Osman Latiff, Ph.D. (2011), Royal Holloway, University of London, is a researcher in medieval and crusader history. He also takes an interest in international relations, having completed a Post-doctorate study on counter-hegemony and political syncretism in Arab/U.S relations (2015). Author of 'The Cutting Edge of the Poet's Sword: Muslim Poetic Responses to the Crusades' (Brill, 2018) and 'On Being Human: How Islam addresses Othering, Dehumanisation and Empathy' (IERA, 2020) Supervisors: Jonathan Phillips, Carole Hillenbrand, and Konrad Hirschler
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
Discerning modes of syncretic attitudes in the narratives of US anti-war advocates in Palestine a... more Discerning modes of syncretic attitudes in the narratives of US anti-war advocates in Palestine allow us to consider ways in which temporalities of Self and Other are constructed and importantly, altered. By drawing on the diary account of activist Rachel Corrie and presentation of American ultra-marathoners in Palestine who are placed in a ‘rescue’ typeset I will consider the way meanings of self are interplayed with perceptions of otherness and how empathetic responses find their way into challenging existing states. We consider the ways that the activists sought to open up global spaces to develop ‘a sense of there being an elsewhere’. It is within this ‘elsewhere’ that actors identify sites of meaning and importance to their ‘others’. I propose in this essay that the sites used for the planting of olive trees and sites of meaning in their run act as intersection points between the American activists and Palestinians that syncretise spaces and identities. Codes of familiarity in landscapes together with participatory actions provide a medium for attachment ‘at the human level’ and can challenge pre-existing attitudes of otherness.
In this chapter, ‘Performance and Pathos: Symbolism of Suffering in the Mourning of Iraqi “mother... more In this chapter, ‘Performance and Pathos: Symbolism of Suffering in the Mourning of Iraqi “mothers”’ assesses symbolism of suffering and mourning in a performance ritual of twenty-three international performance artists whose purpose was to honour the dead and wounded civilians of Iraq. The chapter highlights ways in which anti-war activists utilised the visual appeal of performance to give legitimacy to the process of grieving and mourning in a context that coalesces a Middle Eastern/Islamic dimension with a Western one. The chapter considers the creation of a new spatiality with a procession that is both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the West, and the ways in which cultural codes of performance and activism might bridge the cultural gap between activist, target and audience.
This chapter, ‘Empathy Behind and Beyond the Cage’, presents a very important though overlooked c... more This chapter, ‘Empathy Behind and Beyond the Cage’, presents a very important though overlooked case in the War on Terror in Iraq; the tragedy witnessed by and involving an intelligence officer of the 101st Airborne unit in Iraq, Alyssa Peterson. Peterson was troubled by what she witnessed of interrogation methods meted out to Iraqi prisoners in a unit named ‘The Cage’. The chapter delineates formations and consequences of attitudes towards distant, orientalised enemy ‘others’. Reliant on the testimony of colleague, Kayla Williams, the chapter seeks to make sense of binaries between torturer and prisoner and ways in which empathic outlooks towards the distressed can open new spaces of building empathy. The second section of the chapter is a symptomatic interpretation of Peter Sattler’s American independent drama film Camp X-Ray (2014) analysing the film’s formalist and exponential elements which draw on empathic imagery in light of American and Arab identities.
Further to delineations of empathy in landscaping, this chapter, ‘Distance as Othering: US images... more Further to delineations of empathy in landscaping, this chapter, ‘Distance as Othering: US images of Conflict inside and outside the Homeland’, considers the discourse of space, media and politics in relation to perceptions of human suffering inside and outside the (U.S) homeland. Drawing on ‘collectivism framing’ analysis, the chapter considers the reflective nature of icons of suffering. It explores what these icons surmise of projected ideas about grief and mourning, and how their media framing is associated with self-identity. In the U.S, the visual ‘collectivism frame’ is a master frame in media framing of victims and public grieving. The chapter will draw on contrasting visual codes in the framing of other victims outside the homeland. Instead of comparing visual representations of loss and grieving as a result of the War in Iraq, this article will consider the dominance of ‘collectivism’ framing in media representations of the Virginia Tech school shooting (2007) ‘inside’ the U.S, and compare this with media framing of ‘outside’ Iraqi victims of the War in Iraq (2003–present).
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
This chapter of the book, ‘Empathy and the Search for the Other’, considers parameters of empathy... more This chapter of the book, ‘Empathy and the Search for the Other’, considers parameters of empathy as empathic action. The chapter frames the book’s contents, as deriving from and relevant to empathic outlooks. It outlines an array of scholarly opinion on empathy which determines it as a cognitive response to others, and separate from the emotive spontaneity of sympathy; and ways in which empathy is formed with respect to self and other or audience and target perceptions and relations. Drawing on anecdotal testimonies in the works of Tzvetan Todorov and Timothy Snyder, the chapter underscores the important place of imagined storying in empathic discourse; it draws on the diary testimony of Kazimierz Sakowicz’s “Ponary Diary”, of a ‘silent empathy’ which has hallmarks of ‘witnessing’ through risk-taking for a Lithuanian journalist in the Holocaust. The chapter deliberates on the social conditions which facilitate empathic outlooks with reference to examples of reconciliation bearing in South Africa and conversely, impediments which restrict and complicate the onset of empathy.
