Gender

1
Gender Islam in Island SEADebra Majeed,
Beloit College
2
Project Objective

• Develop the first Religious Studies course that
  specifically focuses on religion in Southeast
  Asia, and simultaneously expand the colleges
  Asian Studies curriculum.

3
Course Objectives

• Introduce students to Islam as experienced by
  Muslims in Southeast Asia.
• Help students broaden their understanding of the
  diversity of Islamic practice and belief.
• Enable students to disengage Muslim politics
  from the history of a region that has experienced
  an unprecedented religious resurgence since the
  late 1970s, and boosts an aggregate Muslim
  population greater than the Arab Middle East.

4
Course Description

• This course traces the historical development of
  Islam from the sixteenth to the twentieth
  centuries in island Southeast Asia, with a
  particular focus on the interconnectivity of
  gender and religion in Indonesia, Malaysia, and
  the Philippines. Concentrating on this particular
  island triad permits a comparative analysis of
  the lived realities of Muslims, Christians, and
  others as they carve out identities as religious
  minorities or members of a majority group.

5
Focus Impact

• The relationship of two socially constructed
  cultural systems gender, as informed by roles
  assigned to men and women and the means by which
  masculine, feminine and other identities are
  formed and religion, as the prism through which
  individuals come to understand eternal destny and
  experience a transcendent reality raises
  intriguing questions about the ways in which a
  belief system can be used to determine authority,
  knowledge, and moral agency. Moreover, the
  special and conceptual importance of female
  religious leaders prior to the introduction of
  Islam or Christianity draws particular attention
  to the impact of trade, proselytization, and
  syncretism, as well as, colonialism on the region
  with the largest Muslim population in the world.
  

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Evaluative Framework

• 20 percent
• Membership
• 10 percent
• Midterm Book Review
• 20 percent
• Collaborative Case Study

• 30 percent
• Journal
• (reflect upon INTN)
• 20 percent
• Final Exam

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Course Themes

• Studying SEAn Islam
• Gendered geography
• Early history of Islam
• Islam under colonialism
• Religion and politics
• Ceremonial life and religious rituals
• US policy towards SEA Muslims
• Religion and contemporary theatre
• Religion and marriage

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Expected Outcome Goals

• Students will come to appreciate the significance
  of gender in the study of Islam.
• Students will understand the historical origins
  and development of Islam in island SEA.
• Students will come to appreciate the similarities
  and differences between SEAn Islam and the
  practice of Islam in other parts of the world.

• Students will become acquainted with the ordinary
  lives of people in pluralistic environment of
  island SEA..