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This article analyzes emblematic media, policymaking, and scholarly discourses depicting religion within states and societies affected by the Arab uprisings. By early 2011, supposed expert assessments emanating from outside the Middle East, as well as some voices within the region, postulated that the uprisings were about citizens' worldly strivings, rather than clerics' claims to transcendent truth—only to shift, subsequently, to plaintive assertions that 'Islamists' were now emerging from hiding to 'hijack' the 'Arab Spring' from 'secular' activists. The article deconstructs the oppositional pair 'Islamist/secularist', and related identifiers like 'fanatic' and 'terrorist', to investigate the reductionist construction of Islam, and binary conceptions of religion and secularity, that are thereby intimated. Ultimately, it is asked whether the uprisings might pose a signal opportunity for questioning the constrained horizons, and lost possibilities for human freedom, fulfillment, and connection with the sacred, of discourses that objectify and delimit religious experience.

AbstractThe irreducible complexity and singular unpredictability of the upheavals that have roiled the Middle East since December 2010 challenge analysts—from university students to policymakers—to grapple with irresolvable questions; this, rather than analysts' superimposing their own visions of what might constitute the upheavals' driving forces, and what will, or should be the outcomes of the regional turmoil. Drawing on strategies gleaned from teaching about the Arab uprisings, this article asserts that the uprisings may be collectively read as comprising a text that contains signs of indeterminacy pointing to many possible meanings and sources of meanings. Focus is placed on those signs that embody the differing discourses through which the Middle East upheavals are, have been, or can be represented and assessed; and the fluid, multidimensional forms of political identity that have contributed to the upheavals, and are being further reshaped, in their wake. By reading these signs with intellectual openness and humility, interpreters can achieve greater insight into the profoundly contingent and unforeseeable dynamics at work across the region.

AbstractNationalism's inability to yield peacefully coexisting forms of political identity in Israel/Palestine has persisted for more than a century. This is so whether one refers to strands of secular nationalism that composed predominating, modern historical foundations for Israeli and Palestinian political consciousness, or subsequent forms of nationalism that have become intertwined, ever more, with religion. Further, nationalism's failure to foster a way out of the Israel/Palestine impasse infects not only the familiar (but increasingly problematic) "two‐state" solution but also the contested (but perhaps more productive) "one‐state" solution.The one‐state solution has tended to involve a secular approach, for example, the binational variety emblematized by Edward Said, or, alternatively, a nonbinary democratic state where equal citizenship is not contingent on distinct forms of identity. However, the untapped promise of the one‐state solution could be better actualized with ingredients for the construction of citizenship that, in a real, spiritual sense, transcend the limiting divisions of nationalism. Specifically, shared religious roots, including the modes of reconciliation integral to the three Abrahamic traditions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—most directly ensnared within the Israel/Palestine bind might offer a more fruitful basis for coexistence.

ABSTRACTTeaching and learning in higher education is occurring, unavoidably, within the broader civic context of today's extraordinarily polarizing political times. We seek to help students situate themselves with respect to and, above all, thoughtfully assess others' as well as their own perspectives on issues of profound contention, without contributing to exacerbated polarization ourselves. Specifically, we offer students in our first-year exploratory political science course a vital tool—critical rigor—for navigating but not being inundated by the storm. This article discusses our experiences in teaching the course titled, "The Worlds of Politics," as we attempt to help students deeply engage in cognitive processes of critical thinking and analysis, without undue infringement from their own—and least of all our own—personal political biases. Our focal learning objective is the cultivation of critical-thinking skills that promote students' drawing of distinctions between advocacy and analysis, as well as their discerning civic engagement.