Bøger af Jonathan Lyons

For centuries following the fall of Rome, Western Europe was backward and benighted, locked into the Dark Ages. Arab culture, however, was thriving, and had become a powerhouse of intellectual exploration and discussion that dazzled the likes of British adventurer Adelard of Bath. This title restores credit to the Arab thinkers of the past.

Postmodernism meets music mash-up, remixing and collage in this late-'80s coming-of-age story, an alt-underground music extravaganza that repeatedly breaks the traditional form of the novel. As Connor submerges into the underground music scene, he is enthralled by an industrial/hardcore music legend who goes by the handle "The Siren." Their otherworldly comingling alters them, a physical transmogrification that takes hold whenever they are intimate. Music is woven into the text, as lyrics interplay with the storyline in this hybrid of fabulism, alternative and industrial music, and fiction, a tour of the underground music scene of the mid- to late '80s in Iowa City and beyond. The publisher, The Foundry: A Literary Collective, is a small coop press using CreateSpace for fulfillment and delivery of this, its first title. Signal to Noise is a nominee for the Pushcart Press Editors Choice Book Award.

Despite the West's growing involvement in Muslim societies, conflicts, and cultures, its inability to understand or analyze the Islamic world threatens any prospect for East-West rapprochement. Impelled by one thousand years of anti-Muslim ideas and images, the West has failed to engage in any meaningful or productive way with the world of Islam. Formulated in the medieval halls of the Roman Curia and courts of the European Crusaders and perfected in the newsrooms of Fox News and CNN, this anti-Islamic discourse determines what can and cannot be said about Muslims and their religion, trapping the West in a dangerous, dead-end politics that it cannot afford.In Islam Through Western Eyes, Jonathan Lyons unpacks Western habits of thinking and writing about Islam, conducting a careful analysis of the West's grand totalizing narrative across one thousand years of history. He observes the discourse's corrosive effects on the social sciences, including sociology, politics, philosophy, theology, international relations, security studies, and human rights scholarship. He follows its influence on research, speeches, political strategy, and government policy, preventing the West from responding effectively to its most significant twenty-first-century challenges: the rise of Islamic power, the emergence of religious violence, and the growing tension between established social values and multicultural rights among Muslim immigrant populations. Through the intellectual "e;archaeology"e; of Michel Foucault, Lyons reveals the workings of this discourse and its underlying impact on our social, intellectual, and political lives. He then addresses issues of deep concern to Western readers-Islam and modernity, Islam and violence, and Islam and women-and proposes new ways of thinking about the Western relationship to the Islamic world.