The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword: Muslim Poetic Responses to the Crusades, 2018
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword: Muslim Poetic Responses to the Crusades, 2018
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
Discerning modes of syncretic attitudes in the narratives of US anti-war advocates in Palestine a... more Discerning modes of syncretic attitudes in the narratives of US anti-war advocates in Palestine allow us to consider ways in which temporalities of Self and Other are constructed and importantly, altered. By drawing on the diary account of activist Rachel Corrie and presentation of American ultra-marathoners in Palestine who are placed in a ‘rescue’ typeset I will consider the way meanings of self are interplayed with perceptions of otherness and how empathetic responses find their way into challenging existing states. We consider the ways that the activists sought to open up global spaces to develop ‘a sense of there being an elsewhere’. It is within this ‘elsewhere’ that actors identify sites of meaning and importance to their ‘others’. I propose in this essay that the sites used for the planting of olive trees and sites of meaning in their run act as intersection points between the American activists and Palestinians that syncretise spaces and identities. Codes of familiarity in landscapes together with participatory actions provide a medium for attachment ‘at the human level’ and can challenge pre-existing attitudes of otherness.
In this chapter, ‘Performance and Pathos: Symbolism of Suffering in the Mourning of Iraqi “mother... more In this chapter, ‘Performance and Pathos: Symbolism of Suffering in the Mourning of Iraqi “mothers”’ assesses symbolism of suffering and mourning in a performance ritual of twenty-three international performance artists whose purpose was to honour the dead and wounded civilians of Iraq. The chapter highlights ways in which anti-war activists utilised the visual appeal of performance to give legitimacy to the process of grieving and mourning in a context that coalesces a Middle Eastern/Islamic dimension with a Western one. The chapter considers the creation of a new spatiality with a procession that is both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the West, and the ways in which cultural codes of performance and activism might bridge the cultural gap between activist, target and audience.
This chapter, ‘Empathy Behind and Beyond the Cage’, presents a very important though overlooked c... more This chapter, ‘Empathy Behind and Beyond the Cage’, presents a very important though overlooked case in the War on Terror in Iraq; the tragedy witnessed by and involving an intelligence officer of the 101st Airborne unit in Iraq, Alyssa Peterson. Peterson was troubled by what she witnessed of interrogation methods meted out to Iraqi prisoners in a unit named ‘The Cage’. The chapter delineates formations and consequences of attitudes towards distant, orientalised enemy ‘others’. Reliant on the testimony of colleague, Kayla Williams, the chapter seeks to make sense of binaries between torturer and prisoner and ways in which empathic outlooks towards the distressed can open new spaces of building empathy. The second section of the chapter is a symptomatic interpretation of Peter Sattler’s American independent drama film Camp X-Ray (2014) analysing the film’s formalist and exponential elements which draw on empathic imagery in light of American and Arab identities.
Further to delineations of empathy in landscaping, this chapter, ‘Distance as Othering: US images... more Further to delineations of empathy in landscaping, this chapter, ‘Distance as Othering: US images of Conflict inside and outside the Homeland’, considers the discourse of space, media and politics in relation to perceptions of human suffering inside and outside the (U.S) homeland. Drawing on ‘collectivism framing’ analysis, the chapter considers the reflective nature of icons of suffering. It explores what these icons surmise of projected ideas about grief and mourning, and how their media framing is associated with self-identity. In the U.S, the visual ‘collectivism frame’ is a master frame in media framing of victims and public grieving. The chapter will draw on contrasting visual codes in the framing of other victims outside the homeland. Instead of comparing visual representations of loss and grieving as a result of the War in Iraq, this article will consider the dominance of ‘collectivism’ framing in media representations of the Virginia Tech school shooting (2007) ‘inside’ the U.S, and compare this with media framing of ‘outside’ Iraqi victims of the War in Iraq (2003–present).
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
This chapter of the book, ‘Empathy and the Search for the Other’, considers parameters of empathy... more This chapter of the book, ‘Empathy and the Search for the Other’, considers parameters of empathy as empathic action. The chapter frames the book’s contents, as deriving from and relevant to empathic outlooks. It outlines an array of scholarly opinion on empathy which determines it as a cognitive response to others, and separate from the emotive spontaneity of sympathy; and ways in which empathy is formed with respect to self and other or audience and target perceptions and relations. Drawing on anecdotal testimonies in the works of Tzvetan Todorov and Timothy Snyder, the chapter underscores the important place of imagined storying in empathic discourse; it draws on the diary testimony of Kazimierz Sakowicz’s “Ponary Diary”, of a ‘silent empathy’ which has hallmarks of ‘witnessing’ through risk-taking for a Lithuanian journalist in the Holocaust. The chapter deliberates on the social conditions which facilitate empathic outlooks with reference to examples of reconciliation bearing in South Africa and conversely, impediments which restrict and complicate the onset of empathy.
