UC Santa Cruz | St. Antony’s College | Maison Française D’Oxford | Yale  | University of Washington

“In Search of the Sociology of Islam: The Revue du monde musulman”

Maison Française, Oxford (November 5, 2018)

This lecture is derived from an in-progress book manuscript, France and the Sociology of Islam, 1780-1962. In it, the place of the Revue du monde musulman (1906-1926) looms large as a talisman of the blurred edges of a failed disciplinary project and as a global vision of the world of Islam. By linking the establishment of the RMM to the political contexts of the pre-1914 period and the contrasting visions of French orientalists and the Durkheim school, I raise questions about the scope and content of the field. How and why was the sociology of Islam so late to emerge? How can a study of the RMM help us answer these questions?