I write to invite you to submit an abstract to Women, Algeria, Torture, Foucault: Advancing the Anticolonial Sociology of Marnia Lazreg, a conference to be held at the CUNY Graduate Center and the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College in New York City on September 25 and 26, 2025. The abstract submission deadline is April 28, 2025.
Marnia Lazreg was a pathbreaking sociologist who made important contributions to a wide variety of fields, including the study of women, torture, colonialism, Islam, Foucault, international development, and her native Algeria. Much of this work was informed by an abiding belief in the emancipatory potential of a universalistic conception of the human—an approach that bucked prevailing academic trends and inspired a highly original oeuvre rich in critical perspectives.
We convene in honor of this unique liberatory voice, who was taken from us in 2024. The organizers invite submissions from around the world that build upon ideas that Marnia expounded in any of five major books listed below. Papers assessing the books themselves are welcome and encouraged, but so too is any paper that builds on Marnia’s ideas in these areas, whether directly or indirectly. Scholars at any career stage, including graduate students, are encouraged to submit to this call for papers and to engage with Marnia’s work. The conference is interdisciplinary and abstracts are welcome and encouraged from scholars working in any academic discipline to which the topics are relevant, including but not limited to sociology, anthropology, gender studies, area studies, history, philosophy, and law.
Topic 1: Feminism and Difference (The Eloquence of Silence (1994))
Topic 2: Torture and Colonialism (Torture and the Twilight of Empire (2008))
Topic 3: The Veil in Question (Questioning the Veil (2009))
Topic 4: Foucault and Non-Western Thought (Foucault’s Orient (2017))
Topic 5: Assessing Islamic Feminism from an Anticolonial Perspective (Islamic Feminism and the Discourse of Post-Liberation (2021))
Presenters will have the option to publish their papers in a conference volume. For more detail on the topic areas, the submission procedure, and conference registration, and to sign up for conference updates, please consult the full call for papers, which is attached or available at the following link: https://marnialazreg.work/callforpapers/ .
The conference is sponsored by the Department of Sociology at Hunter College, CUNY, the Human Rights Program at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, and the Department of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center