RELIGION CREATING AND CROSSING BOUNDARIES:
Religion and the Conquest of Mexico, Alex Saragoza
Eastern Orthodox Christianity, John Klentos
Shinto and Japanese Nationalism, John Nelson
India/Pakistan Partition of 1947, Daisy Rockwell
Panel: Religion in Diaspora Communities 
Religion in the African Diaspora, Ousmane Kane
Constructing Jewish Identity in Latin America, Monique Balbuena
Japanese Religion in Brazil, Ronan Pereira
The Spread of Islam in West Africa, Ousmane Kane
Familiar Strangers: Islam and Muslims in the Chinese Culture Area, Jonathan Lipman

RELIGION AND CIVIL SOCIETY
Ten Muslim Minzu: Islam and 'Minority Nationality' in the People's Republic of China, Jonathan Lipman
Buddhism and Emperor Asoka in India, Jim Egge
Panel: Religion in Southeast Asia 
Historical and Cultural Aspects of Islam in SEA, Jeff Hadler
Jataka Tales in Southeast Asia, Peter Koret
Classroom Applications, Avi Black

RELIGIOUS MILITANCY AND THE VOICE OF DISSENT
Religion and Empire in the Antiquity, Edan Dekel
The Hindu Nationalists in India, Dhananjay Kapse
Protestant Reformation in Western Europe, Ben Klein

RELIGIOUS IMAGES IN ART AND MEDIA
Icons: Communicating through Forms and Ritual, Anton Vrame
Islam in America: Images and Reality, Laurence Michalak

Religion and the Conquest of Mexico, Alex Saragoza

Before discussing the role religion played in the conquest of Mexico, Alex Saragoza suggested that the history of the European encounter with the indigenous people of the Americas remains controversial because of its long lasting repercussions. Additionally, our understanding of what actually took place is based on biased historical sources. Even the surviving indigenous accounts are mediated by Europeans, mainly through Catholic priests. Consequently, Saragoza was reluctant to use the term "conquer" to describe what had occurred. Questions of what was conquered, who was conquered and why conquest occurred in the manner that it did are still contested by historians. He did suggest that the encounter had major implications for both the New World and Europe. A new type of imperialism different from previous kinds developed, economic power shifted from the Middle East to Europe, a transformation in language occured, and social stratification and structures of privilege became increasingly based on skin color.

At the time of the encounter, both the Spanish and Aztec people were already imperial polities and religion played a central role in their imperial program. The Reconquista, or the reconquest of Spain and expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula, had already been underway for three hundred years. Institutional structures that later became typically associated with Spanish colonialism in the New World were invented and tested in the Iberian Peninsula first and reshaped to fit the conditions of the New World. Thus, the Spanish method of expansion in the Americas was a rearticulation of the Reconquista. In Meso-America, the Aztecs also had consolidated their power through war, because war was the primary means to obtain captives for sacrifice. There were crucial differences, however, in the ways the Spanish and Aztecs exercised their imperial control. The Spanish occupied conquered territories, changed native political institutions, and converted the local population to Christianity. The Aztecs, on the other hand, demanded tribute in such forms as jade, cotton, slaves, or human sacrifices, but left native political institutions and religious practices intact.

Although the Aztecs' religion shared many characteristics of religions from other parts of the world, such as sacred religious sites, texts, and spiritual leaders, the Aztec religious world-view was cataclysmic. Even before the Spanish arrival to the New World, the Aztecs saw their world always on the brink of disaster. Their highly ritualized religious practices tried to counteract this by placating the gods and reinforcing predictability in an otherwise unpredictable world. For example, gods were assigned to every day and month. Agricultural plantings and harvests were precisely timed. Personal conduct was strictly controlled. Even warfare was religiously regulated. Lastly, everyone was expected to participate in religious ceremonies. Thus, their rituals were meant to give coherence to a world that was otherwise uncertain and irrational.

Saragoza presented other aspects of Aztec religion and society before discussing the actual encounter with the Spanish. A two-tiered society existed --commoners and nobility. Education and social practices were highly stratified along those lines. Slavery did exist, but it did not resemble the form in the West, nor was it an important institution. For example, commoners not slaves built the pyramids as tribute. Saragoza explained further how the human body was central to Aztec cosmology. For example, the head was a representation of the sun and its energy. Accordingly, the hair of conquered peoples was shorn as a symbolic act. Also, the human heart was a symbol of divine energy, and thus, offered to the gods.

Religion played a central role in how the encounter proceeded. Unlike most kingdoms in Europe, Spain had secured from the Pope the right to select who could occupy important religious offices. Thus, in the Spanish case, temporal power was united with spiritual authority. This papal arrangement instilled a certain conceit among the Spaniards and was carried to the New World. Moreover, Cortés was obligated by cannon law to demand that the Aztecs accept the authority of the King of Spain and embrace Catholicism. Religion also contributed to the Aztec understanding of Cortés' arrival. Although the Aztecs may have believed initially that Cortés was the god Quezatlcoatl, it became quickly clear to the Aztecs that the Spaniards were not gods when they bled and died. But the Aztecs could not completely explain the arrival of Spaniards within their religious cosmology. They did not understand why the Spandiards, despite their small forces, did not submit to Motecuhzoma, why Aztec wizards could not thwart the Spanish incursion, or why Spaniards insisted on going to war during the rainy season. The Aztecs' basic rituals of war, heavily encoded with religious meaning, were not followed by Cortés and his men. This proved to be an important psychological weapon for the Spaniards against the Aztecs. (HK)

Eastern Orthodox Christianity, John Klentos

In his talk, John Klentos detailed the origins and broad outlines of Orthodox Christianity as it emerged from persecution under the Romans in the 2nd Century. Klentos provided a basic timeline that illustrated the development of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Churches. He reviewed the history of the church from the early years of Christianity through the period of the Seven Ecumenical Councils (325 to 787) where the concept of the trinity was debated and defined . This concept, accepted by the Orthodox church today, affirms that God the Creator came to earth as Christ and is active as the Holy Spirit.

