Charles Hirschkind

Charles Hirschkind is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California in Berkeley. His book, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics (Columbia 2006), was awarded the 2007-2008 Sharon Stevens First Book Prize by the American Ethnological Society. He is also the co-editor (with David Scott) of Powers of the Secular Modern: Talal Asad and his Interlocutors (Stanford 2005).

Posts by Charles Hirschkind:

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Obama on Palestine: What new beginning?

Here I want to briefly comment on Obama’s discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian question. Two of Obama’s statements in particular have been widely celebrated as marking a new direction in American foreign policy in this area: one, that “the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” and two, that the Palestinians should have “a state of their own.” These are fine sentiments indeed. They are also an almost exact reiteration of the central positions of the so-called Road Map proposed by Bush and his Quartet.

Read the rest of Obama on Palestine: What new beginning?.

Posted in Religion & American politics | 1 Comment » |