Overview

Seizing the space opened by the early 1990s democratization movement, Muslim women are carving an active, influential, but often-overlooked role for themselves during a time of great change. Engaging Modernity provides a compelling portrait of Muslim women in Niger as they confronted the challenges and opportunities of the late twentieth century. Based on thorough scholarly research and extensive fieldwork--including a wealth of interviews--Ousseina Alidou's work offers insights into the meaning of modernity for Muslim women in Niger. Mixing biography with sociological data, social theory and linguistic analysis, this is a multilayered vision of political Islam, education, popular culture, and war and its aftermath. Alidou offers a gripping look at one of the Muslim world's most powerful untold stories. Runner-up, Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize, Women's Caucus of the African Studies Association, 2007

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9780299212148

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Reviews

Linguist and cultural critic Ousseina Alidou transforms the grounds of debate over modernity, gender, and Islam not only in Africa but across the globe. Her elegant and eminently readable book undermines assumptions of women ruled by ethnicity, passivity, and religious affiliation, casting light instead on women s activism in Niger and the challenge it poses to the ethnicization of politics and identity. Placing the social biographies of three very different women in dialogue with her own experience as a female intellectual from Niger in the United States, Alidou changes how we think about contemporary Muslim women. Barbara Cooper, Rutgers University Illustrates the complex interplay of gender, Islam, and modernity in Niger and the way that women manage to negotiate their way in a society with a strong patriarchal tradition. . . . Highly recommended. Choice Linguist and cultural critic Ousseina Alidou transforms the grounds of debate over modernity, gender, and Islam not only in Africa but across the globe. Her elegant and eminently readable book undermines assumptions of women ruled by ethnicity, passivity, and religious affiliation, casting light instead on women s activism in Niger and the challenge it poses to the ethnicization of politics and identity. Placing the social biographies of three very different women in dialogue with her own experience as a female intellectual from Niger in the United States, Alidou changes how we think about contemporary Muslim women. Barbara Cooper, Rutgers University Illustrates the complex interplay of gender, Islam, and modernity in Niger and the way that women manage to negotiate their way in a society with a strong patriarchal tradition. . . . Highly recommended. Choice Linguist and cultural critic Ousseina Alidou transforms the grounds of debate over modernity, gender, and Islam not only in Africa but across the globe. Her elegant and eminently readable book undermines assumptions of women ruled by ethnicity, passivity, and religious affiliation, casting light instead on women's activism in Niger and the challenge it poses to the ethnicization of politics and identity. Placing the social biographies of three very different women in dialogue with her own experience as a female intellectual from Niger in the United States, Alidou changes how we think about contemporary Muslim women. --Barbara Cooper, Rutgers University Illustrates the complex interplay of gender, Islam, and modernity in Niger and the way that women manage to negotiate their way in a society with a strong patriarchal tradition. . . . Highly recommended. -- Choice

Linguist and cultural critic Ousseina Alidou transforms the grounds of debate over modernity, gender, and Islam not only in Africa but across the globe. Her elegant and eminently readable book undermines assumptions of women ruled by ethnicity, passivity, and religious affiliation, casting light instead on women s activism in Niger and the challenge it poses to the ethnicization of politics and identity. Placing the social biographies of three very different women in dialogue with her own experience as a female intellectual from Niger in the United States, Alidou changes how we think about contemporary Muslim women. Barbara Cooper, Rutgers University Illustrates the complex interplay of gender, Islam, and modernity in Niger and the way that women manage to negotiate their way in a society with a strong patriarchal tradition. . . . Highly recommended. Choice Linguist and cultural critic Ousseina Alidou transforms the grounds of debate over modernity, gender, and Islam not only in Africa but across the globe. Her elegant and eminently readable book undermines assumptions of women ruled by ethnicity, passivity, and religious affiliation, casting light instead on women s activism in Niger and the challenge it poses to the ethnicization of politics and identity. Placing the social biographies of three very different women in dialogue with her own experience as a female intellectual from Niger in the United States, Alidou changes how we think about contemporary Muslim women. Barbara Cooper, Rutgers University Illustrates the complex interplay of gender, Islam, and modernity in Niger and the way that women manage to negotiate their way in a society with a strong patriarchal tradition. . . . Highly recommended. Choice Linguist and cultural critic Ousseina Alidou transforms the grounds of debate over modernity, gender, and Islam not only in Africa but across the globe. Her elegant and eminently readable book undermines assumptions of women ruled by ethnicity, passivity, and religious affiliation, casting light instead on women's activism in Niger and the challenge it poses to the ethnicization of politics and identity. Placing the social biographies of three very different women in dialogue with her own experience as a female intellectual from Niger in the United States, Alidou changes how we think about contemporary Muslim women. --Barbara Cooper, Rutgers University Illustrates the complex interplay of gender, Islam, and modernity in Niger and the way that women manage to negotiate their way in a society with a strong patriarchal tradition. . . . Highly recommended. -- Choice

<p> Linguist and cultural critic Ousseina Alidou transforms the grounds of debate over modernity, gender, and Islam not only in Africa but across the globe. Her elegant and eminently readable book undermines assumptions of women ruled by ethnicity, passivity, and religious affiliation, casting light instead on women's activism in Niger and the challenge it poses to the ethnicization of politics and identity. Placing the social biographies of three very different women in dialogue with her own experience as a female intellectual from Niger in the United States, Alidou changes how we think about contemporary Muslim women. --Barbara Cooper, Rutgers University

Linguist and cultural critic Ousseina Alidou transforms the grounds of debate over modernity, gender, and Islam not only in Africa but across the globe. Her elegant and eminently readable book undermines assumptions of women ruled by ethnicity, passivity, and religious affiliation, casting light instead on women s activism in Niger and the challenge it poses to the ethnicization of politics and identity. Placing the social biographies of three very different women in dialogue with her own experience as a female intellectual from Niger in the United States, Alidou changes how we think about contemporary Muslim women. Barbara Cooper, Rutgers University</p>

Author Information

Ousseina D. Alidou is associate professor in the Department of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature, affiliate of the graduate faculty of the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University, and director of the Program in African Languages and Literatures. She is coeditor of A Thousand Flowers and Postconflict Reconstruction in Africa and is author of many articles on African linguistics, literature, and women's studies.

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