A cultural studies approach to studying
contemporary Islam
and Muslims

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INTERNAL LINKS

Alfred Schutz
Arkoun Rethinks Islam
Bauman's Ethic
Bauman- WCNP
Brewer: Ethnography
Class Analysis and Social Transformation
Discourse
Discourse and Social Change
Documentary Analysis
Edmund Husserl
Empire
Esack on the Qur'an
Paul Feyerabend
Foucault
Genealogies of the Modern
Erving Goffman
Governing the Soul of the Rose
Governmentality
Islamophobia
. 'ilm al-tarikh: Introduction
Lord Macaulay
Minority Rights
Muhammad: notes
Muslim Chronology
Muslim Boys and Education
Networks
. Narrative Paradigms
Narrative Psychology
Overcoming Tradition and- Modernity
The Panopticon
  . Pnina, Queen of the- Transnationalism
Progressive Muslim Declaration
Religion and Culture
Reporting islam
Rights of the Child
Theory Bibliography
Unveiling Traditions
  The Vision of Islam


ISIM REVIEW

20/ Autumn 2007: Conflict and Development
* Still Quarrelling over the Quran
(Asma Barlas)
* Interview Soroush
* Islamophonic
19/ Spring 2007: Connections
* Hidden Features of the Face Veil Controversy
18/ Autumn 2006: Shades of Islam
17/ Spring 2006: Popular Piety
16/ Autumn 2005: Youth
15/ Spring 2005
* Transnational Islam in Western Europe, R. Grillo & B. F. Soares
* “Pilgrims of Love”: Sufism in a Global World, Pnina Werbner
14/ June 2004
* A Culture of Righteousness and Martyrdom, Elliott Colla
* Human Rights, Women and Islam, Shirin Ebadi
13/ December 2003
* What is Progressive Islam? Omid Safi
* (Inter)textuality: Interactive Cultural Practices, Nasr Abu Zayd
12/ June 2003 (Charles Kurzman)
11/ December 2002 (Aki Nawaz)
10/ July 2002 (Shazia Mirza)


EXTERNAL LINKS
PhinisheD

 


The Ulema in Contemporary Islam
Zaman, M. Q. (2002) The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton University Press)
Book draws on notions of (discursive) tradition developed by MacIntyre and subsequently Asad, with the 'ulema defined by "a certain sense of continuity" with a discursive tradition which "...constitutes the most significant difference between them and their modernist and Islamist detractors." Importance of studying ulema relates to "...the ways in which they have mobilized this tradition to define issues of religious identity and authority in the public sphere and to articulate changing roles for themselves in contemporary Muslim politics." (p.10)

All About Ethnography
Brewer. John D. (2000) Ethnography (Buckingham: Open University Press)
Once upon a time, not so long ago, when flophouses were flophouses and Inuit were Eskimos, we had social scientific method. Sociologists read books in order to learn how to be sociologists and then simply got on with the job, sometimes badly. Now we have social science methodology, which is where you establish the epistemological and ontological arguments which underpin your method. Well, I already have mine, so the notes herein just briefly cover the basics of the disputes surrounding ethnography and some of the practical guidelines that have emerged in response to its postmodern critics as well as outlining some of the key features of the ethnographic process and relevant terminology.

Discourse and Social Change
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change (Cambridge: Polity)
Fairclough begins by describing a number of approaches to discourse analysis as a contextual prelude to his own, which combine close textual and social analysis. He divided these approaches into two groups, based on their social orientation. The first group he calls ‘non-critical approaches’, which include the analysis of classroom discourse by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis (CA), the therapeutic discourse analysis of Labov and Fanshel (1977) and the discursive psychology of Potter and Wetherell (1987). Notes only as far as page 60 after decision taken to work from Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research (London: Routledge) instead.

Reporting Islam
Poole. E. (2002) Reporting Islam: Media Representations of British Muslims (London: I B Taurus)
A comprehensive media analysis, with a political science orientation, but drawing on cultural studies theorists such as Stuart Hall and Ziauddin Sardar (1999). Analysis draws primarily on mainstream printed news media in the mid-1900s in the UK, but doesn't cover all papers. Methods used include quantitative content analysis,  discourse analysis and focus groups. Provides an account of "current and dominant meanings circulating in British society around one of its minority groups." (p.27) The analysis takes into account related analytical frameworks, including race, religion and the institutions of news production...

Postmodern Ethics
Bauman, Z (1993) Postmodern Ethics (London: Blackwell)
One of the illusions of Empire is that its people are free. On the face of it, the argument in favour of freedom looks convincing. Democracy offers not just government by consent and the vote for men and women alike, but a host of other freedoms which were unimaginable to the European peasant and plebeian of Medieval Europe. Residence is no longer regulated by the mores of patronage, class or clan; instead, personal wealth, building regulations and the practicalities of work and education are the crucial factors in choosing where to live. Citizens can decide their employment, education allowing, with little or even no reference to how ones father or mother earned his or her livelihood. Many other rights are guaranteed in principle – freedom of thought, conscience and religion; freedom of expression and association; freedom from discrimination; and the right to a fair trial, as long as the person is not an enemy of the Imperium, of course.

Unveiling Traditions
Anouar Majid (2000) Unveiling Traditions: Postcolonial Islam in a Polycentric World (NC: Duke University Press)
Examines extent Islam shapes intellectual practice in Muslim societies; Give Islamic culture greater prominence in postcolonial and multicultural theories
Progressive Islam - human solidarity; Critique of capitalism, which entails a call for a change in the “rules that frame our thoughts and behaviours”. “Eurocentric vocabulary is remarkably common and transcends most ideological boundaries” (p. 2) – secularism, origins in European enlightenment. “The tone of ‘reasonableness’ and the exalted virtues of the scholarly sang froid and emotional detachment that the secular attitude embodies often hide the controversial origins of the secularization process and its inextricable connection to a wider body of thought that continues to assume the naturalness of bourgeois social and political organisation” (p.3)

Governing the Soul of the Rose
Rose, N. (1999) Governing the Soul: Shaping of the Private Self (London: Free Association Books Ltd)
There are several important issues raised within this thesis that have pertinence to the Tasneem Project [TGP]. First is the moral contradictions which have arisen from this pervading governmentality - especially between freedom and choice and self-regulation. Freedom and choice, in this context, is the freedom and choice of the consumer. What Rose is suggesting, and I think quite rightly, is that corporate consumerism is the defining theme of contemporary culture. This raises the question as to what extent Islam can ever be 'integrated' into such a culture, or indeed, whether one of the defining ethics of Islam should be rejection of this ethic. The core morality common to all governmental discourses - consensuality and excess, as well as the ethic of authenticity versus hypocrisy, further highlights this question.

Arkoun Rethinks Islam
Arkoun, M (2003) 'Rethinking Islam Today' ANNALS AAPSS 588 July 2003 p.18-39
In studying progressive Muslim masculinities, I am studying Islam. Ever since I became a Muslim, I have dithered, dived, ducked and eventually come to face a number of important questions, including: (1) What does it mean to be a Muslim in the light of contemporary understandings of language, society and history? (2) How can I answer this question in a way which effects a personal transformation of the kind apparently demanded by The Qur'an? The framing of both these queries is achieved, to a large degree, by Arkoun in 'Rethinking Islam Today'.
 

"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."     
Alexander Pope (An Essay on Criticism, 1709)