Becoming Muslim: Practice, Assemblage, Tradition

The growing study of material Islam broadly occupies two distinct fields: first, archaeologies of premodern Islam and material histories and second, ethnographic meditations on the distinctive relation between the materiality of practice and subjectivity in muslim societies. This intensive reading seminar brings major recent studies from both these fields into conversation. We will read archaeological, historical, and ethnographic studies to consider how debates over the materiality of practice from muslim contexts pose problems to social theory. The course will first engage with definitional and theoretical problems in understanding Islam and conversion to Islam. Subsequently, the course considers the following themes: conduct, embodiment, prayer, suffering and care. Through these engagements we will examine the relations between moral and material substance, the place of objects within ethical pursuits, and the salience of material assemblages to the in/disciplines of the body. These explorations will be situated within wider anthropological discussions of agency and volition, becoming, and theorizations of materiality, assemblages, and forms of life.Prerequisite: consent of instructor.