Visiting Assistant Professor
Areas of Expertise
Anthropology of religion (Islam); affect theory and the study of emotion; North Africa (Tunisia); blasphemy; humor and taboo; creative non-fiction
About
Laura Anne Thompson is a cultural anthropologist focusing on Islam in North Africa. Her research sits at the intersection of the study of emotion, language, and the law. She is especially interested in how affective arguments can support claim-making and in how ethnography creatively attempts to capture the field. She is also interested in comedy, curses, hate speech, and offense. She is currently preparing her dissertation for publication and has previously published on contemporary and historical blasphemy cases in Tunisia.
Selected Publications
- “Protecting Muslims’ Feelings, Protecting Public Order: Tunisian Blasphemy Cases from the 19thCentury through the Present Day.” Demystifying the Sacred: Blasphemy and Violence from the French Revolution to Today. Ed by Eveline Bouwers and David Nash. De Gruyter: 2022.
- “Apostasy and Blasphemy: Coffee shops, Art, TVs and Toilets in Blasphemy Cases against Tunisian Muslims.” Contemporary French Civilization (vol. 47, no. 2), 2022.
- Blili, Leila. The House of the Empire: From Military Power to the Monarch, 1666-1922. Tome II. Translated from French by Margaux Fitoussi and Laura Thompson. American University of Cairo: under contract (2023).