The Great Schism in 1054 led to the development of two separate branches of Christianity. To the West was the Roman Catholic Church (centered in Rome) and to the East was the Orthodox Church (centered in Constantinople). Klentos reviewed the development of churches in the Orthodox branch: The Assyrian or Nestorian Church of the East; the six Oriental Orthodox Churches, which include the Armenian Apostolic, Coptic, Ethiopian, Syriac Orthodox, Malankara, and Eritrean Churches; and the Eastern Orthodox or Chalcedonian Church. The Assyrian Church originated in eastern Syria and expanded east into Persia, India and China. The Oriental Orthodox Churches formed after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. Their spiritual leaders rejected the Council's proclamation that Jesus was two beings, fully human and fully divine, sharing the same body. Instead, they believed that Christ was one being comprised of the human and the divine. Branches of the Oriental Orthodox Church set important patterns for Orthodox Christianity as a whole.

Klentos argued that the Orthodox Church has always been closely entwined with political history. He pointed out that in Orthodox theology there is no separation of church and state. The connection between spiritual practices and national politics is one of its defining characteristics. Consequently, Orthodox churches are often divided along national lines. For example, in 1993, the Eritrean Orthodox Christians broke off from the Ethiopian Church and formed their own church in their struggle against Ethiopian political rule. In another example, Greeks, despite officially having a secular state, argue that a citizen's religion should be denoted on national identity cards because of their Orthodox Christian tradition. Klentos noted that Orthodox Christian Churches are extremely hierarchical and were supported by state apparatuses that until recently were authoritarian. Consequently, the Churches have had difficulty teasing out the relationship between faith, ethnicity, and political authority.

Finally, Klentos provided a list of recommended books on the subject, including the three volume series by John Julius Norwich Byzantium, John Binn's An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches, and Ronald Robertson's The Eastern Christian Churches.

For more on John Klentos' presentation see the Fall 2003 ISEEES Newsletter at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~csees/publications/2003_20-03.pdf

Shinto and Japanese Nationalism, John Nelson

John Nelson discussed the interconnection between the history of Shinto religion and Japanese nationalism. Prior to the installation of the Meiji government in 1868, Shinto was a largely folkloric and uncodified religion practiced alongside of Buddhism. With the invention of the Japanese modern nation state, a paradigm shift occurred based on a European model of the nation. Japanese identity and loyalty needed to be shifted from the clan to the modern nation-state. In order to help foster national unity, the Japanese government utilized various cultural institutions and practices. The use of religion was central to the Meiji nationalist strategy. Buddhism, too closely associated with the legitimacy of the previous regime and its philosophy of pessimism, proved unviable for national renewal. Shinto, with its worship of nature and emphasis on festivals, proved opportune for the new government and was quickly co-opted.

Using the theoretical work of Terence Ranger and Eric Hobsbawn, Nelson argued that the nation-state is not a natural entity. Rather, certain institutional and ideological frameworks are necessary to create a sense of nationalism. Most importantly, "invented traditions" and founding mythologies function to create national solidarity. For example, Nelson described how the Meiji government created the myth that the new emperor emanated from Shinto deities. Tribute was paid to the sun goddess Amaterasu, who was associated with imperial court. Invented Shinto national holidays were marshaled to cement people's relationship to the imperial court. Deities were still worshipped at local shrines but were reconceptualized to meet the needs of the imperial court and the modern nation-state. Local water deities, for instance, were now explained as being connected to larger rivers and tributaries. Thus, the new construct served as a metaphor for a Japanese person's connection to other larger entities such as the nation.

In the 1920s and 1930s, with the rise of Japanese fascism, Shinto emphasized Japanese submission and self-sacrifice to the state. Militarism was incorporated into Shinto religion. The Shinto spirit cycle valorized the death of soldiers. During World War II, suicidal kamikaze bombers carried cherry blossoms, symbols of Shinto mythology. The state emphasized how they would die for the state but ultimately be immortalized as kami or gods. Because Shintoism was closely associated with the Japanese militarism, visits by Japanese heads of state to certain Shinto shrines such as the Yasukune shrine remain controversial.(HK)

India/Pakistan Partition of 1947, Daisy Rockwell

Rockwell described how in 1947, when the British partitioned the Indian subcontinent into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India, approximately 12 million people were forced to migrate from one territory to another. In the process, 200,000 to 2 million people (in some estimates) died and more than 75,000 women were abducted or raped within a short period of time. Before moving on to discuss different strategies in teaching about the largest planned forced migration in history, Rockwell gave some historical background on the roots of the conflict.

Western news sources have described the conflict between Muslims and Hindus in the Indian subcontinent as stemming from fundamental religious differences and ancient tribal hatreds. Rockwell, however, attempted to trace the historical causes of the Hindu and Muslim conflict, suggesting the important role the British played in dividing the two communities to prevent common opposition to colonial rule. She explained that the term "Hindu" actually derives from the Sanskrit word, sindhu (river) referring to the inhabitants of the Indus River Valley. But the British transformed a word that originally designated geographic boundaries to one delineating a religious group. For example, the British implemented a census that codified Hindu and Muslim identity. Rockwell argues that prior to this census, the populations tended to identify themselves as members of local village or a particular caste. Also, she noted how the British colonial legal system had different sets of laws for the two populations, making Muslims and Hindus even more aware of their religions in determining their social identity.

Out of this growing division between Muslims and Hindus fostered by British colonialism, the two-nations theory arose. On the eve of Indian independence, Muslim nationalists believed that British rule had in fact been protecting them from the majority Hindu population and that only a separate autonomous state could ensure liberty for Muslims.

The actual details of how the British first determined the partition of India are still unclear. Some historians have suggested that Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the Indian National Congress, and Lord Mountbatten, the British Governor-General of India, disliked Mohammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, on a personal level, and therefore intentionally excluded his input in the partition process. Others have speculated that Nehru had had an affair with Mountbatten's wife, and thus had an undue influence of over him. In any case, the partition was devastating for the population. Even Sir Cyril Radcliff, the British judge in charge of drawing the partition lines, described it as having the "ears cut off from the subcontinent." Pakistan was carved into two unconnected regions, one prone to floods (later to become Bangladesh in 1971), the other desert, neither section having a common language. Although Radcliff tried to divide areas by religion, most villages of the partition contained a mixed population of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, thus provoking a mass migration. During the unrest, neighbors and strangers abducted women. In many of these cases, the abductees were forced to stay in their native village, while their families left. The women married and established families, but later both governments forced these women to repatriate. Often rejected by their families for forsaking family honor, they were sent to refugee camps.

