This 12-week seminar is a survey of the varied ways in which modern Muslim thinkers have grappled with challenging modern questions. Based on selected topics as such as Religion, State, Gender, Economy and Culture, this seminar will illustrate how different trends and ideas which remain little known contest a monopolistic interpretation of Islam by traditional clerics in one hand and by islamist propaganda on the other hand.
This seminar is divided in four parts. Each unit introduces several important Muslim thinkers’ texts. The first unit treats the development of new interpretations of the Qur’ân (Unit 1). The second unit discusses several political and social issues related to Democracy, Gender and Postmodernism (Unit 2). The third section analyses how Muslim thinkers over the last sixty years respond to the challenge of Capitalism and Sciences (Unit 3). The fourth section highlights how the work of Muslim artists challenge the distinction between tradition and modernity (Unit 4).