Islam is often treated as an inextricable part of Arab culture, and in the minds of many in both the west and the Arab world, to be an Arab is to be a Muslim by default. While many religious minorities, notably the Druze, Jews and Christians, have found ways of reconciling their Arab identity with their beliefs, a far greater challenge faces the growing number of Arabs who identify as atheists, agnostics, or sceptics. Emboldened by the political upheavals of the Arab spring and facilitated by the growth of social media, these predominantly young men and women are becoming an increasingly vocal and assertive presence in Arab societies, despite facing the risk of imprisonment, ostracism, and death. Arabs Without God explores the roots and consequences of this phenomenon, as well as the experiences of those living as 'non-believers' in Muslim countries. Beginning with an examination of the history of atheism in the Arab world, it goes on to consider the circumstances which led these Arab Muslims to question their faith. It also examines the pressures they face in attempting to assert and defend their stance, both in Muslim countries and in the west, where they often find themselves caught between political Islamists who deride them as 'westernised' apostates, and a far right which regards all people from Muslim backgrounds as potential extremists. Arabs Without God argues passionately that these developments, previously ignored by western observers, are of vital importance to the future of Arab societies. For as the author says it is only 'when an atheist can be accepted and respected as a normal human being' that liberty will truly have arrived.

In this volume, Mark Bevir argues that postfoundationalism is compatible with humanism and historicism. He shows how postmodernists, especially Derrida and Foucault, drew on structuralism and the avant-garde in ways that led them to downplay human agency and historical context. He then explores how we today might recover and rethink humanism and historicism. And, finally, he discusses the critical and ethical practices that such ideas might inspire.

Islam is often treated as an inextricable part of Arab culture, and in the minds of many in both the west and the Arab world, to be an Arab is to be a Muslim by default. While many religious minorities, notably the Druze, Jews and Christians, have found ways of reconciling their Arab identity with their beliefs, a far greater challenge faces the growing number of Arabs who identify as atheists, agnostics, or sceptics. Emboldened by the political upheavals of the Arab spring and facilitated by the growth of social media, these predominantly young men and women are becoming an increasingly vocal and assertive presence in Arab societies, despite facing the risk of imprisonment, ostracism, and death. Arabs Without God explores the roots and consequences of this phenomenon, as well as the experiences of those living as 'non-believers' in Muslim countries. Beginning with an examination of the history of atheism in the Arab world, it goes on to consider the circumstances which led these Arab Muslims to question their faith. It also examines the pressures they face in attempting to assert and defend their stance, both in Muslim countries and in the west, where they often find themselves caught between political Islamists who deride them as 'westernised' apostates, and a far right which regards all people from Muslim backgrounds as potential extremists. Arabs Without God argues passionately that these developments, previously ignored by western observers, are of vital importance to the future of Arab societies. For as the author says it is only 'when an atheist can be accepted and respected as a normal human being' that liberty will truly have arrived.

The Taylor Effect presents an original and diverse collection of essays addressing Charles Taylor's magisterial A Secular Age. Ranging from close and critical readings of Taylor's formulations and suppositions; to comparative studies of Taylor and various 'interlocutors'; to applied approaches utilizing Taylor's concepts; to explorations launched from a Taylorian foundation; the 13 chapters comprise a multifaceted exploration of Taylor's multifaceted achievement. Given the vast, synoptic sweep of Taylor's magnum opus, the contributors represent a suitably diverse range of interests, backgrounds and expertise-members of departments of philosophy, literature, philosophical theology, systematic theology, moral theology, education, and political science, whose interests stretch from Plato to Girard, phronesis to pedagogy, Deism to dogmatics, medical ethics to aesthetics... Accordingly, The Taylor Effect is not only one of the first major responses to A Secular Age: the astonishing breadth as well as the quality of contributions will ensure that it remains a central reference point in any future discussion of Taylor's work.

Edward Said and Jacques Derrida: Reconstellating Humanism and the Global Hybrid features essays that invoke Said and Derrida's intellectually rigorous examination of humanism in their works; yet by shifting Said and Derrida out of their contexts-by dis-engaging them from their respective habitats of postcolonial studies and deconstruction-and by placing them in each other's company, the collection reconstellates those traces of their works that open the question of ethics, criticism, and the political in order to reconsider the status of the human subject in the global moment.These fourteen interdisciplinary essays by leading international scholars address present social change and political questions and analyze humanism from the perspectives of literature, theory, history, gender studies, and art in view of the intellectual impact of Said and Derrida on contemporary philosophy. In rethinking the question of humanism, these essays pursue the analysis of pivotal concepts that are theoretically and politically imperative in the global age such as the "human subject", "hybridity", "community", "philology", "secularism", "planetary humanism", "ethical antihumanism", "inhabitancy", "exceptionalism", "utopia", and others.