The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword: Muslim Poetic Responses to the Crusades, 2018
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword: Muslim Poetic Responses to the Crusades, 2018
In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during ... more In The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword Osman Latiff assesses anti-Frankish Muslim poetry during the crusades, specifically the topic of faḍāʾil al-Quds (‘merits of Jerusalem’) and jihād as they relate to the occupation and reconquest of Jerusalem.
This book focuses on American political discourse connected to war, dissent, and empathy. Through... more This book focuses on American political discourse connected to war, dissent, and empathy. Through interdisciplinary methods of history, politics and media studies, the book examines ways in which American self-identity alters as a consequence of media portrayal of human suffering and of its existential others. It compares representations of the Iraq wars to earlier precedents and looks at the work of American activists, assessing how narratives and images of human suffering in new media iconography generate empathic attitudes towards others. This comparative, multimodal study helps to explain shifting self-identities within the U.S, and relationally through the representation of the Arab otherpresenting an original and historicised contribution to the media-war field of academic and public debate. The book underscores empathy as a vibrant category of analysis that expands how we think about West-Arab relations, revealing how understanding the cultural aspects of this conflictual interrelationship needs to be broadened.ISBN 978-3-030-76746-4 / BIC: JHB / SPRINGER NATURE: SCX22110Part ofPrices and other details are subject to change without notice. All errors and omissions excepted. Americas: Tax will be added where applicable. Canadian residents please add PST, QST or GST. Please add $5.00 for shipping one book and $ 1.00 for each additional book. Outside the US and Canada add $ 10.00 for first book, $5.00 for each additional book. If an order cannot be fulfilled within 90 days, payment will be refunded upon request. Prices are payable in US currency or its equivalent.
This book seeks to understand the Muslim’s role in a world of sometimes discordant relations fest... more This book seeks to understand the Muslim’s role in a world of sometimes discordant relations festered by attitudes of othering and dehumanisation. It shows that such attitudes, fuelled by hate, impinge upon a conviviality, harmony of existence and mutual understanding between peoples – as reflected in the Qur’ānic paradigm. The book breaks down codified concepts in an accessible way to the uninitiated reader, marrying together sociological constructs with real and illuminating examples from the Qur'an and Prophetic tradition.
Numerous, varied, historical and contemporary examples are used from many different fields to demonstrate key points throughout the book, giving the reader a glimpse into the depth and breadth of history, literature, spirituality, conflict studies and how these concepts have manifested themselves across all these fields in relation to discourses of othering, dehumanisation and empathy. This book calls on us to attempt to see one another without the stereotypes, the walls, the distance both physical and cultural, that mar our perceptions of each other. Inspired by the Prophetic empathy, the book provides guidelines on bridging between communities and suggests direct lessons for the reader to take.
In this comprehensive analysis of Arabic poetry during the period of the crusades (sixth/twelfth-... more In this comprehensive analysis of Arabic poetry during the period of the crusades (sixth/twelfth-seventh/thirteenth centuries), Osman Latiff provides an insightful examination of the poets who inspired Muslims to unite in the jihād against the Franks. The Cutting Edge of the Poet's Sword not only contributes to our understanding of literary history, it also illuminates a broad spectrum of religiosity and the role of political propaganda in the anti-Frankish Muslim struggle. Latiff shows how poets, often used by the ruling elite to promote their rule, emphasised the centrality of Islam's holy sites to inspire the Muslim response to the occupation and later reconquest of Jerusalem, and expressed some surprising views of Frankish Christians. All interested in the study of the Crusades, Muslim medieval history, and the various strands of propaganda and ideology behind the Muslim anti-Frankish jihad.
This book seeks to understand the Muslim’s role in a world of sometimes discordant relations fest... more This book seeks to understand the Muslim’s role in a world of sometimes discordant relations festered by attitudes of othering and dehumanisation. It shows that such attitudes impinge upon the conviviality, harmony of existence and mutual understanding between peoples – as reflected in the Qur’ānic paradigm. The book breaks down codified concepts in an accessible way to the uninitiated reader, marrying together sociological constructs with real and illuminating examples from the Qur'an and Prophetic tradition. Numerous, varied, historical and contemporary examples are used from many different fields to demonstrate key points throughout the book, giving the reader a glimpse into the depth and breadth of history, literature, spirituality, conflict studies and how these concepts have manifested themselves across all these fields. This book calls on us to attempt to see one another without the stereotypes, the walls, the distance both physical and cultural, that mar our perceptions of each other. Importantly, the book provides a connection, a teaching of empathy, between what is explained and the direct lessons for the reader to take.
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Numerous, varied, historical and contemporary examples are used from many different fields to demonstrate key points throughout the book, giving the reader a glimpse into the depth and breadth of history, literature, spirituality, conflict studies and how these concepts have manifested themselves across all these fields in relation to discourses of othering, dehumanisation and empathy. This book calls on us to attempt to see one another without the stereotypes, the walls, the distance both physical and cultural, that mar our perceptions of each other. Inspired by the Prophetic empathy, the book provides guidelines on bridging between communities and suggests direct lessons for the reader to take.