends. Optional visit to Frankfurt Christmas market REGISTRATION:
The registration fee is € 90.00 and includes all meals and coffee breaks.
It is to be made payable to Goethe-University Frankfurt For payments made from a German bank account: Bank: Helaba
Sort code (BLZ): 500 500 00
Account number: 100 641 0
Reference (Verwendungszweck):
Sachkonto 640 806 00 Prof. Dr. Schröter
For payments made from a foreign bank account
IBAN: DE 955 005 000 000 010 064 10
BIC: HELADEFF
Reference: Sachkonto 640 806 00 Prof. Dr. Schroeter