Rockwell concluded by advocating the use of fiction and film to teach the partition. She argued that these genres convey better the emotional costs of the partition than standard history texts. For example, she recommended two powerful short stories, Rajinder Singh Bedi's "Lawjanti" and Bhisham Sahni's "We Have Arrived in Amritsar," as well as films such as "Earth" and "Hey Ram." In addition, she suggested dividing the class into groups and having each group determine how to divide the India as a means to show the complexity of the country. (HK)

Panel: Religion in Diaspora Communities

When taken together as a whole, these three panel presentations gave listeners a sense of how religion and the various institutions that stem from it serve a dual function in the lives of migrants and diaspora communities. On the one hand, the cultural elements that immigrants bring with them lend support to individuals and groups who endure hardship and displacement in an alien land. However, the very strength of such elements in some cases serves to mark a migrant group to such a degree that its members are marginalized within the host society. In all of the cases discussed, not surprisingly, religion is an integral element of the complex identities that are formed out of the diaspora experience.

Japanese Religion in Brazil, Ronan Pereira
Pereira began with an overview of the Brazilian context in which the Japanese diaspora has shaped its contemporary forms of religion. He reminded listeners of the historical tradition of synchretic religions that developed out of the Columbian conquest and from the interaction of Iberian colonials with indigenous populations, from slavery and from the plantation labor regimes that developed in the region. He pointed out several watershed moments on the way to the late nineteenth century large-scale in-migration of Japanese. Most significant in this regard were the abolition of slavery in Brazil, pronounced in 1888, and Brazil's republican coup of 1889 and the Enlightenment and even Masonic ideals that shaped it.

The Japanese migration to Brazil began as a result of the Meiji reforms in the mid-nineteenth century. High rates of unemployment in Japan at the time due to overpopulation forced many to leave and seek their fortune elsewhere, often in the Americas. Changes in United States policies and a general rise in intolerance towards Asian immigrants were also a factor in steering Japanese migrants away from the destinations they had earlier sought. With the abolition of slavery in Brazil in the late nineteenth century there was a significant labor shortage on its coffee plantations, and large numbers of Japanese began to fill that gap.

Pereira sketched for listeners the already quasi-synchretic relationship between Shintoism and Buddhism even in Japan. Neither of these belief systems is exclusive in the same way that Western religions are, and each tends to fulfill a complementary set of spiritual and social functions within what might be considered an overall "division of labor" in Japanese society. In a sense, it could be argued that they are ideally prepared to survive the process of migration that occurred among Japanese moving to Brazil.

Pereira then discussed some of the factors that have influenced the contemporary expression of Japanese religions in Brazil. The first generation of Japanese immigrants lived in communities defined and circumscribed largely by their work on coffee plantations, and they essentially lived isolated from the rest of the population of Brazil. Because of this, they maintained not only language and other customs but religion as well, and all of these cultural elements smoothed the disruption in their lives that moving to Latin America had caused. On the other hand, however, the initial migrants lacked resources of time or energy to invest in actively maintaining religious traditions. The pressures in strictly Roman Catholic Brazil to conform at least outwardly to the notion of "one nation, one religion" made it problematic to abide by older traditions. Subsequent generations have been responsible for reviving traditions since World War II, when it became more important than ever to find an appropriate set of values around which to define Japanese identity. Ironically, these later generations, which are more assimilated into Brazilian national culture by learning Portuguese and receiving a Brazilian education, have also been the ones to support the growth of temples and other Japanese institutions built since the 1950s. Some 60 Japanese-influenced religious groups exist today in Brazil, and they have integrated elements of both African and indigenous spiritual traditions into their contemporary forms. Surprisingly, some ninety percent of the members of these groups have no Japanese background whatsoever.

Constructing Jewish Identity in Latin America, Monique Balbuena
Balbuena focused on the diversity of experience in Latin America as a whole and extended that notion into the specific topic of her presentation: what she termed "Jewish diasporas" in the region. Her talk concentrated on Jewish experience and identity in Argentina.

She outlined the historical background of Jewish migration to Latin America, beginning as early as 1492, when Jews were among the first European arrivals during the conquest of the Americas. They did not always identify openly as Jews, however, especially in the period of the Inquisition. On this point Balbuena echoed Pereira when she reminded listeners that the state religion in much of Latin America has been Roman Catholicism and that strong pressure has been brought on those not born Catholic to convert. The first openly Jewish community in Latin America in fact was established early in the colonial period in a tolerant Dutch-controlled corner of Brazil's eastern region. When this area was brought under Portuguese control, the community preferred to move to Dutch Suriname, rather than face certain persecution and forced conversion.

Balbuena recognized that it might be considered contradictory to speak of a single "Jewish identity" of experience that has resulted from the many diasporas that have been created in Latin America from Sephardic, Ashkenazi and Mizrachi Jews that have made the region their home. Illustrating her remarks by reading excerpts from a handful of Latin American-Jewish authors, she explained how a conversation and debate about Jewishness in Latin American literature and culture has emerged in the twentieth century. Indeed, there is not a single consensus on this point (as she pointed out, a familiar joke is that the only consensus in Latin America is that everybody dislikes the Argentines). Expression of Jewish identity in Argentina and its literature has ranged from a utopian outlook, according to which Jews are able to feel truly integrated within the Argentinian culture, to an outlook that challenges this utopian vision. The latter is also a response to the rhetorically inclusive republican mythology of the Argentine nation, which is not always reflected satisfactorily in reality. Writers who have espoused this perspective interestingly have tried to define a common experience shared by both Jewish and Christian Argentines by drawing parallels from the repression - whether religious or political - that both groups have undergone. (LW)

Religion in the African Diaspora, Ousmane Kane

Kane gave an overview of the migration of Francophone Africans to the United States and focused in particular on the Sufi sect of the Muridiyya from Senegal. He observed some of the ways in which this mystical tradition of Islamic religiosity and the social institutions it has spawned have shaped Senegalese migrant communities in the U.S. in the late twentieth century.

Francophone African migration to the United States has grown in recent years due to both "push" and "pull" factors on both sides of the Atlantic. Economic crisis in Africa, the increased restrictions in European nations' laws regulating immigration from their former colonies, and tougher policies in general outside of the U.S. have all contributed to the shift in migration towards the U.S. At the same time, the implementation of the INS "diversity lottery" and the tolerance of street vendors in New York have provided an active impetus for Senegalese, Guineans, Malians and Ivoirians to migrate to the U.S.

