This talk, based on Le Sueur’s documentary film and digital oral history project, EXILE AND THE FATWA: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ARTISTS AFTER RUSHDIE, seeks to retrieve those vital nuances that must be understood now more than ever. Long before the rise of al Qaeda and ISIS, writers and artists from Muslim-majority states relied on arts and literature to take on radical Islamists within the realm of ideas and demonstrate the vitality of civil society. Their copious and collective works help us understand what is at stake when those in the “West” defer uncritically to Samuel Huntington’s controversial “Clash of Civilizations” thesis. It is essential to hear from artists and intellectuals who have long used the pen to protest Islamic and state violence within Muslim-majority states, especially in the aftermath of the November terrorist attacks in France. These intellectuals were on the front lines of the war on terror a full decade before the 9/11 attack.

A UNL faculty member since 2001, James D. Le Sueur is a specialist in world history, France, North Africa, intellectuals, and terrorism, and is the author of ALGERIA SINCE 1989: BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND TERROR. His essays have appeared in FOREIGN AFFAIRS, THE WALRUS (Toronto), and THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION. He is currently working on a history of twentieth-century decolonization.

Sponsored by UNL’s Department of History and Department of English.