Dr. Christopher Anzalone, "Islamizing Rebel Governance"

Dr. Chris Anzalone is the new Research Assistant Professor at Middle East Studies. Dr. Anzalone studied at George Mason University completing a B.A. double major in History and Religious Studies. He did graduate work at Indiana University, Bloomington, completing an M.A. in Near Eastern studies, and earned his doctorate through McGill University in Islamic Studies with a primary geographical focus on the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa (particularly East Africa), and additional research on South Asia. His main research focuses broadly on contemporary Islam and Muslim societies with a particular interest on Islamic political thought and different Muslim social and political movements. Dr. Anzalone has special interest in radical and militant Islamist movements and organizations, both Sunni and Shi'ite, and issues of sectarianism in Islam. His dissertation and ongoing early stage first book project looks at the use of symbols and symbolic power as a tool of soft power by Islamist rebel/insurgent groups that seek to set up proto-states/territorial governance (for example, Al-Shabaab in Somalia and Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL). He has published on these topics and most of his publications can be freely viewed and downloaded here: https://gmu.academia.edu/ChristopherAnzalone.

In this episode, Dr. Anzalone examines the advent of Islamist rebel governing projects in different regions of the world as an opportunity to link the empirical study of these groups with the broader, emerging academic literature on rebel governance as well as studies of political Islam(s) and religion and violence. He considers how Al-Shabaab as a governing organization uses symbols as a form of soft power to complement their military forces, examining, where appropriate, the Somali group alongside other Sunni Islamist rebel proto-state actors including Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

Intro/outro music is "Evolution" from BenSound.com (https://www.bensound.com)

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