Being Human

Reviews / Votes

"Being Human is an unsettling and urgent work of scholarship that transcends the confines of the university to address some of the most compelling conditions of human life and death. Anthropological hospitality, the idea at the heart of this book, provides an illuminating and passionate perspective on the plight of locality in the fight for the recognition of global justice." - Homi K. Bhabha (Homi K. Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University) "In rich, poetic prose, Fazil Moradi brilliantly unravels the politics of reading, witnessing, and memory challenging us to listen to survivors of the al-Anfal to understand the limits and possibilities of justice and accountability without losing sight of the hope and trust required for acts of hospitality and translation in Being Human." - Victoria Sanford (Victoria Sanford, author of Textures of Terror: The Murder of Claudina Isabel Velasquez and Her Fath) "Fazil Moradi writes at a critical historical juncture where so many of us are grappling with what it means to be human in an increasingly uncertain world. In Being Human, a nod to Jelalulddin al- Rumi, Moradi makes an important intervention by bringing hospitality to the center of understanding what international definitions of genocide, violence, and militarism leave unexplained. This is a well-argued book and a captivating narrative urging us to think about how the afterlives of colonial and postcolonial acts of violence continue to shape the modern nation state and its presumed future. This is a must read for those interested in the history, art, and politics of genosites in the Iraq Kurdistan region and beyond." - Amal Hassan Fadlalla (Amal Hassan Fadlalla, author of Branding Humanity: Competing Narratives of Rights, Violence, and Glo) "Raw and beautiful. Moradi shows us how to listen to survivors of mass violence. In silences, gestures, and words from generous hosts who lived through the mass Anfal attacks of late 20th-century Kurdistan Iraq, Moradi implicates political modernity. This book richly and poignantly displays the dignity and beauty of both people lost, and those who live on having survived and witnessed. It is painful to read, and that is one of its successes. All students of the modern state should read this book."
- Diane E. King (Diane E. King, author of Kurdistan on the Global Stage: Kinship, Land, and Community in Iraq)