PLAN OF WORK

The Institute will meet five mornings a week from 10:00 until noon (except the week of July 4, when participants will have Monday, July 4 and Tuesday, July 5 free in case some wish to join their families for the holiday).  Each session will begin with two participants leading a discussion of the day's reading, or, when a guest speaker is involved, the guest speaker will make an initial presentation of 30-45 minutes that will be followed by group discussion.  Around roughly 11:00, we will take a ten minute break.  The Institute co-directors will then make brief comments, including commentary on the discussion up to that point (which may range from two to fifteen minutes).  We anticipate that after the 12:00 conclusion discussion will move to a local lunch spot, especially when a guest speaker is involved, so that Institute participants can continue discussion in a less formal setting.  There will be ample opportunities for participants to meet with Institute faculty during the afternoons, as needed. 

The Institute will provide an opportunity for participants to work with the Institute faculty in exploring the different aspects of the problems of culture and communication in the Islamic tradition.  Individual participants will choose a project that meets their own interests and needs, particularly needs in the classroom, whether it be designing the syllabus for a new course, introducing material from the Islamic tradition into an existing course, or deepening their understanding of a particular phenomenon in the form of a paper, presentation, or website that can be useful for them in their teaching and research.

Week One:  Introduction:  The Middle East and its Neighboring Regions, 600-1200. Overview of the rise and spread of Islam in the "central Islamic lands."

Sample Readings:

• Fred M. Donner, "Muhammad and the Caliphate," in John Esposito (ed.), The Oxford History of Islam, pp. 1-61.
• Richard Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period, selections.
• Nahamia Levtzion (ed.),  Conversion to Islam, selections. 

Week Two:  Worldwide spread of Islam to 1600:   How did Islam extend itself into regions beyond the "central Islamic lands," and what mechanisms facilitated its spread? 

Sample Readings:

• Kenneth R. Hall, "Upstream and Downstream Unification in Southeast Asia's First Islamic Polity: The Changing Sense of Community in the Fifteenth-Century Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai Court Chronicle," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 44 (2001), 198-229.
• Leonard Andaya, "Aceh's Contribution to Standards of Malayness," Archipel 61 (2001), 29-68.
• N. Levtzion, "Patterns of Islamization in West Africa," in Levtzion, Conversion to Islam, 207-16.
• Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (1984), chapters 6 and 7.
• Stewart Gordon, Robes of Honor: The Medieval World of Investiture (2001), chapter 1.

Week Three:  Islam, Identity, and Community:  How clear-cut were the boundaries between Islamic and other religious communities ruled by various Islamic states, particularly ones ruling in areas where many subjects are not Muslim and where this may be the first openly Islamic regime to rule?  How do Muslims define themselves in relation to other religious communities--Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and even worshippers of animistic spirits?  What role did ideology, ritual, and social practices play in this self-identification? 

Selected Readings:

• Fred M. Donner, "From Believers to Muslims," Al-Abhath 50-51 (2002-3), 9-53.
• Phillip B. Wagoner, "Fortuitous convergences and essential ambiguities: Transcultural political elites in the medieval Deccan," International Journal of Hindu Studies 3 (1999), 241-64.
• S. Supomo, "From Sakti to Shahada. The Quest for New Meanings in a Changing World Order," in Peter G. Riddell and Tony Street (eds.), Islam: Essays on Scriptures, Thought, and Society: A Festschrift in Honour of Anthony H. Johns (1997).
• Anthony Day, "Ties that (Un)bind: Families and States in Premodern Southeast Asia," Journal of Asian Studies 52 (1996), 384-409.

Week Four:  Commercial Networks:  What kinds of interactions result from the existence of commercial ties binding different Muslim communities and connecting Muslim and non-Muslim traders? In what measure do such networks contribute to the diffusion of (or undermining of) Islam and Islamic values?

Selected Readings:

• Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1400-1650 (1993), vol. II, 1-61.
• Kenneth R. Hall, "Local and International Trade and Traders in the Straits of Melaka Region: 600-1500, " Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, fall 2004.
• Patricia Risso, Merchants of Faith: Muslim Culture and Commerce in the Indian Ocean.

Week Five:  Intellectual Networks:  How and in what measure do scholarly, mystical, ritual, and other forms of intellectual activity in Muslim communities serve as links between diverse communities and facilitate communication?

Selected Readings:

• S. M. Stern, "Isma'ili Propaganda and Fatimid Rule in Sind," Islamic Culture 23 (1949), 298-307.
• Peter Riddell, Islam and the Malay-Indonesian World: Transmission and Response. (2001) selections.
• A. H. Johns, "On Qur'anic Exegetes and Exegesis," in Peter Riddell and Tony Street (eds.), Islam: Essays on Scripture, Thought, and Society: A Festschrift in Honour of Anthony H. Johns (1997), 3-49.  

Week Six:  Cultural issues and "World Systems":  How do cultural, economic, and religious factors interact within and across social networks? To what extent can we speak of a "world system" (economically or culturally) in the pre-modern Islamic world?

Selected Readings:

• Janet Abu-Lughod, "The World System in the Thirteenth Century: Dead-End or Precursor?" in Michael Adas (ed.), Islamic and European Expansion, The Forging of a Global Order (1993), 75-102
• Sanjay Subrahmanyam, "'Persianization' and 'Mercantilism': Two Themes in Bay of Bengal History, 1400-1700," in O. Prakash and Denys Lombard (eds.), Commerce and Culture in the Bay of Bengal, 47-85.
• Ross Dunn, The Travels of Ibn Battuta.
• Richard M. Eaton, "Islamic History as Global History," in Michael Adas (ed.), Islamic and European Expansion, The Forging of a Global Order (1993), 1-36.
• Victor Lieberman, Strange Parallels (2003), chapter 1.