Of two dominant strains of Sufism in West Africa, the Muridiyya represent but one. Historically, Sufi belief has served spiritual, social and political functions in the communities where its forms have gained strength. As the Wolof states in West Africa were dismantled in the nineteenth century when French colonial forces moved in, the Muridiyya Sufi sect and its institutions provided a measure of social stability for rural inhabitants in a chaotic time. Later, during the period of rapid urbanization after 1945, Murid communities that were transplanted to the cities again served an important social function for this segment of the Senegalese population. In the cities, Murid formed urban associations called "da'iras," a concept that stemmed from the earlier rural tradition of forming a small community of persons who had pledged allegiance to a single shaykh, or religious teacher, and who were united by their common spiritual goals.

Murid emigration outside of Africa has been overwhelmingly male, and da'ira associations have been very influential in guiding them in their immigrant experience in the United States. Three types of da'ira have arisen: a large Murid Islamic Community of America; a set of NGO-type organizations that maintain connections between the migrant community and their capital in Touba, Senegal; and finally, local branch da'ira associations that help to fund migrants on an individual basis as they settle in the U.S.

Kane asserted that the da'ira and Murid traditions in general have a distinctive quality in their ability to recreate the Murid holy city experience in the diaspora. He concluded his presentation by pointing out the historical continuity in the function of Muridism: it has essentially been a Wolof response to the social dislocation of modernization and that it has continued to serve this function through various waves of social transformation, the most recent being among the Murid Senegalese who have migrated to the United States.

Panel Discussion
Listeners' questions touched on a broad range of issues. On the whole the most interest was expressed in issues of assimilation and acculturation for the various diaspora groups that the panelists had discussed. Teacher-participants were very interested in learning more about how each group has tended to fit within its host society to which it has relocated. Questions were posed about intermarriage between migrant populations and outsiders, and about other relationships with local people who are not a part of the immigrant group. Participants asked how each group navigated the process of realizing that the goal of temporarily migrating to a new land had given way to status as a permanent immigrant. Some listeners asked about the changes in values and principles that occur during that process, and finally many asked about the specific role that religious and other cultural traditions played in all of these parts of the process of transition that immigrants must undergo. (LW)

The Spread of Islam in West Africa, Ousmane Kane

Kane first examined the vectors that aided Islam's expansion from the Arabian peninsula into Africa in the seventh and eighth centuries. He then explained those factors that subsequently aided Islam's spread within Africa, first within the urban context, beginning in the tenth century, and finally from urban to rural communities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He sketched the effects of European colonial rule upon Islam in the region, and he concluded his presentation by summarizing the primary manifestations and characteristics of Islam in post-colonial West Africa.

While the processes of Islamization and Arabization (the spread of the religion, on the one hand, and the spread of the Arabic language and Arab Muslim intellectual traditions, on the other) occurred relatively quickly and in conjunction with one another in Northern Africa in the centuries following the establishment of Islam, in West Africa these processes happened more slowly and more separately from one another. The first evidence of the influence of Islam on West Africa dates from the late tenth century, when chroniclers recorded the conversion of King Gao of the ancient kingdom of Mali to Islam, and later chronicles mention the conversions of the monarchs of ancient Ghana, Senegal and Chad. Kane emphasized that rulers had an interest in converting to Islam for the benefit of their kingdoms, from the trade networks it afforded access to, to the way that the institutions of Islamic belief aided in state-building.

During this early period, prior to the seventeenth century, trade served as the most important vector in the spread of the religion. Itinerant merchants traveled in caravans and were often accompanied by clerics or scribes, and often conversion to Islam was necessary in order to engage in commercial activities. In this period, Islam in Africa was primarily an urban religion.

Kane explained that an intellectual and cultural tradition rich in written sources in Arabic and Ajami (vernacular languages written in Arabic script) developed on the heels of religious conversion. There was a growth in literacy in both Arabic and Ajami, and religious Koranic schools as well as advanced Ilm schools, something akin to the medieval university in Europe, developed in Western Africa at this time.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in connection with the slave raiding and warfare that occurred as European traders disrupted the political and demographic balance in West Africa, there was a movement to reform Islamic belief and political rule. It was this reform movement that began a spread of Islam from the urban centers into the rural areas, and this time that spread occurred as a result of jihad, or struggle with wrong belief, more than had occurred in earlier periods. This period of Islam's spread ensconced the religion and its cultural and political institutions much more firmly within African communities.

Kane explained that under European colonial rule in the nineteenth century Islam spread even more rapidly than in earlier periods, as warfare and insecurity faded into the past and colonial rule expanded communication and transportation links. From the perspective of Africans, Islam presented a form of resistance against their new Christian rulers and administrators, and in Europeans' eyes Islam was, if not as "civilized" as Christianity, a good step on the way toward greater civilization for the population of Africa. The intellectual tradition that developed in earlier centuries was however negatively affected by colonial rule. European languages tended to supplant Arabic and vernacular languages in educational instruction, and there was an attempts to replace institutions of Islamic education with Western educational traditions.

Kane closed his presentation with brief mention of the Sufi traditions, including Qadiriyya and Tijaniyya, that remain the more prominent forms of Islam in Western Africa in the post-colonial period, because they were able to survive intact during the great transformations that colonial rule brought to West Africa. (LW)

Familiar Strangers: Islam and Muslims in the Chinese Culture Area, Jonathan Lipman

Lipman's two presentations over the course of one afternoon and the subsequent morning summarized for his listeners the research to which he has dedicated the bulk of his career. This first session concentrated on the early history of the Muslim population in the Chinese culture area, covering the period from shortly after the establishment of Islam to the early twentieth century. Lipman traced the major themes in the history of the Chinese Muslim population in conjunction with the overall history of China, which Lipman reminded listeners is better understood as a succession of dynasties ruling over a "Chinese culture area," culminating in the modern Chinese nation-state we know today.

The first historical moment that Lipman concentrated on was a period defined by separation, when Islam was spreading east thanks to the pan-Asian economy that had been fostered by the Silk Road networks of the classical period. Lipman emphasized that Islam spread beyond eastward beyond the Pamir mountain range primarily not by means of conquest, or jihad, but by means of trade. He recommended the book The Golden Peaches of Samarkand (University of California Press, 1995) as one work that might be used in the classroom to illustrate the exchange of goods that occurred between T'ang dynasty China and the Arabic world in the seventh and eighth centuries C.E.

