In the face of increasing state surveillance and repression, including radicalized and gendered discrimination, French Muslim activists cultivate spirited internal debates over the values that anchor collective life. Some call this ethic “fraternal critique.” In her new book, Kirsten Wesselhoeft draws out this concept, and its profound insights about critique, kinship, and community. Drawing on years of ethnographic fieldwork and analysis of recent law and policy, Wesselhoeft argues that solidarity never needs to come at the expense of dissent. Instead, fraternal critique can teach all of us how to build communities that are worth fighting over and worth fighting for.

Sponsored by Africana Studies and Religion.