Seizing the space opened by the early 1990s democratization movement, Muslim women are carving an active, influential, but often-overlooked role for themselves during a time of great change. Engaging Modernity provides a compelling portrait of Muslim women in Niger as they confronted the challenges and opportunities of the late twentieth century.
Based on thorough scholarly research and extensive fieldwork--including a wealth of interviews--Ousseina Alidou's work offers insights into the meaning of modernity for Muslim women in Niger. Mixing biography with sociological data, social theory and linguistic analysis, this is a multilayered vision of political Islam, education, popular culture, and war and its aftermath. Alidou offers a gripping look at one of the Muslim world's most powerful untold stories.

Ousseina D. Alidou is associate professor in the Department of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature, affiliate of the graduate faculty of the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University, and director of the Program in African Languages and Literatures. She is coeditor of A Thousand Flowers and Postconflict Reconstruction in Africa and is author of many articles on African linguistics, literature, and women's studies.