The West and the Islamic world: crossed gazes

group "Religion and Civil Society"

 

This project of research focuses on the encounters and misunderstandings between the West and the Islamic world in contemporary times through a discursive and geopolitical analysis:

- First of all, the place of the West in the imaginary of the Middle Eastern populations and of Islam in that of the Western population. Beyond a clash between Westernisms and Orientalisms; the speech of the political and cultural elites opens a window on the way the West and the Islamic world understand, justify and explain themselves. There are many voices and sensibilities that participate in the construction of a speech that, far from being static and normative, modulates over time and adapts to changing circumstances. A fundamental part of this first line of project will be to show the importance of the impact of the Islamic religion in the International Office since the beginning of the Cold War. 

- The second line of project focuses on U.S. foreign policy in the Islamic world from 1945 to the present day and the Islamic reaction to American hegemony in the greater Middle East. The American military presence in the region reopened the discussion around such fundamental concepts as civilization or empire. The construction of American hegemony in the lands of Islam through a complex military, economic and diplomatic infrastructure, as well as the justification and perception of it, constitute the second major axis of this project.