Provincializing the Reformation

Abstract

On a recent trip to nicosia, cyprus, i grabbed a city map from my hotel. The venetian walls of the old city formed a perfect circle on the map. But the northern part of Nicosia was blank—not a road named or landmark identified, not even the airport or the Venetian column that marks the center of the circular city—except for the notation “Area under Turkish occupation since 1974.” Of course, Turkey is a secular nation, but the divide between Turkish and European Cyprus is also a divide between majority-Muslim and majority-Christian populations. A member of the European Union since 2004, Cyprus is, like the rest of Europe, haunted by a spectral Islam that it has difficulty acknowledging, let alone assimilating into a broader cosmopolitan identity.

Naturalization in the Mirror and A Mask

“…18 This joint incorporation and division took place not long after, as Leah Marcus explains, "England's legal status as an empire began" in 1533. 19 In short, Henry VIII forged the early modern British empire as a loose association of diverse localities. Tudor law encouraged these localities to retain a measure of autonomy.…”