As the Middle East descends ever deeper into violence and chaos, ‘sectarianism’ has become a catch-all explanation for the region’s troubles. The turmoil is attributed to ‘ancient sectarian differences’, putatively primordial forces that make violent conflict intractable. In media and policy discussions, sectarianism has come to possess trans-historical causal power.
In this book launch, editors Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel challenge the use of ‘sectarianism’ as a magic-bullet explanation for the region’s ills, focusing on how various conflicts in the Middle East have morphed from non-sectarian (or cross-sectarian) and nonviolent movements into sectarian wars.
The event will be chaired by Leïla Vignal.
About the speakers:Nader Hashemi (@naderalihashemi) is Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and an Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.
Danny Postel (@DannyPostel) is Assistant Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver.
Leïla Vignal (@Leilavignal) is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Rennes-2, France, and Marie Curie Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre.
