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Call for Applications Theme: Critical Muslim Studies Subtitle: Decolonial Struggles and Liberation Theologies Type: Summer School Institution: Center of Study for Mediterranean Dialogue Center of Study and Investigation for Decolonial Dialogue Location: Granada (Spain) Date: 23.5.–3.6.2016 Deadline: 5.2.2016 __________________________________________________ The Critical Muslim Studies: Decolonial Struggles, Theology of Liberation and Islamic Revival summer school is part of a larger intellectual and political initiative to dismantle islamophobic stereotypes and forms of discrimination directed towards a world of peace and solidarity while at once moving beyond the existing Western-centric capitalist/patriarchal imperial power structures produced by the existing global coloniality of power. A hidden form of islamophobia is epistemic islamophobia, that is, the inferiorization of Islam as an epistemic perspective that offers ways of thinking and living alternative to hegemonic Westernized Capitalist Christian-centric forms of living and thinking. Since the fall of Al-Andalus and the emergence of the “Capitalist/Patriarchal Modern/Colonial Westernized/Christianized World-System” in 1492, Muslim people and Islamic cosmology has been subalternized and inferiorized as part of Western imperial/colonial designs. The European colonial expansion in the post-Andalucian world created after 1492 was fundamental to the decay of the Islamic world and the inferiorization of Muslim people as colonial subjects of Western empires. Western linear and Eurocentric historiography has been central in providing world-historical narratives that conceals its philosophical, economic, and scientific debt with Islam. After 500 years, we live today in a world of imperial domination, exploitation, genocides, epistemicides (destruction of “non-Western” epistemologies), ecological disasters, financial crisis and life destruction in general. We live in a system that privileges death for the sake of profits, destruction of life for the sake of domination, elimination of diverse forms of living and thinking for the sake of a single monocultural and monoepistemic Westernized world. Monologues are privileged over Dialogue. Eurocentric fundamentalism as a form of epistemic racism, where the West is considered epistemically superior to the Rest, is in terminal crisis in its Right wing and Left wing versions. Still, it continues to provide monological, imperial responses and global utopian nightmares (of both the Westernized Right wing and Left wing form) to global problems without any serious consideration of how other epistemologies and cosmologies respond to the same global challenges by formulating different questions and, thus, diverse answers and solutions. The pretension of Eurocentric fundamentalism is that solutions to existing global problems can only come from the Western male modern/colonial sexist/racist tradition of thought and its global system of domination and exploitation. Eurocentric fundamentalism keeps thinking that we need more capitalism (of the private capitalist version of the Right and of the state capitalist version of the Westernized Left), more militarism, more Westernization; that is, more domination and exploitation when it has been demonstrated that the latter is at the roots of the global disasters we live today. Conversely, we understand that the response to the Eurocentric fundamentalist hegemonic project cannot be with a Third World fundamentalism (Afro-Centric, Indigenous or Islamic fundamentalism). Instead, what we call today Islamic Fundamentalism or Afro-Centric Fundamentalism, as different forms of of Third World Fundamentalisms, are not only a demographic minority among “non-Western” peoples, but a variety of eurocentrism premised upon leaving intact the binary oppositions of Eurocentric fundamentalism. Eurocentric fundamentalism is the view that falsely maintains that democracy, women's liberation, human rights, or scientific breakthroughs are naturally and inherently tied to the “West,” while authoritarianism, the oppression of women, lack of human rights, and irrational/unscientific thought are naturally and inherently tied to the “non-West.” The response of Third World fundamentalists is to accept these binary, racist oppositions and just invert them in order to claim the superiority of their epistemology and culture based on authoritarian, dictatorial, Christian patriarchal, arbitrary oppressive forms. The Critical Muslim Studies: Decolonial Struggles, Theology of Liberation and Islamic Revival Summer School program is a space to question and go beyond both the hegemonic Eurocentric fundamentalism and the subaltern variety of Eurocentric fundamentalism, that is, Third World fundamentalisms in their different varieties and forms such as Islamic, Afro-Centric or Indigenous fundamentalism. The aim of the program is to explore within the Islamic tradition of thought, the critical thinking, forms of living and spirituality that Islam offers to the world, beyond both variations of Eurocentric forms of fundamentalism. We will focus on critical thinkers within the Islamic tradition of thought that provide a radical critique to both the Eurocentric hegemonic tradition and conservative readings of the Islamic tradition complicit with Eurocentrism and its system of domination and exploitation. The program will privilege critical responses from within the Islamic tradition of thought to the challenges posed by the “modern/colonial capitalist/patriarchal world-system” that we live today. To achieve this, we will provide a strong Academic program with top international scholars who will cover several fields of scholarship: Islamic Jurisprudence, Islamic Civilization, Islamic Philosophy, Islamic Feminism and Islamic Spirituality. We divide the courses into these areas simply for pedagogical reasons. But one of the interesting features of Islam is that it does not make as sharp a division between these areas. They are all interrelated and entangled within the concept of Tawhid. We provide a broad vision of Islam to break away from Orientalist characterizations that end up homogenizing and essentializing Islam. As constitutive to the course, we will have heterogeneous Islamic perspectives and traditions. We will have both Shia and Sunni Islamic scholars participating in the course. Moreover, the summer school will also provide a course on both Christian and Jewish Theology of Liberation, as we want to explore inter-religious dialogues between Islam and other critical traditions of thought. To make the point very clear, this summer school is not a space for critiques of Islam from a Christian-centric, Western-centric perspective in the hegemonic Eurocentric fundamentalist form or of the subaltern Islamic fundamentalist variety. It is a space for serious critical dialogues, reflections and investigations within the rich and heterogeneous Islamic critical tradition of thought inspired by the example of the philosophers, legal scholars and spiritual sages of Al-Andalus. This is the reason why the site of our Summer School is in Granada, Spain. We will be able to not only study but also visit important sites of Islamic Civilization located in this sacred city. The most famous of these sites is La Alhambra, but it is not the only one. We will also visit other sites and tour the surrounding area. People This year's instructors include internationally recognized Islamic Studies and Ethnic Studies scholars: Farid Esack, Salman Sayyid, Asma Lamrabet, Hatem Bazian, Ramon Grosfoguel, Arzu Merali Houria Bouteldja, Santiago Slabodsky, Dew Baboeram, Nelson Maldonado-Torres Application We offer two accommodation options for the participants who are accepted to the program: Option 1: Those who want to share a room with 1-2 people in a collective residence: Tuition + Lodging (meals not included) + guided tours of Albayzín and La Alhambra: €1,600 Option 2: Those who have a place to stay or will find their own place to stay: Tuition + guided tours of Albayzín and La Alhambra: €1,300 Application Deadline: February 5, 2016 If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us via email at: [email protected] Summer School website: http://www.dialogoglobal.com/granada/ __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org __________________________________________________
