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Mayanthi Fernando Home  Directory Mayanthi Fernando
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Title: |
Assistant Professor |
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Email: |
mfernan3@ucsc.edu |
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Phone: |
(831) 459-2312 Office |
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Office: |
Social Sciences 1, 309 |
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Office Hours: |
Wed 10am-12pm |
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| Education History | |
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B.A., Harvard University
M.A., Ph.D., University of Chicago |
| Courses Taught | |
ANTH 194G - Politics and Secularism
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| Research Focus | |
Teaching Specialties: anthropology of Islam, politics and secularism, modernity and difference, postcolonial Britain and France, anthropology of freedom, anthropology of Western Europe, multiculturalism
Areas of Research: secularism, Islam, religious minorities in France/Europe, legal and political pluralism
Areas of Fieldwork: France, Western Europe |
| Long Description | |
Mayanthi Fernando’s research examines the conflicts, ethical and political practices, and forms of community generated at the intersection of the Islamic and secular-republican traditions in contemporary France. She is interested in how Muslim citizens – i.e. young people committed to being simultaneously Muslim and French – draw on both the Islamic and secular-republican traditions to fashion new ways of Muslim being and thinking, and how secular French institutions interpellate these Muslims in particular ways. She is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled Tensions of Secularism: Muslim Citizens in the French Republic, which analyzes the forms of subjectivity, religiosity, and political community constituted by Muslim citizens, the legal, political, and institutional practices that comprise laïcité (French secularism), and the ways in which these practices constrain pious Muslims, who are often caught in the structural and discursive tensions endemic to laïcité.
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| Selected Publications | |
“The Ambivalence of Recognition: Muslim Citizens and the Right to (In)Difference in France.” Under revision for Cultural Anthropology.
“‘Neither Whores Nor Doormats’: Secular Muslim Women in the French Public Sphere.” Under review for Social Anthropology.
“Droit, laïcité et diversité culturelle. De quelques contradictions françaises” (with C. Eberhardt and N. Gafsia). Revue Interdisciplinaire d’Études Juridiques 2005, 54: 129-169.
“The Republic’s ‘Second Religion’: Recognizing Islam in France.” Middle East Report 2005, 235: 12-17. |
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