NSSR Sociology Lecture:

The second speaker in our Sociology Lecture Series is Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou (Graduate Institute of Geneva). His talk is entitled, “Conceptualizing the Islamic State.”

What is the Islamic State and where does it come from? What new forms of globalized political violence has it ushered? How has the materialization of the Islamic State impacted contemporary international history and politics? In a sequel to his Understanding Al Qaeda (2011), political historian Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou presents in a new book, A Theory of ISIS – Political Violence and the Transformation of the Global Order (University of Chicago Press and Pluto Press, 2018), an original take on the armed group, discussing the social sciences perspective, unpacking its complex dynamics not merely solely in terms of its terrorist nature and its religious rhetoric but rather with a view to deepens our understanding of the group’s impact on the very nature of the meaning of contemporary post-modern political violence.

Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou is Professor of International History and Chair of the International History Department at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Previously the Associate Director of the Programme on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University, he also teaches at the Doctoral School at Sciences Po Paris. He is the author of Iraq and the Second Gulf War – State-building and Regime Security (2002), Contre-Croisade – Le 11 Septembre et le Retournement du Monde (2004), Understanding Al Qaeda – Changing War and Global Politics (2011), and co-editor of Democratization in the 21^st Century (2016).

This event is cosponsored by the the Sociology Department at the New School for Social Research and the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility.