Commemorating Muslims in the First World War Centenary: Making Melancholia

The book explores how national memory changes when it seeks to include a previously excluded group, such as Muslims, during the First World War centenary. It identifies three distinct narratives that correspond to three ways of situating Muslims in relation to the nation: mourning, mobilization, and melancholia. It intervenes in debates surrounding memory, nationhood, and belonging to make sense of the centenary as an extended exercise in nation-building.

Format: Hardback
Length: 182 pages
Publication date: 23 November 2021
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Commemorating Muslims in the First World War Centenary delves into the surge of public commemorations in Britain and France during the centenary of the First World War, alongside the heightened visibility of British and French Muslims in political and popular discourse. By intertwining these two phenomena, the book explores how national memory evolves when it seeks to include a previously marginalized group. Drawing from national commemorations of the First World War centenary in both countries and eleven local field sites that foregrounded Muslims, the book aims to understand how national memory shapes when it attempts to encompass a previously excluded group.

Through the identification of three distinct narratives that correspond to three ways of situating Muslims in relation to the nation—mourning, mobilization, and melancholia—the book intervenes in debates surrounding memory, nationhood, and belonging. It seeks to make sense of the centenary as an extended exercise in nation-building at a time when the borders of British and French national identity were openly and violently contested.

With a particular focus on sites of melancholia, the author demonstrates how certain sites disrupt national memory and fail to produce any cohesive narrative to mend what has been fractured. The book explores the ways in which commemoration forces nations to confront their past and present, without offering a tidy solution. It appeals to scholars of sociology and anthropology with interests in memory studies, nationalism, and postcolonial studies.

Weight: 448g
Dimension: 163 x 241 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367551858