Granadan reflections

This paper explores a practice of historical reflection grounded in the city of Granada’s aesthetic and architectural heritage. From the publication of Washington Irving’s Tales of Alhambra, in 1823, up through today, Granada has been a highly celebrated destination for travelers and tourists, drawn by the sublimity of its romantic oriental splendor. Yet, although the city is well known for the Orientalist fantasy it puts on display for touristic consumption, here I consider a form of reflection that cannot be encompassed within the protocols of discourse and experience mobilized by the tourist industry, and that indeed, may challenge those protocols and the assumptions about history and geography they entail. Specifically, drawing on the work of the late-nineteenth-century Spanish writer, Angel Ganivet, I trace a tradition of reflection that engages the city’s unique sensory and architectural configuration as the basis from which to reassess Spain’s relation to both Islam and Europe. I conclude with some general observations on the way the sensory and material infrastructure of Moorish Spain mediates and conditions the possibilities of finding a place for Islam in the country today

Religious Difference and Democratic Pluralism: Some Recent Debates and Frameworks

While until quite recently debates in political philosophy on questions of pluralism, tolerance, and liberal governance foregrounded notions of culture and cultural difference, today it is religion that increasingly provides the historical and conceptual resources for the contemporary reassessment of the pragmatic and philosophical conditions for pluralist democracy. Drawing on a few recent writings in the field of political theology, this paper explores some of the analytical directions that this repositioning of religion within contemporary narratives of modernity has opened up within political philosophy. As I seek to demonstrate, the domain of political theology has become the problem space, where the tensions and contradictions between a simultaneous insistence on Europe's secular identity and its Christian one are being elaborated. Through a ceratin double movement, secularism and Christianity have become productively fused within the writings I address, in a way that repeats the story of European exeptionality while inscribing the essential otherness of the Muslim populations within its borders. In the second part of the paper, I want to contrast these reflections from political philosophy with debates in postcolonial Egypt around issues of religion and the possibility of democratic pluralism

Medios nuevos de comunicación y disidencia política en Egipto

This paper explores some of the ways that the Internet, and particularly the practice of blogging, has opened up new political possibilities in Egypt. As I examine, political bloggers in this country (Islamist as well as secularist) have pioneered new language forms and video styles in order to articulate an arena of political life they refer to as “the street.” Egyptian bloggers render visible and publicly speakable practices of state violence that other media outlets cannot easily disclose. In discussing the sensory epistemology informing these blogging practices, I give particular attention to the way traditions concerning the sonority of the Arabic language and the relation of written to spoken forms are exploited and reworked by some of Egypt’s most prominent political bloggers. I also examine how these language practices find a visual and aural analogy in the grainy cellphone video recordings found on many of Egypt’s political blogs. This paper analyzes such practices in relation to emergent forms of political agency and contestation in contemporary Egypt.El autor explora algunos de los modos como Internet, en particular el escribir y publicar en un blog, ha abierto nuevas posibilidades políticas en Egipto. El estudio revela que los blogueros políticos en este país (que incluye tanto a islamistas como a laicistas) han creado nuevas formas de lenguaje y nuevos estilos de vídeo con los que vertebrar un espacio de vida política al que se refieren como “la calle”. Los blogueros egipcios hacen visibles y motivo de debate público acciones violentas del Estado que otros medios informativos no pueden divulgar con la misma facilidad. El autor se detiene especialmente en el modo como los blogueros políticos más sobresalientes del país recurren y adaptan las tradiciones relativas a la sonoridad de la lengua árabe y a la conexión que existe en ella entre las formas habladas y las escritas. Asimismo, examina el modo como estas prácticas lingüisticas guardan una similitud visual y oral con las grabaciones de vídeo, de baja resolución, que se hacen con teléfonos móviles y que aparecen después en los blogs políticos. Todas estas nuevas prácticas revelan formas emergentes de acción política y de disidencia en el Egipto actual

UMA ÉTICA DA ESCUTA: A AUDIÇÃO DE SERMÕES EM CASSETE NO EGITO CONTEMPORÂNEO

Neste artigo, eu me concentro sobre a prática de ouvir sermões gravados em fita cassete entre muçulmanos contemporâneos no Egito como um exercício de autodisciplina ética. Analiso esta prática em sua relação com a formação de um sensorium: as capacidades viscerais ativadas pela forma particular de devoção aspirada pelos praticantes. Ao destacar tanto as técnicas homiléticas dos pregadores quanto as tradições de audição ética que informam o consumo midiatizado de sermões, eu exploro como os ouvintes constroem seus próprios conhecimentos, emoções e sensibilidades de acordo com modelos islâmicos de pessoalidade moral. Modelos normativos de pessoalidade moral fundamentados em tradições textuais e práticas islâmicas fornecem um ponto de referência para a tarefa de auto-cultivo ético

Tradition, Myth, and Historical Fact in Contemporary Islam

Within scholarship on contemporary Islam, one of the issues that has generated considerable discussion (and often perplexity) concerns the accuracy or validity of Muslim historical claims. Many authors have pointed to a discrepancy between what Muslim activists today invoke as belonging to the traditions of Islam and the actual historical record of Islamic societies. It is argued that historical reality is ignored or rejected, while a false, distorted, or selective version of the past is affirmed in its place. In attempting to characterize and explain this use (or misuse) of history, scholars have had recourse to a variety of concepts, some of which merit a re-examination, especially in light of recent work within historiography. A brief review of these concepts suggests a need for new analytical approaches to the styles of historical argumentation prevalent within Islam today

076— Geneseo COVID 19 Study Group Report II: Infection Mechanism and Methods of Prevention

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is spread by infected individuals exhaling aerosols that contain active virus cells that are inhaled by another person or land on high-contact surfaces. Once the virus is inhaled, the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) protein on the lung cells functions as a receptor for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. ACE2 normally converts angiotensin II (ANG II), a protein that is harmful to the lungs, into another molecule that counteracts the effects of ACE2. When ACE2 is occupied with SARS-CoV-2, ANG II will not be converted, resulting in damage to the lungs. Distancing six feet apart has become a standard guideline in preventing transmission of infectious diseases, SARS-CoV-2 virus droplets can reach up to six feet or more from their source. Masks are used to further control the spread of infection and protect the wearer. Additionally, disinfectants, or biocides, have shown to be the most effective at destroying the virus on high-contact surfaces. Biocides come in a variety of forms ranging from alcohols to aldehydes and function differently, but all achieve the same task of inactivating cells either by disruption of the virus-cell membrane or infiltration into the cell which causes protein degradation, resulting in cell death

Liberal Warfare: A Crusade Twice Removed

Since the 1990s, liberal warfare has attracted a good deal of debate and commentary, virtually all of which has been framed in the secular language of rights, sovereignty, power, and legitimacy. This article, in contrast, makes religion its central analytic category. Treating liberalism as a political religion, it argues that, insofar as liberal wars are fought primarily to uphold “universal” Western values, their motivation has something in common with medieval crusades. But, because that universalist ideal is vitiated by the self-interest of states, liberal wars in fact bear closer resemblance to anachronistic attempts to revive the crusading ideal in the late Middle Ages. Thus, they represent a distant, secularized echo of a pale imitation of the Crusades—or “a crusade twice removed.