This book launch and discussion with Carol Ferrara, sociocultural anthropologist and assistant professor at Emerson College, and Kirsten Wesselhoeft, Associate Professor of Religion at Vassar College, took place at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies on Thursday, February 13, 2025. The event was moderated by Kimberly Arkin, Associate Professor of Anthropology and hosted by the Center for the Study of Europe.
Ferrara’s book – Muslim and Catholic Experiences of National Belonging in France (September 2024) – explores how experiences of national identity and belonging differ for French Muslims and Catholics respectively and what these differences tell us about the causes and dynamics of minority marginalization in plural secular societies.
Wesselhoeft’s book – Fraternal Critique: The Politics of Muslim Community in France (March 2025) – is an exploration of ways that discord binds rather than divides communal life, through an ethnography of French Muslim activism.
