BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.2.3.1//EN TZID:America/Detroit X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Detroit BEGIN:VEVENT UID:35984@arabamerica.com DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20260324T173000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20260324T190000 DTSTAMP:20260304T023834Z URL:https://www.arabamerica.com/events/driven-to-their-knees-humiliation-i n-contemporary-politics/ SUMMARY:Driven to Their Knees: Humiliation in Contemporary Politics DESCRIPTION:Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Social Scie nces at the University of Pennsylvania\, Roxanne L. Euben\, discussing:\n \nDriven to Their Knees: Humiliation in Contemporary Politics\n\nHow the r hetoric of humiliation defines the powerful and the powerless in modern po litics\n\nHumiliation pervades our politics\, from images of stripped Pale stinian men in Gaza to mocking chants at MAGA rallies. It suffuses picture s and videos\, speaks through bodies as well as words\, and is expressed b y those with too much power as well as by those with too little. In Drive n to Their Knees\, Roxanne Euben takes readers from conflicts in the Arabi c-speaking world to America’s divided public square\, advancing a theory of humiliation rooted in the ways people articulate and enact it. Euben a nalyzes some of the most conspicuous yet least studied Arabic expressions of humiliation\, drawing on sources ranging from Qurʾānic commentary by Islamists to videos\, poetry\, songs\, and tweets from the 2011 Egyptian r evolution.\n\nDriven to Their Knees reveals what the language of humiliat ion says—and also how it works. This groundbreaking book shows how humil iation expresses the imposition of impotence by those with undeserved powe r\, and the way it converts relations of power into crises of virility. Hu miliation rhetoric defines both the humiliated and the humiliator and issu es an urgent call for a remedy in the viscerally charged language of emasc ulation. For Donald Trump and Usama bin Laden alike\, this means driving t heir enemy to his knees for all to see\, and then boasting about it to com pound the degradation. But for others\, humiliation galvanizes their strug gle to “stand erect\,” uniting them in a refusal to be bowed low. Humi liation is not just about power but is itself a powerful language that doe s far more than reflect contemporary politics. The language of humiliation remakes the very world in which we live.\n\n \;\n\nRoxanne L. Euben  is a political theorist whose research has helped pioneer a new area of in quiry often referred to as “comparative political theory.” This is an understanding of political theory not as coextensive with Euro-American ca nonical texts ‘from Plato to NATO\,’ but rather as inclusive of intell ectual traditions and practices usually taken to belong to other fields su ch as history\, anthropology or religious studies. Euben’s special area of expertise and research is Islamic and Euro-American political thought\, and her scholarship has addressed such topics as humiliation and masculi nity\; Muslim cosmopolitanism\; jihad\; martyrdom and political action\; t ravel and translation\; the nature and limits of rationalism\; rhetoric an d emotion\; visual culture and digital circulation. She is the author of  Driven to Their Knees: Humiliation in Contemporary Politics (Princeton\, 2025)\; Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers in Sea rch of Knowledge (Princeton\, 2006)\; Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Funda mentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism (Princeton\, 1999)\; and  Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from Al-Banna t o Bin Laden (Princeton\, 2009)\, written and edited in collaboration with Muhammad Qasim Zaman. She has been published across a wide spectrum of sc holarly journals\, including Perspectives on Politics\, Political Theory\ , The Review of Politics\, The Journal of Politics\, Political Theology\, Common Knowledge\, International Studies Review\, Philosophy and Global A ffairs\, and Political Psychology. Euben's honors include fellowships fro m the John S. Guggenheim Foundation (2016-17)\, the National Endowment for the Humanities (2012-13)\, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University (2004-5)\, the American Council of Learned Societies (2 000-1) and the Mellon Foundation (2002). Her work was awarded the Frank L. Wilson Best American Political Science Association Paper Prize (2005) and she has received two awards for excellence in teaching. She taught previo usly at Wellesley College and at the University of South Carolina\, Columb ia. ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.arabamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2 026/03/driven-to-their-knees.png CATEGORIES:#arabic,Advocacy,Community,culture,Discussion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Detroit X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Detroit BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20260308T030000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR