Flagg Miller – författare

In late 2002, over 1500 audiotapes were discovered in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in a house once occupied by Osama bin Laden. The Audacious Ascetic is the first book to explore this extraordinary archive. It details how Islamic cultural, legal, theological and linguistic vocabularies shaped militants'' understandings of al-Qa''ida, and, more controversially, challenges the notion that the group''s original adversary was America and the ''far enemy''. Miller argues that Western security agencies'' ''management'' of Bin Laden''s growing reputation went awry. When magnified through global media coverage, narratives of al-Qa''ida''s coherence were exploited by Osama and his militant supporters for their own ends.Focusing on over a dozen previously unpublished speeches by Bin Laden as well as on discussions by top al-Qa''ida leaders and Arab- Afghans, Miller chronicles the Saudi radical''s evolving relationship with a host of Muslim insurgencies that found his stripe of asceticism (zuhd) tactically useful, especially when circulated via audiotape. These recordings also reveal militants'' disenchantment when Bin Laden, marginalized through the ''90s, began pandering to Western television networks in his attempt to direct heterodox Islamist armed struggles against America. Such audio evidence exposes al-Qa''ida''s lack of coordination before 9-11 and invites scrutiny of dominant narratives of Western law enforcement, intelligence and terrorism analysts.

In late 2002, over 1500 audiotapes were discovered in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in a house once occupied by Osama bin Laden. The Audacious Ascetic is the first book to explore this extraordinary archive. It details how Islamic cultural, legal, theological and linguistic vocabularies shaped militants'' understandings of al-Qa''ida, and, more controversially, challenges the notion that the group''s original adversary was America and the ''far enemy''. Miller argues that Western security agencies'' ''management'' of Bin Laden''s growing reputation went awry. When magnified through global media coverage, narratives of al-Qa''ida''s coherence were exploited by Osama and his militant supporters for their own ends.Focusing on over a dozen previously unpublished speeches by Bin Laden as well as on discussions by top al-Qa''ida leaders and Arab- Afghans, Miller chronicles the Saudi radical''s evolving relationship with a host of Muslim insurgencies that found his stripe of asceticism (zuhd) tactically useful, especially when circulated via audiotape. These recordings also reveal militants'' disenchantment when Bin Laden, marginalized through the ''90s, began pandering to Western television networks in his attempt to direct heterodox Islamist armed struggles against America. Such audio evidence exposes al-Qa''ida''s lack of coordination before 9-11 and invites scrutiny of dominant narratives of Western law enforcement, intelligence and terrorism analysts.

In a groundbreaking study of contemporary Arab political poetry, Flagg Miller provides a wide range of insights into the ways that modern media aesthetics are shaped by language and culture. Investigating a vibrant audio-recording industry in southern Yemen, The Moral Resonance of Arab Media shows how new forms of political activism emerge through sensory engagements with Arabic poetry and song. From the 1940s onward, a new cadre of political activists has used audio-recording technologies, especially the audiocassette, to redefine traditional Muslim authorship.Cassette producers address conflicted views about the resurgence of tribalism by showing Yemenis how to adapt traditional mores toward more progressive and pluralistic aims. Skilled bards continue to perform orally marked tribal verse. As Miller demonstrates through an analysis of several centuries of changing media ecology, however, oral performance is anything but static. Much of the power of orality stems from its relation to writing, print, and audiovisual media that link tribal ideals with metropolitan and national discourses. Through an examination of the lives and works of individual poets, singers, and audiences, Moral Resonance shows how tribalism becomes a resource for critical reform when expressed in tropes of community, place, person, and history. Yemenis’ use of audiocassettes turns such tropes into cultural resources for morally evaluating political liberalism.