Why Muslim Integration Fails in Christian-Heritage Societies by Claire L. Adida, et al (review)

Reviews 249 Eburne’s opening consideration of the 1946 exhibition L’infra-noir brings into sharp focus the political dimension of the group: as he contends, their language of secrecy and conspiracy represented not just an aesthetic position but“une condition d’obscurité plus étendue”targeting power itself (34). Two closing essays on cinema and the visual arts establish important ties to André Breton’s surrealism. Régine-Mihal Friedman’s chapter on the group’s praise of the 1942 Italian film Malombra precisely links this text to surrealist fascination for cinema and the roman noir. Jacqueline ChénieuxGendron ’s analysis of “La salle nocturne,” the group’s contribution to the 1947 Exposition internationale du surréalisme, uses this experiential installation to suggest how their ultimate intent was to push the limits of surrealism’s poetic art. This desire to keep surrealism in “un état de changement et développement révolutionnaire continuel” (75) is underlined in three central essays on the group’s key members: Ghérasim Luca, Trost, and Paul Paun. Through extended (sometimes laborious) close readings and analyses of visual works, each contributor shows how the writers reinvigorated essential notions of 1930s surrealism (notably mad love, objective chance, and dreamwork). Krzysztof Fijalkowski demonstrates how, for Luca, desire becomes a motor for artistic production and the rethinking of the self. Françoise Nicol emphasizes dreamwork in Trost’s systematic questioning of the image through objective chance. Yaari’s analysis of Paun stresses the importance of “surautomatisme” and “action automatique,” attempts at pushing the limits of collaboration and creation. Each essay highlights how the group created visual techniques—“cubomanies,” “graphomanies,”enigmatic drawings—to move beyond collage and figurative painting in the pursuit of surrealist art. At times, the overlapping artistic projects lead to repetition among these essays, perhaps a risk in treating individually the members of so collective an endeavor. This would perhaps not strike readers seeking out isolated chapters, and in any case, this is just a quibble for a volume that reveals a largely secret chapter in the history of the avant-garde. Sarah Lawrence College (NY) Jason Earle Society and Culture edited by Zakaria Fatih Adida,Claire L.,David D.Laitin, and Marie-AnneValfort. Why Muslim Integration Fails in Christian-Heritage Societies. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2016. ISBN 978-0674 -50492-9. Pp. 288. $45. In light of the recent events involving violent Islamic extremism in Europe and the Middle East, this book investigates and highlights key differences between French/ Christian and Muslim cultures. The authors touch on pressing issues, such as religious differences, gender norms, language and education, and explore causes of discrimination in the host societies. Their innovative ethnographic examination delves into the reasons why Muslim integration has failed in France, a country with the largest Muslim community in Western Europe. It looks closely at employment and hiring practices, as well as at rational and irrational Islamophobia. Contrasting France with other Christian-heritage Western societies like the United States, the book features interviews , survey data, and experimental games and gives insight into the potential improvement of the workplace and education sectors to facilitate better social integration and access to the job market for the Muslim community. In short, the statistical and taste-based discrimination towards Muslims shows that there is little to no prospect on the horizon for change without drastic public policy solutions promoting religious diversity. Addressing complex questions of assimilation, marginalization , and multiculturalism, it becomes clear that there exists a dramatic distrust towards French institutions by French Muslims and that this distrust needs to be addressed. More significantly, the research protocols which use three groups of French citizens, one with no recent immigrant background and two specific sectors of the immigrant population in France, Senegalese Muslims and Senegalese Christians, offer readers the opportunity to examine their own reactions in relation to various scenarios, such as trust, speed chatting, and voting games. The ten chapters divided into four coherent parts explain anti-Muslim discrimination as a social phenomenon asserting how French society is caught in a“discriminatory equilibrium,”a type of vicious circle where the Muslim community has no incentive to integrate and withdraws even more. A comprehensive set of public policy recommendations and...