1957 E Street NW
POMEPS is proud to present the book launch of Dr. Aaron Rock-Singers’s new book, Practicing Islam in Egypt: Print Media and Islamic Revival (Cambridge University Press, 2019) on April 16, 2020 at 12PM at the Elliott School of International Affairs, Room 505.
Following the ideological disappointment of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, an Islamic revival arose in Egypt. Yet, far from a mechanical reaction to the decline of secular nationalism, this religious shift was the product of impassioned competition among Muslim Brothers, Salafis and state institutions and their varied efforts to mobilize Egyptians to their respective projects. By pulling together the linked stories of these diverse claimants to religious authority and tracing the social and intellectual history of everyday practices of piety, Aaron Rock-Singer shows how Islamic activists and institutions across the political spectrum reshaped daily practices in an effort to persuade followers to adopt novel models of religiosity. In so doing, he reveals how Egypt’s Islamic revival emerged, who it involved, and why it continues to shape Egypt today.
Dr. Aaron Rock-Singer is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of History. He is a historian of the modern Middle East, with a research focus on 20th century Islamic movements and states. He uses the tools of social and intellectual history to trace the emergence and performance of particular projects of piety and, more broadly, the ways in which men and women employ their bodies to challenge the prescriptive visions of religious elites to regulate daily practice.
A light lunch will be provided
~ Please RSVP below to attend ~