What: A Panel Discussion with Wael Hallaq on his new book ‘Restating Orientalism - A Critique of Modern Knowledge’

When: Friday, 5 October, 2018 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm (Time zone: London)

Where: Room 8&9, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge

Convenor: Dr. Humeira Iqtidar, Kings College London

Discussants:

· Professor Wael Hallaq (Columbia University)

· Professor Sarah Radcliffe (Geography)

· Professor Khalid Fahmy (FAMES)

The panel will discuss with Wael Hallaq, the import of his latest book ‘Restating Orientalism - A Critique of Modern Knowledge’

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Since Edward Said’s foundational work, Orientalism has been singled out for critique as the quintessential example of Western intellectuals’ collaboration with oppression. Controversies over the imbrications of knowledge and power and the complicity of Orientalism in the larger project of colonialism have been waged among generations of scholars. But has Orientalism come to stand in for all of the sins of European modernity, at the cost of neglecting the complicity of the rest of the academic disciplines?

In this landmark theoretical investigation, Wael B. Hallaq reevaluates and deepens the critique of Orientalism in order to deploy it for rethinking the foundations of the modern project. Refusing to isolate or scapegoat Orientalism, Restating Orientalism extends the critique to other fields, from law, philosophy, and scientific inquiry to core ideas in modern thought such as sovereignty and the self. Hallaq traces their involvement in colonialism, mass annihilation, and systematic destruction of the natural world, interrogating and historicizing the set of causes that permitted modernity to wed knowledge to power. Restating Orientalism offers a bold rethinking of the theory of the author, the concept of sovereignty, and the place of the secular Western self in the modern project, reopening the problem of power and knowledge to an ethical critique and ultimately theorizing an exit from modernity’s predicaments.

Entry is free and this event is open to members of the public

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