The first Muslims in the Chinese culture area were often traders and refugees from the effects of jihad in Persia, who considered themselves sojourners, or temporary residents, while they were living in the China area. A lingua franca of basic Persian emerged especially in the coastal towns of southern China during the T'ang dynasty, and many of the sojourners spoke a serviceable pidgin of Chinese.

By the eleventh and twelfth centuries, there is evidence in chronicles and law books of a significant Muslim population in the territory ruled by the Song dynasty. The majority of those sojourners who stayed were male, and they tended to marry Chinese women who had converted to Islam. Their children - who were bilingual in Farsi and in Chinese, and had grown up hearing about an ancestral "home" in Persia - formed a significant new population in the Chinese culture area.

Lipman defined the next period as a time of acculturation and accommodation. The Mongol conquest in the early thirteenth century brought great changes, not least to the opening of European-Asian trade links. The Mongols - themselves foreign invaders in the Chinese culture area - also brought in outside administrators to rule their empire. The Muslim children of the sojourner population, who were literate in Persian and Chinese, served that administrative function well. By the mid-fourteenth century, the Mongols had been pushed back and were replaced by the Ming dynasty, but the Muslims who had served as Mongol administrators stayed. They had become thoroughly indigenized and had no place to which they realistically could "return"; for all intents and purposes they were a Muslim Chinese population.

Under the Ming, Chinese Muslims underwent further acculturation and were in many respects integrated into the Chinese cultural mainstream. At the same time, however, they were never completely assimilated, and important points of separation remained between Muslim and non-Muslim Chinese. Lipman argued that one might say that the Chinese Muslim population had become "ordinary in local places," but that it had not fully assimilated on either a local or a culture-wide basis.

What were the primary respects in which Muslim Chinese were different? Muslim communities were defined by their focus on the mosque, which served as a place to pray, a community center, and a place where specialist clerics could be found. A patois of Persian also served as a commonality throughout the now scattered localities in which Chinese Muslims were found. Muslims also continued to play a prominent role in trade, especially in long-distance commerce, which non-Muslim Chinese were reluctant to undertake in this period.

Finally, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a period of new connections between East and West was ushered in. First, the Manchu conquest and the formation of the much larger Ch'ing (Qing) empire brought Turkic, non-Chinese Muslims under imperial rule. As it has in other periods of world history, the conquest of a group of Muslims inspired a questioning and a revivalist spirit, as they sought a reason for this defeat. This revivalism was expressed in some places in a form of mystical Sufism, which provides a centralizing authority that is missing in non-Sufi Islam since the fall of the original Caliphate, and the Central Asian forms of Sufism eventually moved eastward to find an audience among Chinese Muslims.

Lipman concluded by reflecting that the centuries of the Ch'ing dynasty in China were a process of modernization that helped to shape both the modern Chinese nation and modern forms of Muslim identity in China. For the Chinese Muslims this included a process of greater integration, and by the mid-twentieth century Chinese Muslims had largely made their peace with the nation-state that emerged out of the Ch'ing empire. (LW)

Ten Muslim Minzu: Islam and 'Minority Nationality' in the People's Republic of China, Jonathan Lipman

Lipman began his second presentation with an explanation of the significance of teaching what some might consider the rather obscure subject of Muslims in China. He pointed out that discussing such a topic in a sense subverts the traditional narrative of world history, as told from the perspective of Westerners in various regions of the world, and it serves to remind students and teachers that true world history indeed did occur in myriad places on the globe without the presence of white Europeans.

Lipman's discussion of Muslims in the People's Republic of China required him to spend a few minutes introducing the concepts of religion and nationality as they have been used in the West and subsequently were adopted for use in modern China. The Western understanding of religion stems from the exclusive "religions of the book" of the Mediterranean basin and depends very heavily on the idea of faith. In China, on the other hand, or indeed in Asia more generally, the closest equivalent is the bodies of textual knowledge such as Confucianism, Buddhism, Shintoism, or Taoism. These are neither exclusive religions nor do they have anything at all really to do with belief. This goes some way toward explaining how the exclusivity of Islam presented a problem for the Muslims in China and for the Chinese state in ruling over various Muslim populations.

Lipman explained that this difference in concepts only became more complicated when, in the early twentieth century, Chinese Communists borrowed the approach to religion and ethnic minorities whose way was first paved by the Soviets. Communism ushered in the usual Marxist view of religion as a superstition that ought in civilized countries to be replaced by adherence to positivist science. But in addition, China's Communist leaders borrowed a Social Darwinist concept of nationality that they termed minzu. They applied this concept to the populations who had been ruled by the Ch'ing empire yet were different from the Han Chinese. Like the Soviet Union, the People's Republic China employed ethnographers to survey the population and gather a sense of what minzu existed in their territories. From an initial 400 nationality groups, the official roster of minzu was whittled down in the mid-1950s to an essential 56, whose customs and religions and traditional territorial attachments in large part comprised their definitions. Of those 56, ten minzu share Islam as their religious marker and can be termed "Muslim minzu." Lipman referred his listeners to the position and official treatment of Native Americans in the United States in order to give a sense of what role the minzu play in the official mythology of the nation state and the peaceful coexistence its citizen peoples.

For the remainder of his presentation, Lipman provided listeners with a sketch of two case studies in the Muslim minzu of China: the Hui and the Uyghur. Lipman argued that the Hui are what the Chinese state would likely call "a pretty good Muslim minzu," because of their high degree of integration into Chinese society. Many urban Hui are educated and thoroughly acculturated into Chinese society, and many do not practice Islam or identify as Muslim. These in fact are the present-day Muslim descendants of the Persian sojourners in the Chinese culture area that Lipman introduced in his previous talk.

The second group - a relatively "bad" Muslim minzu from the perspective of the Chinese state - is the Uyghur. The members of this sedentary agricultural people of Central Asia tend to remain active Muslim believers, speak their native Turkic language rather than Chinese, and are very thinly integrated into the Chinese culture and nation state. As in other multiethnic states, the Uyghur pose a threat to the integrity of the Chinese nation by continuing to live in exclusive communities rather than achieving acculturation.

Lipman closed by examining some of the present-day ramifications of the relationship of the Uyghur to the Chinese state. He pointed out that the Uyghur themselves had only recently gained a sense of their broad collective "national" identity, and that earlier in the century they tended to identify as either Muslim, Turk, or simply as a local resident of a particular community - not as a member of a nation or a minzu as such. But the demographic and political situation in China has forced the Uyghur into a position of resistance, and a minority of Uyghur take an extremist position towards Beijing's policies. The stance of the Chinese state against Uyghur separatism has only been bolstered by United States foreign policy towards Muslim political resistance groups in all regions of the world since September 2001. (LW)

Buddhism and Emperor Asoka in India, Jim Egge

Egge spent several minutes explaining the historical background of the Emperor Asoka's reign and his rhetorical use of the concept of Dharma. In latter portion of his presentation, Egge engaged his listeners in a conversation about the similarities and differences between how the religious and spiritual precepts were invoked in ancient inscriptions and the use of religious rhetoric by political leaders today in the United States.

Emperor Asoka was the third ruler of the Maurya empire in the third century BCE, and as a result of evidence that has survived into the present day, we know a great deal more about Asoka than about any other ruler of the time. Egge explained that there are two bodies of evidence for this knowledge: legends recorded in the elite language of Sanskrit, and a series of inscriptions scattered over a relatively broad geographic range, which contain edicts that Asoka himself ordered posted.

These rock and pillar edicts were written in a simple, vernacular language, in the first person, and contain direct information about the author, which makes them in some senses very useful historical documents. But we cannot escape the fact that these were a form of political propaganda with which Asoka intended to impress upon contemporary and subsequent readers his values and worth as a ruler. Taken as a whole, the edicts are a set of instructions on how to live life properly, roughly equivalent to the Buddhist concept of Dharma, which would have been quite familiar to Asoka at the time. They offer Asoka's good actions as an example for the people over whom he ruled.

While Asoka wished to convey a sense of himself as a benevolent ruler, a very important function of the edicts must have been to help maintain order within his large empire. It is this implicit threat of force, so is so important to state-building, that is contradictory to the spirit of Dharma that imbues the rock edicts and creates a puzzle for the modern student of these pronouncements. Egge drew listeners' attention to a specific example, commonly identified as the fifth edict, which concerns the conquest of the ancient territory of Kalinga, modern day Orissa. After being forced to kill or deport most of the inhabitants of the territory in order to quell the resistance of this last of the independent populations of the subcontinent, Asoka proclaimed in his edict that he had renounced violence and would no longer conquer but would practice Dharma in his rule over his existing imperial territories. Students of Asoka's edicts might wish to consider whether the deported Kalinga inhabitants were awarded their freedom or repatriated after Asoka's alleged conversion. Another question for students to consider concerns the location of the inscription: what significance, Egge asked, should we attach to the fact that Asoka did not post this edict in Kalinga but in other regions of his empire, for other subject populations to see?

Egge encouraged his listeners to compare the use of religious concepts in Asoka's edicts with the use of such concepts in modern U.S. political philosophy and in remarks of politicians. Some of the participants drew significant connections between contemporary United States Republican politicians' invocation of Christian themes and rhetoric and the use of Dharma by Emperor Asoka. Others pointed out the ways in which the examples are dissimilar, indicating the role of Christianity in today's United States as an established majority religion as opposed to the novelty of Buddhism in the third century in the Indian subcontinent. There was a general consensus that the discussion served as a good example of how to use the historical material to engage students in conversations about political philosophy and rhetoric in general and in our lives.

Egge drew to a close by offering some recommendations for materials to use in the classroom. He suggested that The Edicts of Asoka, an academic translation of the inscriptions, was a good source for the text of the edicts. He also noted that certain on-line collections of the edicts also have the added advantage of presenting the edicts in the order in which they were created. (LW)

Panel: Religion in Southeast Asia 

Although the panel participants discussed different areas of Southeast Asia and the various religions practiced in these areas, all of them emphasized how populations adapted religious beliefs to local social and cultural needs.

Historical and Cultural Aspects of Islam in SEA, Jeff Hadler

Jeff Hadler began by describing the problems associated with Southeast Asian studies when approached as an area studies discipline. There is still no consensus as to what links this geographic space, with its different languages, religions, and cultures. To demonstrate his point, Hadler, noted that one of the seminal books on the subject is aptly titled, In Search of Southeast Asia. Due to the diversity of indigenous languages, scholars have also found it difficult to conduct comparative studies of the region. In Indonesia, alone, 720 different languages are spoken. Scholars have also had to contend with the many European languages used in colonial documents of the area.

Moreover, the field is relatively new. Serious interest in this part of the world grew out from western business interests' desires to develop the area's oil reserves after World War II. Concerned with the rise of communism and especially the Vietnam War, western governments also supported scholarship in the area. A recent resurgence in interest in Southeast Asia has resulted from the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the area and the events of September 11.

Hadler went on to discuss the evolution of Islam in Indonesia and his own research on a Sumatran matrilineal Islamic society. Following the spice route, Islam first appeared in Southeast Asian trading ports in the thirteenth century, and by the sixteenth century, it was clearly flourishing. Thus, Islam was a religion of trade rather than cohesion [ambiguous-don't quite follow this last distiction] in the area. Hadler emphasized how Islam, much like Judaism, is as a religion concerned with law, leading to interpretive questions that encourage debate and discussion. In this sense, Islam is a dynamic religion. His own research on Minangkabu people, the world's largest matrilineal Muslim society, demonstrates this point. The Minangkabu were able to negotiate successfully Islamic beliefs with their matrilineal patterns. As an example, he explained how the rumah gadang, a type of longhouse and important cultural institution in Sumatra seemed at odds with Islamic beliefs. Here, men and women from the one matrilineal clan slept in the same building, violating Islamic law, which forbids a mixing of sexes. However, the Minangkabu were able to reconcile their religious beliefs with their cultural institutions.

Jataka Tales in Southeast Asia, Peter Koret

Peter Koret discussed his research on Jataka tales, a collection of Southeast Asia folklore, which recounts 547 past lives of Buddha. Jataka tales are important to Southeast Asia culture for several reasons. First, the tenets of Buddhism are transmitted and taught through Jataka tales. Second, Jataka tales are the basis for many indigenous works of literature, festivals, and laws. Finally, Koret argued that by studying the Jataka tales, researchers can understand how Buddhism has been adapted by local populations to fit their social and cultural requirements.

