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Marnia Lazreg (born January 6 1941) is an Algerian born Muslim sociologist whose work touches on post colonial frameworks from a non-western perspective.

She graduated from The University of Algiers obtaining a BA in Mathematics and Philosophy. In the United States she earned a MA and a Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University.

The Eloquence of Silence: Algerian Women in Question:

"As Larezg convincingly argues, contradictory colonial policies ideologized women. The colonialists gave nationalism and the ensuing decolonization movement a distinctively gendered character, opening religion as contested terrain in the battle for gender equity. The colonized, in response, sought and created a cultural response to socioeconomic problems by returning to Islamic roots." This review praises Marnia Lazreg for addressing colonialism essentially enabling gender structure within religion to perpetuate as the colonizers believed they were extending religious tolerance towards Islamic people but it reinforced gender oppression.

The Politics of the Veil:

“Lazreg shows that the new veiling trend relies on religious rationales to justify veiling; advocates of the veil define it “as religious, even when the religious texts lack clarity and determinacy in the matter,” and “female advocates of veiling wish to make the veil stand for religion and in so doing close the uncertainty and indeterminacy of the religious status of the veil.”” (Boussoualim, 2021, p. 1292)

Her published books include Islamic Feminism and The Discourse of Post-Liberation:  The Cultural Turn in Algeria (Routledge, 2021); Foucault’s Orient:  The Conundrum of Cultural Difference From Tunisia to Japan (Berghahn 2017, 2020); The Eloquence of Silence:  Algerian Women in Question, second edition (Routledge, 2018); Torture and the Twilight of Empire:  From Algiers to Baghdad (Princeton, 2008, 2017); and Questioning the Veil:  Open Letters to Muslim Women (Princeton, 2010).