Like many people in America and around the world, Talal Asad experienced the events of September 11, 2001, largely through the media and the emotional response of others. For many non-Muslims, "the suicide bomber" quickly became the icon of "an Islamic culture of death"--a conceptual leap that struc[...]

Opening with the provocative query "what might an anthropology of the secular look like?" this work explores the concepts, practices, and political formations of secularism, with emphasis on the major historical shifts that have shaped secular sensibilities in the modern West and Middle East. It pro[...]

Historical anthropology: critical exchange between two decidedly distinct disciplines or innovative mode of knowledge production? As this volume's title suggests, the essays Brian Keith Axel has gathered in From the Margins seek to challenge the limits of discrete disciplinary epistemologies and con[...]