In the first section of his talk, Koret reviewed the fundamental principles of Buddhism, including the Four Noble Truths: 1) Suffering is inherent to life and through the process of reincarnation suffering is potentially experienced endlessly; 2) Desire traps people in this cycle of suffering; 3) Escape from this cycle of suffering is possible; 4) One can escape this cycle and achieve Nirvana through a variety of ways involving moral, mental and meditative discipline. This, however, can take hundreds of lifetimes. Deviating from other Southeast Asia religions interpretation of Karma, Buddhism understands Karma's effect based on intent versus action. Koret also underscored Buddhist's denial of the soul.

In the second half of his talk, Koret explained how a predominantly illiterate rural Southeast Asian people transformed an urban religion, highly intellectual in nature. Instead of focusing on breaking the cycle of suffering through self-abnegation, Southeast Asians emphasize improving one's status and happiness during a cycle. For example, Southeast Asian Buddhists try to attain Karma through donating goods or money to monks who, through religious discipline, possess a certain store of Karma. Another example of the way Southeast Asians have modified Buddhism is found in the incorporation of indigenous supernatural beliefs with Buddhism. For example, in a Laotian Jataka tale, Phanya Khankhak, the boy Buddha, battles against a rain-making deity and wins the favor the people. Also, Koret explained how political elites in Southeast Asia have used Buddhism to legitimize their power: the elite rationalize their power with the Buddhist belief that a person's status is result from an accumulation merit in past lives.

Finally, Koret outlined how Buddhist temples became centers of intellectual life, providing the first educational institutions prior to the creation of a public school system. Here, young men learned to read and create literature. Thus, in Southeast Asia, Buddhism and literature are "intimately connected."

Classroom Applications, Avi Black

The last panelist, Avi Black, a middle school teacher and instructor for the Social Studies Methods class at New College of San Francisco, presented a more hands-on approach to teaching students about Southeast Asia. He suggested that teachers discuss Southeast Asian culture as syncretic. For example, they might explain how Indian and Chinese influences combined to form a unique culture in Java. In his experience, students liked this approach given the multicultural environment in which they live in. This technique can also be applied to teaching religion. Instead of teaching about Buddha's life, he suggested they show how different cultures approached Buddha's teachings.

Black concluded by suggesting two different websites for teaching world history. His own website, http://members.tripod.com/kebyar/teachers/teacher.htm, has more details on his teaching philosophy towards world history and specifically the history of Southeast Asia and includes lesson plans and other resources. The website, http://worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu/, devised by a team of scholars at San Diego State University, also presents a thematic versus geographic approach to teaching world history. For example, instead of lecturing on the Fertile Crescent, the website's developers suggest teaching agriculture as a phenomenon and have students evaluate how people approached agriculture at different times and in different parts of the world. The website is divided into different units and scopes, ranging from the most general to detailed, giving teachers maximum flexibility in their lesson plans depending on how much time they have to devote to a section. Teaching plans, activities, and slides are only some of the resources available on this website.

Panel Discussion

Audience members asked questions about the specific details of both Koret's and Hadler's research. For example, they were curious to know if there was a correspondence between the Jataka tales and religious rituals, or in Hadler's case, what other institutional or cultural compromises the Minangkabu made with Islam. Others were interested in knowing how the information on Black's and SDSU's websites were different from the textbooks provided by the school districts. (HK)

Religion and Empire in the Antiquity, Edan Dekel

Edan Dekel presented an overview of Roman Emperor Constantine's response and conversion to Christianity, explaining how his role in the legalization and unification of the new religion with Roman bureaucratic institutions laid the foundations for modern Christianity, thus cementing Christianity's future success in Europe. He divided his talk into three key moments: 1) Constantine's vision of Christ and the legalization of Christianity, 2) the Donatist and Arian Schisms in which Constantine asserted his role in Church affairs, and 3) the building of Constantinople as a Christian city.

Before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 A.D.), in which Constantine's troops were outnumbered three to one, Constantine had a vision of a cross inscribed with the words in hoc signo vinces, or "in this sign you will conquer." According to one account, the next night Christ came to Constantine and instructed him to inscribe chi-rho XP, Greek for "Christ" or "cross," on the battle gear of his troops. Constantine did so and resoundingly beat his enemies. It is unclear whether Constantine adhered to Christianity at this time, since he was only baptized on his deathbed in 337 A.D. What is clear is that he attributed this miraculous victory to the Christian God. As a consequence, Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire. The Edict of Milan (313 A.D.) provided imperial support and privileges to the Christian Church. Dekel argued that it is actually a myth that the Romans consistently persecuted Christians. As we know, certain Emperors such as Nero (54-68 A.D.) scapegoated Christians when Rome was burned to the ground, and Domitian (81-96 A.D.) put some Christians to death for purportedly conspiring with the Jews to overthrow Roman rule. There was, however, no consistent Roman policy of Christian persecution.

Christianity at the time of Constantine lacked a codified doctrine. Constantine had to contend with two major heretical movements. The first, Donatism, named after both Donatus, Bishop of Casae Nigrae and a priest, Donatus Magnus, argued that the Church leadership had become too lax, permitting the faithless to enter the Church. Accordingly, Donatists invalidated many baptisms. Church leaders saw the Donatist movement as a threat to their power and their ability to spread Christianity as widely as possible. In some areas such as North Africa, the Donatists outnumbered the orthodox believers. The Pope appealed to Constantine to resolve this theological issue. Constantine convened a synod of bishops first in Rome, and then in Arles, which proclaimed Donatism heretical. Because Constantine depended on Christians for political support, he saw the unity of the Christian Church as beneficial to his political power. Thus, he endorsed the synods' decisions and outlawed Donatism. For the first time, imperial and ecclesiastical laws were united.

The second heretical movement, Arianism, named after Arius, a priest in Alexandria, taught that Christ was not co-extensive with God, and that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were separate and distinct. Although the Church excommunicated Arius in 318 and condemned his teachings, the controversy still raged on. Again threatened with the fragmentation of the Church, Constantine, not the Pope, summoned and presided over what has become known as the Church's First Ecumenical Council which met in Nicaea. The council formulated the Nicene Creed which affirmed the homoousion, or the doctrine of consubstantiality.

