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
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