October 22 (M), October 24 (W), October 26 (F)

Rudnyckyj, "Market Islam in Indonesia" (Moodle article)
Hoesterey, "Muslim Television Preacher" (Tele-Dai)" (Moodle article)
Jones, "Materializing Piety: Gendered Anxieties about Faithful Consumption in Contemporary Urban Indonesia" (Moodle article)

1. What is market Islam? What boundaries does it seek to break, and why?

2. What, according to Jones, are the anxieties about piety and consumerism that Islamic consumption might resolve? Does it succeed? Why are women central to these debates?

3. How do the articles by Jones, Rudnyckyj, and Hoesterey challenge Western stereotypes about Muslims? How are different kinds of Indonesians negotiating tradition, modernity, and piety?

 

Topic for RESPONSE PAPER #5 (2-3 pages, double-spaced, due on October 26 by email before class to Professor Leshkowich.) Please remember to submit your paper as a Microsoft Word document named lastname5.docx.

Is religion traditional? What does "tradition" mean anyway?
It is common to talk of religious practices such as Islamic dress or Koranic study as traditional and hence in some ways opposed to modernity. How would either Jones or Rudnyckyj respond to this proposition? How does the author's argument and examples lead to a different sense of the relationship between religion or traditional culture and modernity? Be sure that your argument allows you to assess the strengths, weaknesses, or significance of the author's perspective.