An Evening With Farid Hafez

Join is for an evening with Farid Hafez for a discussion of his book, Politicizing Islam in Austria.

Politicizing Islam in Austria examines this anti-Muslim swerve in Austrian politics through a comprehensive analysis of government policies and regulations, as well as party and public discourses. In their innovative study, Hafez and Heinisch show how the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) adapted anti-Muslim discourse to their political purposes and how that discourse was then appropriated by the conservative center-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP). This reconfiguration of the political landscape prepared the way for a right-wing coalition government between conservatives and far-right actors that would subsequently institutionalize anti-Muslim political demands and change the shape of the civic conditions and public perceptions of Islam and the Muslim community in the republic.

Farid Hafez is the Class of 1955 Distinguished Visiting Professor of International Studies at Williams College in Massachusetts. He is an award-winning author and coeditor of several books, including The Rise of Global Islamophobia in the War on Terror: Coloniality, Race, and Islam. Since 2015, he has been the co-editor of the European Islamophobia Report.