Second Essay Thoughts

Students:

For those of you who are still somewhat confused about the essay, please consider Professor Biernacki's comment yesterday about how fundamentalist Islam has emerged out of connection with the West. I think we can specifically look to Sayyid Qutb's case--the man in the film who went to Colorado and was so disaffected by western "decadence"--as evidence of this, for example. The most important point on this issue is that contemporary changes in Islam are NOT an attempt to return to the past--instead they are modern and can be considered invented traditions because they obsessively focus on some element of an idealized past in order to create a new form of Islam. This form of Islam can also be considered western, modern, and invented because it purports to be universal--that is decoupled or separated from local, ethnic cultures that used to intertwined with it as a religious practice. Again, Roy and Eickelman go through MANY reasons for and examples of these changes.

What I want to see out of a quality essay is the effective, accurate application of Gellner and/or Marx to the contemporary changes in Islam. This requires first knowing and using the theory, secondly identifying changes in Islam, and thirdly justifying why they constitute an invented tradition in the way that Gellner laid out for nationalism as a false construction of the national community.

Also NO cover pages and NO works cited please--try to conserve a little paper. Also feel free to turn in single-spaced papers, which should be in the 2.5 page range. And remember, 1 inch margins, 12 point font, and NO paragraphs over an entire page!

Good luck and I'm looking forward to reading your work.
AC

Happy SunGod...or A quick read related to the essay

Students:

I hope everyone has a lot of fun today. It's always good to relax and enjoy oneself

Well when your hangover wears off and you're wondering what to write for the second essay, here's a link to a short article discussing many of the class ideas about why Islamic fundamentalism differs from the religion. It's still up to you to make the call about invented tradition, but I hope this helps orient you toward thinking about this tricky subject.

http://groups.colgate.edu/aarislam/msells.htm

AC

Howard Zinn on Imperialism and the American Nation

Students:

I think this video, might help you all think through the issue of nationalism as an invented tradition. I know the essay is about Islam, but certainly the issue of nationalism is also related to this idea, as we saw in Gellner.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m9T96ZU74R9W3:mX73OBPBP8OE1

Questions on the Islam Introduction Book

Students:

Here are the questions that Jeff developed--

 Ruthven.  Islam: A Very Short Introduction

1. What does the word “Islam” mean?  What word is it
closely related to?  According to the author, what
three Western categories does Islam fall into?

2. What do the terms “cultural” or “nominal Muslim”
mean?

3. Why does the author find the term “fundamentalist”
problematic when describing Muslims?

4. Explain the distinction between islam and iman.

5. Explain “social imaginary” in relation to the
legal modernization of Islamic countries.

6. Does the author believe there is a religious
awakening in the Muslim world?  Give evidence to
support your answer, and explain why the author
believes it is or is not happening. Note: To answer
this question you need to pull information from both
the first and last chapter of the book.

7. What is Shari’a law?  Explain why the author talks
about individualism in relation to it.

8. What is the history of veils for female Muslims?
How does the author describe this tradition?

9. What are the two Jihads?

10. Contrast reformists and modernists.  Is there a
clear cut line between them?  Why or why not?

11. Who is Sayyid Qutb? Note: The reader for this
course has an excerpt from one of his books.

12. What happened in Iran in 1979?  What does the
author say about universalist appeal in relation to
the Iran-Iraq war?  What connections can you draw
between the late 70s and early 80s and the current
situation in the region?

13. Who was Ali Shari’ati?  How does he represent a
contemporary blurring of reformist and modernist
approaches?

14. What predictions does the author make about the
political future of Islamism?  What year was the book
written?  Do you think these predictions have held
true?

Extra Credit Opportunity

Students:

I will not be able to make it to my office hours tomorrow, and they are cancelled. If anyone has questions about the readings or 2nd essay assignment, please email me.

I also want to alert everyone that there is an extra credit opportunity this Wednesday at 7pm, in room 101 of the Social Sciences Building.

I have been organizing a roundtable on the San Diego Wildfires Crises of last October. There will be 4 short presentations by local activists--the ACLU, Border Angels, the American Friends Service Committee--and an area city planner, who will all address the fires and their impact on the county. We will be especially concerned with 2 issues: media distortion of the fires [i.e. a lot of the coverage was about Rancho Santa Fe and Rancho Bernardo, while much of the Harris Fire was not discussed; or the inappropriate comparisons to New Orleans after Katrina] and the role of suburbanization and urban sprawl and the fires.

The discussion will be really interesting on its own, but if you come and write a one-page, double-spaced essay about the experience you can earn 2 extra credit points toward your participation grade. Given how uneven participation in section has been, this is an excellent opportunity to learn, and improve your grade for the course.

