Marnia Lazreg is a professor of sociology at the Graduate Center and Hunter College, City University of New York. She is the recipient of a number of fellowships, including at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton) and the Bunting Institute (Radcliffe-Harvard). Her recent publications include Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad (2008) and Questioning the Veil: Open Letters to Muslim Women (2009). She is working on a book on Michel Foucault and the conundrum of culture.