Legal Studies 391S - S-Islamophobia,Multcultrsm&Law

Multiculturalism has become both highly contested and deeply entrenched in contemporary societies in North America, Australia and Western Europe. As a political strategy to manage the social friction between minorities and majorities in increasingly diverse nation-states, multiculturalism has come under attack from both the right and left poles of the political spectrum throughout the world for its ostensible failures. Muslims have occupied a central place in these local, national and international debates. The threat of Islamic terrorism has provoked a measurable rise among European and North American nationals of what scholars and activists have somewhat controversially named "Islamophobia". This course surveys scholarship about this vexed role of Muslim minorities in what is conventionally called "the West", paying special attention to how the domain of law has become the defining terrain in which these debates play out and are contested. Drawing on anthropology, sociology, history and legal studies scholarship, we will explore such topics as: the links between anti-Muslim attitudes and racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia; legacies of colonialism and the impacts of transnational migration; the history of multicultural policies; contemporary gender and sexual politics; secularism, blasphemy and the limits of free speech; the interpenetration of immigration and criminal justice; profiling and terrorism.

Legal Studies Majors only. Pre Req: LEGAL 250