I hope to see many of you there--below is the full flyer, which you are hopefully seeing if you go by the SSB building.
AC

Wed. May 14th, 7pm-9pm
The San Diego Wildfires Crisis: Hidden Consequences of Urban Sprawl and
Unequal Media Representation
A Roundtable follow up to the 2008 Culture Conference: Crisis, Emergency, Global Processes

Join us for this special roundtable on the SD Wildfires that will bring together a distinguished and diverse panel of speakers ranging from urban planners, researchers, lawyers to journalists.

Refreshments will be provided | RSVP or questions: wildfire_roundtable@gmail.com

It was only last fall that San Diego County experienced its own crisis, the county-wide fires. The wildfires were truly emphasized for their out-of-control "wildness," while the real reasons of urban sprawl were downplayed or flat-out ignored. This crisis, like many others crisis around the world, such as famines, was framed as a case of "natural disaster," instead of a case of mismanaged urban planning, ill-led concepts of fire "prevention." Therefore the causes fell on to nature, instead of socio-political reasons.

For many around the world who watched the news coverage of our local crisis, it appeared that only middle- to upper-class, Causcasian home-owners were affected by this disaster.
Newscasters biasedly compared the state-of-emergency disaster to New Orlean’s Hurricane Katrina in a fashion that portrayed San Diegans as wealthy, coordinated, charitable and peaceful in contrast to New Orleaneans who were portrayed as poor, disorganized, and violent. Essentially, San Diego "citizens" were framed as united, while New Orlean "refugees" were portrayed as lacking in unity. Just like Hurricane Katrina, the media coverage and the treatment of the San Diego fires were embedded in long-standing issues of class, race and ethnicity.

This roundtable aims to bring out many the socio-political reasons that contributed to the fire and the politics of who's stories were represented in the media and which ones remained untold. For example, many of the fires’ human victims were migrant workers living in canyons who, largely because of their extreme marginalization, were not able to be reached and informed about the fires. In stark contrast to the mainstream coverage of property owners (like the TV reporter standing outside his own house for hours of coverage). The human toll of the fires was largely ignored, or even blamed on these victims for consuming UCSD Regional Burn Center resources for instance.


We hope you will join us for this special roundtable that will follow up on the global and theoretical themes of the 2008 Culture Conference.

Sncerely,

Andrew Cheyne, Geoffrey Fojtasek, Raquel Jacob-Almeida, Tricia Wang, and the Culture Conference Committee

Debunking Myths about Islam, and Muslims

Students:

As I've said in section, we will be learning together when reading and discussing the history of Islam, and attempts to transform it into an invented tradition on behalf of political interests [this would fall into the state, although there may be other examples of the market trying to appropriate Islam as well].

Here's an article in today's' NY Times about one Muslim filmmaker's response to these attempts. Check out the video--he directly takes on the idea of nationalism and the Islamic faith. Also consider how his critique of Hollywood representation of Muslims might expose how the film industry is making Islam compatible with the movie-going market.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/us/08video.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1210263571-ymn9U1ZJR0G+3jKVS2gJMQ

Second Essay

For anyone who needs access to the prompt, here it is.

Please note that the phrasing of this essay in part 1 clearly calls for your own thesis, which again is what I am expecting from everyone. Good luck, and email me with any questions.

Second Essay, Sociology 20. Invented Tradition?
Due May 23

Your assignment is to apply the concept of an “invented tradition” to recent changes in Islam to evaluate the usefulness of the concept. To guide you in building an argument, please address the following three issues:

1. Identify and describe what you consider to be some of the most significant changes in Islamic belief and popular Islamic religious attitudes since the Second World War.
2. How did social, economic, and/or technological causes contribute to these changes in Islamic belief and attitude toward religion? For this part of the question, you may want to consider the guidelines that Marx, Gellner, Eickelmann, Roy, and others offer for how society influences religion.
3. Do you think that some of the religious movements in contemporary Islam now bear the traits of an “invented tradition”? Explain why or why not [or why both]. Please justify your evaluation with examples.

Note that you may decide to emphasize some of the religious changes over others to make your point. There is no comprehensive correct answer to #1 above, but you must support your focus from the readings. Do not write more than five pages, double-spaced. Wherever possible, back up assertions in your essay with page references to the readings or to historical facts from lecture. You are not expected to do research, but if you happen to know of evidence apart from course assignments, you are free to cite it in your essay. You may cite lecture ONLY for historical evidence -- plain facts -- not found in the readings.

In evaluating your essays, we will be looking at three dimensions: [1] the quality and consistency of the analysis, [2] the range and aptness of source citations that you use to back up your analysis, and [3] grammar and clarity of expression.

Essays are due at the start of lecture, May 23th. To discuss your own essay answer, come to Prof. B.’s office hours Mondays or Fridays, 9 to 10.