29722

WiSe 20/21: Anthropology of Islam

Kai Kresse

Comments

Combining critical readings of selected core texts with reflections on specific ethnographies, this seminar covers fundamental aspects of the anthropology of Islam, as a sub-field of anthropology that has emerged in recent decades. This is done both with a view to the history of the discipline (through a critical discussion of early key texts from the late 1960s to the 1980s, e.g. Geertz; Gellner; el-Zein; Asad) and to recent key contributions to contemporary debates (e.g. Abu-Lughod; Mahmood; Hirschkind; Marsden; Schielke; Hammoudi). It includes discussions of selected topics in recent anthropological research, looking at influential case studies and contested arguments in ethnographies dwelling on the relevance of e.g. gender; pilgrimage; knowledge; lived religion. Hereby, attention is paid to the conceptual approaches of authors in relation to their ethnographic work.
In addition, participants will get to have several sessions discussing recent texts and ethnographic projects with anthropological writers and researchers based in Berlin. Overall, in the run of this course, familiarity with key texts and core arguments that have shaped the field that has come to be known as the anthropology of Islam will be achieved, and a critical view on it will be cultivated. close