Italian Intellectuals and the Promotion of Islamophobia after 9/11

Abstract

During the 2000s, the intellectual field played a determinant role in the development of islamophobia in Italy. Beyond the public declarations of numerous right-wing political leaders opposed to multiculturalism regularly proclaiming the moral inferiority of Islam, and a level of popular and institutional hostility towards Muslims that constitutes a record for Western Europe (EUAFR 2009), we find in Italy the mobilization of cultural producers behind an intellectual Islamophobia (.).