Later this Summer, we will be hosting the next AUFS book event on Gil Anidjar’s Blood: A Critique of Christianity. We have been looking forward to this book and have put together an exciting group of contributors, most of whom are not regular AUFS authors.
- July 28 – I will post an introduction
- July 30 – Marika Rose
- Aug 1 – J. Kameron Carter
- Aug 4 – Selim Karlitekin
- Aug 6 – Amaryah Armstrong
- Aug 8 – Anthony Paul Smith
- Aug 11 – Melanie Kampen
- Aug 13 – Basit Iqbal
Columbia University Press has generously offered us a copy to give away to a reader. To enter, leave a comment below and post a link to this page on Facebook and/or Twitter. The winner will be contacted via the email address provided when commenting on this page. Giveaway will close tomorrow night, Tuesday May 5th. Update: Scott has won the giveaway. Thanks everyone for participating!
Meanwhile, check out this roundtable discussion on the book:
An und für sich 
Please enter me into the drawing. Thanks.
Quite excited about this. Would love a copy of the book!
Please enter me as well.
I’m really looking forward to this. Would love to have a copy of the book to follow the discussion more closely. Thanks so much to AUFS and the contributors.
Anidjar is an important name in the discussion about secularism in relation to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The world would be a better place by reading him and Asad on this subject. Good lineup of contributors as well!
Looking forward to this. Cheers.
I am really looking forward to this event. Anidjar has been really important for in terms of what it means to critique Christianity, and this new work looks very promising. This last semester I participated in a directed reading on secularism with a few middle east historians, who all hated Anidjar’s work. They all thought his account of Christianity was absurdly abstract and ahistorical, and that it came off as very ignorant of middle eastern history and politics and its relationship to western Christianity. One even used the term “neo-orientalist” to describe how they thought that Anidjar only used Islam and the middle east as a negative “prop” in opposition to his own version of Christianity. I wasn’t convinced by their critique and dismissal of him, but I now cannot read him, Asad, et al without this kind of critique in the background. Nevertheless, I am really looking forward to all of the responses.
Looking forward to this as well. Please enter me into the drawing!
David, where were these historians based?
Anthony, the directed reading was with a few other grad students in history at Rice University with Ussama Makdisi leading it. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=Ussama%20Makdisi&search-alias=digital-text
Also quite excited for this event, and would love to win a copy of this book!
Oooh, this is gonna be awesome (also, yeah, I would love to be entered in the drawing, obvs).
Also, I know it is a bit of a different lens/approach or whatnot, but I know Eugene Rogers is currently working on a book on “The Analogy of Blood”… I’m intrigued to see if there will be any overlaps, however broad….
I think the cover is pretty. Also your book events rule.
Yes, enter me! I’m rereading some of Anidjar’s work (_Semites_) in relation to Asad and must say that I think some of the criticisms David’s colleagues expressed have some merit. Here is a line from Talal Asad, not addressing Anidjar but addressing Derrida, Nancy and others: “The only way that “secularism” can be read as a trace of Christianity is by viewing the emergence of modernity–secularism–capitalism as the history of Spirit that is always identical with the secular, that advances dialectically with an increasing sense of being at home in the world and subject to historicized—that is, continually outdated—ethical principles.” I think his worry is that these figures read a kind of continuity beneath the transformations (secularism as Christianity) instead of attending to the production and proliferation of differences from various sites (‘formationS of the secular”). Alright, back to the paper!
Commenting out of pure self interest here.
Good stuff
The book events are always great, but I’m really excited about this one. And, obviously, a free copy would be cool.
This looks great. I’d like to win a copy, please and thank you.
“I think his worry is that these figures read a kind of continuity beneath the transformations (secularism as Christianity) instead of attending to the production and proliferation of differences from various sites”
Or, one could say that the desire to keep finding “transformations” — reforms, new differences, etc. — is precisely what Christianity is.
The search for a multiplicity of “differences from various sites,” after all, is pretty much the history of globalization / Christian mission.
In this sense, it is precisely the invocation of reforms, alternatives, etc. that *is* the continuation of Christianity. The dream of the dominator is that their project will survive by means of its confession by / re-routing through the dominated.
I’ve been eager to read this book anyway, so I’m tossing my hat into the ring as well!
I’m in for the giveaway. This looks like it could be a great discussion.
Looking forward to reading this along with everyone.
I’d love a copy of the book.
Anidjar is great, and an event on the book would be, too! Count me in for the draw.
The event sounds awesome, I would love to be included in the drawing
Really enjoyed the last one, so I’m looking forward to this one as well. A free copy of the book would be nice too!
looking forward, esp. after reading the preface (would love a free copy)
I think I share the sentiment of every commenter…the book looks great, the lineup looks great, and it would be great to get a free copy!