"Fresh and insightful, this provocative and original collection of essays explores ideas of the public, public reason, and civic virtue as they are being reshaped through increasingly open debate and practice in law, the media, religious expression, and women's movements in Muslim majority societies. In scope and approach, this volume is good to think with." - Dale F. Eickelman, coauthor, ... Read morewith James Piscatori, of Muslim Politics (new edition, 2004). "This edited collection of essays is highly informative and often insightful in its assessment of the applicability of the concept of "the public sphere" to a variety of contexts in the Middle East. Most interesting and thought-provoking are the joint pieces by the editors Mark Levine and Armando Salvatore in which they draw on little-known writings by Gramsci and Foucault to re-examine the religious movements in the contemporary Muslim world. A very valuable contribution to understanding developments in that region." - Talal Asad, Graduate Center, City University of New York Show Less