| Sponsors: The East-West Center Islam Initiative and Sam Houston State University's Department of History Joan L. Coffey Memorial Symposium |
Date and General Information
March 31 to April 1, 2006
This workshop is open to educators, students, and the general
public free of charge.
For additional information please contact Dr. Tracy Steele
of Sam Houston State University at his_tls@shsu.edu or
(936) 294-1480.
Schedule of Events
Friday, March 31
1:30 to 1:45, Olson Auditorium*: Welcome by Dr. Tracy Steele of Sam Houston State University and brief overview by Dr. Virginia Suddath of the East-West Center
1:45 to 2:30, Olson Auditorium: "Overview of Islam and its Arrival in Southeast Asia" by Dr. Barbara Andaya of the University of Hawaii at Manoa
The ways in which Islam reached Southeast Asia have long been a source of debate among scholars. This presentation will briefly review the most recent evidence, particularly the implications of the connections with India. Some attention will be given to the concept of "localization" which has been very useful in helping students to understand the appeal of Islam in its new setting. At the same time, the very success of the localization process has at times given rise to tensions and generated a continuing cycle of reformist tendencies.
2:30 to 2:45: Coffee Break, foyer of Olson Auditorium
2:45 to 4:15, Olson Auditorium: "Art and Islam in Southeast Asia" by Dr. Barbara Andaya
This presentation will continue the discussion on the localization of Islam by examining its impact on the visual and performing arts. Though not invariably observed (vide Persian and Mughal court art), Islamic teachings impose some restrictions on visual representation, especially of the human form. In many cases, however, these restrictions have provided a catalyst for the emergence of variant forms of art and performance which themselves are a unique form of localization.
4:15 to 4:45: Question and Answer Period
5:15 to 7:15: Movie: Sepet | movie review
7:30 to 8:15, Olson Auditorium: "Women in Islam" by Dr. Barbara Andaya
The position of women in Islam has generated much debate. In Southeast Asia women are generally considered to be less inferior to men than in the neighboring world areas of East and South Asia. These traditions, though periodically questioned, have exerted considerable influence on the status and influence of Muslim women. Currently, however, some concern has been expressed at the possible erosion of these traditions through a slow "Arabicization" of local societies.
8:15 to 8: 45: Question and Answer Period
Followed by refreshments, foyer of Olson Auditorium
Saturday, April 1
8:30 to 9:00: Breakfast, foyer of Olson Auditorium
9:00 to 9:15, Olson Auditorium: Welcome by Dr. Tracy Steele and brief overview by Dr. Virginia Suddath
9:15 to 10: 45, Olson Auditorium: "Shifting Attitudes Towards Islam in Southeast Asia as Reflected in Everyday Life and the Arts" by Dr. Ward Keeler of The University of Texas at Austin
Religious reform movements have become prominent in Southeast Asia over the past several decades, and in Muslim-majority countries, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, Islamic reform movements have affected the political and cultural environment very significantly. This presentation will discuss changes in religious behavior over the past forty years, and the ways that varying degrees of devoutness map on to such social facts as class differences, aesthetic preferences, and cultural predispositions.
10:45 to 11:00: Break
11:00 to 11: 45: Question and Answer Period
11: 45 to 1:00: Lunch on your own
1:00 to 2:45, Olson Auditorium: "Public Dimensions of Islam" by Dr. David Cook of Rice University
2:45 to 3:00: Coffee Break, foyer of Olson Auditorium
3:00 to 4:00, Olson Auditorium: "Millinarianism, Jihad, and Islam" by Dr. David Cook
4:00 to 5:00, Olson Auditorium: Round Table Discussion with Drs. Cook and Andaya
* All events will be held in the Olson Auditorium (Room 220) in Academic Building 4 (AB4), Sam Houston State University
Guest Speakers
Barbara Watson Andaya was educated at the University of Sydney (BA, Dip.Ed.), and taught in a high school for two years before returning to graduate school. She received her MA at the University of Hawaii (MA) supported by an East-West Center fellowship, and her Ph.D. at Cornell University with a specialization in Southeast Asian history. In 1979 her dissertation was published by Oxford University Press as Perak, The Abode of Grace: A Study of an Eighteenth Century Malay State. Since then she has taught and researched in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, England and New Zealand. She maintains an active teaching and research interest across all Southeast Asia, but her specific area of expertise is the western Malay-Indonesia archipelago, on which she has published extensively. She collaborated with Virginia Matheson Hooker in a translation of a nineteenth century Malay text, the Tuhfat al-Nafis by the Islamic scholar Raja Ali Haji, and with Leonard Andaya on A History of Malaya in 1982, with a revised edition in 2000. Her research on Malay culture in Sumatra led to the 1993 publication, To Live as Brothers: Southeast Sumatra in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.
Over the last ten years her interests have shifted to questions of gender, and she has published a series of articles and essays on the position of women in Southeast Asia, while always alert to comparisons with other 'world areas.' In 2000 she received a Guggenheim Award to work on her new book, The Flaming Womb: Repositioning Women in Southeast Asian History, 1500-1800, scheduled to appear in August 2006. She is currently Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and in 2005-06 is President of the American Association of Asian Studies.
Ward Keeler earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1982 and is currently an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Keeler is an expert in Indonesia and Burma and his research interests include symbolic and psychological anthropology, language and culture; anthropology and the performing arts. His publications include "Fighting for Democracy on a Heap of Jewels: Mandalay in 1988" and Javanese Shadow Plays, Javanese Selves.
Virginia Suddath is currently a Program Associate with the Asian Studies Development Program and the International Forum for Education 2020 at the East-West Center in Honolulu. She received her PhD. in philosophy in 2005 from the University of Hawai`i with a dissertation entitled “The junzi Doth Protest: Toward a Philosophy of Remonstrance in Confucianism.” She has a BA in French literature and language from Connecticut College , a BA in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts , Boston , and an MA in philosophy from the University of Hawai`i.
David Cook received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2001 and is presently an assistant professor in Religious Studies at Rice University in Houston , Texas . Dr. Cook's research interests include the study of early Islam, Muslim apocalyptic literature and movements for radical social change, dreams, historical astronomy, Judeo-Arabic literature, Jihad and Islamic martyrdom.
Sponsors
The Joan L. Coffey Memorial Symposium honors our fellow historian and colleague who lost her life to cancer in 2003. Joan was a gifted professor dedicated to excellence in teaching and research. The first speaker in this series was Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking. We are honored to have Dr. Andaya as our second speaker in this series.
The East-West Center is an education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and understanding among the peoples and nations of Asia, the Pacific, and the United States. The Center contributes to a peaceful, prosperous, and just Asia Pacific community by serving as a vigorous hub for cooperative research, education, and dialogue on critical issues of common concern to the Asia Pacific region and the United States. Funding for the Center comes from the U.S. government, with additional support provided by private agencies, individuals, foundations, corporations, and the governments of the region.