FACT & FICTION
AFGHANISTAN: Being Pashtun, Becoming Taliban
Wednesday | 25 March 2026 | 3pm UK | 7.30pm Afghanistan
ONLINE only
Academic engagement with the Taliban has been almost entirely through the prism of global/regional (in)security and extremism. This event will focus on the recently published The Pashtun Borderland: A Religious and Cultural History of the Taliban (2024), an analysis of a wide range of actors and ideologies, refracting Afghanistan's present moment through the lens of its long cultural and religious history.
SPEAKERS: Dr Sonia Ahsan-Tirmizi (@sonia_tirmizi) is a historical anthropologist specialising in gender & environmental governance, and author of Pious Peripheries: Runaway Women in Post-Taliban Afghanistan (2021); Robert Crews (@RobertCrews22) is Professor of History at Stanford University, and author of Afghan Modern: The History of a Global Nation (2015); Dr Jan-Peter Hartung is Research Associate at the Centre for Islam and Law in Europe, Friedrich-Alexander-Universiteit in Erlangen (Germany), and author of The Pashtun Borderland: A Religious and Cultural History of the Taliban (2024); Iftikhar H Malik is Professor Emeritus in History at Bath Spa University (UK), and author of Pashtun Identity and Geopolitics in Southwest Asia: Pakistan and Aghanistan since 9/11 (2016); Dr Omar Sharifi is Senior Research Fellow & Kabul Director of American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at American University of Afghanistan, and co-editor of Power and Authority in Afghanistan: Rethinking Politics, Intervention and Rule (2025).
CHAIR: Dr Nilanjan Sarkar is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE).
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Please e-mail southasiacentre@lse.ac.uk to register free for this event; the livestream link will be sent to all registered attendees on the day of the event.
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