WGS 3050 ISLAM, CULTURE and SOCIETY
Muslim boybands to Islamic fashion shows; radio sermons to tweeting fatwas (Islamic legal rulings); gender roles to marriage, classical poetry to how-to veiling tutorials on YouTube. With over 1.6 billion adherents, Islam is practiced in a profoundly diverse array of nations, ethnic groups, and cultural contexts. Taking a broad, anthropological perspective on the study of religion, this course examines the many different ways in which culture and society have been influenced by Islam in different parts of the world. The objective of this course is to move beyond simplistic stereotypes in order to appreciate the lived complexities of Islam and the utility of anthropology for understanding Islam. This course examines the themes of gender, religious identity, education, authority, and lived experience in the Muslim world. Geographically, we will take on a broad range of cultural contexts including but not limited to Egypt, France, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, and the United States. Course materials will include select academic articles and books, ethnographies, news articles, music videos, and popular films. Students will be asked to prepare short, weekly response papers and will be required to lead class discussion once or twice during the semester. For final projects, students will be asked to write a final paper that more deeply examines one of our course themes.
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