BISLA & BIH invites you to:

a guest lecture by professor Peter Mantello of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan.

Topic: The concept of subjectivity and Islamic extremism

Moderator: Samuel Abraham

The lecture will take place this Wednesday 18 September at 5pm in BISLA premises, Johnson Room.

Abstract:

A decade ago, the proliferation of Web 2.0 strategies (forums/message-boards/file-sharing sites) heightened the visibility of jihadist movements around the globe, but it also empowered online partisans with a sense of shared purpose, agency and importantly, community. Easily downloadable jihadist ‘lifestyle’ magazines such as Inspire, foreshadowed a new-age of information warfare based on connectivity, media professionalism and aesthetic-driven content (Zelin, 2014; Droogan and Peattie, 2016). Even more so, it gave the jihadist imaginary a distinctly modern edge with transnational appeal and purpose by painting an edgy image of radical Islam as a utopian world where traditional religious values co-exist with modern-day pleasures of techno-culture - a spiritually rewarding yet playful universe of mosques and memes, prayer rooms and chat rooms, Sharia and Selfies. Yet at the same time, these same techno-oriented, screen-mediated pleasures and daily social media practices that the jihadist imaginary now exploits are based on promoting a theo-political project whose core tenets are anti-modern, anti-consumerist, and above all anti-liberal. 

We are looking forward to seeing you at BISLA,

BIH & BISLA TEAM