Finally, in addition to resolving the Church's theological conflicts, Constantine was able to create in Constantinople a bastion of Christianity in the east. With Constantine's defeat of Licinius, the Roman co-emperor of the east, in 324 A.D., he was able to establish Christianity in the city of Byzantium, renaming it Constantinople. The new city then served as the capital of Rome's eastern empire. In dedicating the city to the Virgin Mary, Constantine commissioned many buildings, including Christian churches. Unlike the architecture in Rome, none displayed pagan iconography. Thanks to Constantine's efforts, Constantinople became a city that was both Roman and Christian. (HK)

The Hindu Nationalists in India, Dhananjay Kapse

Kapse presented an overview of the phenomenon of Hindu nationalism and, more importantly, the activity of Hindu nationalists - the individuals and organizations that form the base of the movement - in India in the twentieth century. He explained that the story of Hindu nationalist organization begins in 1925, before India's independence and partition, with the founding of the Rashtriya Swayamserak Sangh (RSS), the voluntary association that serves as the cultural and social arm of this movement. The first political organization in the movement was formed in 1951, and its present-day form, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, or People's Party) has seen major gains in representation since the late 1980s.

As Kapse explained, the BJP and its predecessor had been fairly weak for the bulk of the twentieth century, in the political context that grew out of Partition in which the Congress Party was the dominant force in Indian politics. Central also to this context was the notion that the Indian nation-state is founded on secularism and the assurance of equality toward all religions, allegiance to territory, and a pluralistic sense of culture. The rise of the BJP and Hindu nationalist ideas among the Indian public has occurred as the Congress Party has lost ground and some of its credibility, and as a struggle has arisen over what indeed constitutes the Indian nation.

The spread of the ideology of the BJP has occurred through some publications that since the mid-1980s have attempted to redefine Hinduism as a racially-influenced category and have tried to portray both Christians and Muslims as exclusive groups foreign to India and with naturally divided political sympathies. Kapse noted that some prominent thinkers in the nationalist movement have in the past expressed sympathy for Nazism, although at present, due to attempts to form an alliance with Israel in its conflict with Palestinian Arab Muslims, those sympathies are being played down within the BJP.

The rise of the BJP has had a particularly strong impact on relations between Hindus and Muslims within India and upon the foreign policy of India towards Pakistan. The BJP considers it very important to find a solution to what it sees as the "Muslim Problem" facing India, and Kapse explained that the primary solutions Hindu nationalists see for this issue are radical and violent: conversion, expulsion or even killing off the Muslim population. These extremist solutions to the difference of Muslim co-nationals is a significant part of what has led to violent mob attacks and counter-attacks in the state of Gujarat in the 1990s and continuing into the present day.

The BJP has also expressed a wish to create a greater Hindu federation that would swallow Pakistan and Bangladesh, an indication of the way that this movement has influenced foreign policy within the subcontinent. The BJP's support for India's nuclear capability takes its vehemence from the threat that Pakistan, with its own nuclear weapons capabilities, represents in the eyes of Hindu nationalists.

Kapse rounded out his presentation of the ominous threat that the Hindu nationalist movement poses to the modern tradition of a secular national identity by making several suggestions of materials could be used in the classroom to explore these issues. In particular, he noted Anand Patwardhan's 1993 Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, a feature film that helps to illustrate the issues discussed in his presentation. Salman Rushdie's novel The Moor's Last Sigh offers advanced audiences a fictional presentation of the kind of conflicts in Indian society created by the rise of Hindu nationalism. Two short texts that present simple summaries of Hindu nationalist thinking were also recommended and their publication information was included in the ORIAS workshop materials. (LW)

Protestant Reformation in Western Europe, Ben Klein

Klein told of the history of the Protestant Reformation in Western Europe by first describing the state of the Christian Church on the eve of this revolutionary set of changes. There were a number of developments within the Church that can be seen in hindsight as precursors to the Reformation. In devotional practice, there had been a rise in mysticism and a visible increase in interest in direct communication with God. There had also been an increase in criticism of Church administration, hierarchy and of what was seen as immoral behavior by the monastic and clerical elite. Believers viewed several relatively new administrative practices as antithetical to the original message of the Church. Perhaps first among these was the practice of selling indulgences - essentially, contracts that ensured the holder a place in heaven - in order to raise funds for administrative purposes.

In 1517, when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses, penned in Latin, to the door of a church in Wittenberg, he did not intend anything more radical than to express his form of criticism, in large part aimed against the practice of indulgences. Klein reminded his listeners of the various historical conditions that led to the firestorm that followed, and he emphasized the importance of the political context of fragmented authority within the Holy Roman Empire and the rise of print culture. The latter was especially influential by having established in only the half-century preceding Luther's proclamations an inexpensive medium of intellectual exchange, in the context of which Luther's ideas saw wide dissemination and interpretation beyond what their author had originally intended.

Klein summarized the fundamental ideas contained in Luther's message: "by faith alone," "by scripture alone," and his proclamation of a "priesthood of all believers." Here Luther presented a rejection of the symbolic good works that believers were required to perform to achieve salvation, and an implicit rejection of the sacraments that also were required for salvation to be promised. By placing the highest emphasis on scripture, Luther rejected the mediation of Rome's institutions and the hierarchy of the Church. And in announcing the priesthood of believers, he was reacting to the professional class of the clergy that held sway over individual believers among the laity. The ultimate effect was to render that mediation unnecessary.

In discussing the effects of Luther's reformation, Klein emphasized the spread of these ideas in cities, in part thanks to the common practice of urban preaching. The popularity of Luther's ideas was high among particular social groups, such as literate, professional middling classes, that were emerging in cities. Klein also noted that the Lutheran Reformation had mixed results for women. On the one hand, the new ideas subverted notions of hierarchy, not only within the Church but also in society in general. Faith was also brought into the domestic realm, where women were more active and had more authority. But Luther's revolution also destroyed monasticism and declared saints and Virgin Mary less central to worship than Christ, thereby changing radically the options open to female believers both in worship and in social and economic terms. The limits of Luther's radicalism are also easily understood with an examination of the peasant uprisings that occurred in 1524 and 1525 and were quickly quelled. These protests distilled a radical social and political message from Luther's criticism of the Church, and ultimately Luther renounced any support of their movement.

Klein closed by summarizing the ideas of the other prominent thinker of the Reformation, Jean Calvin, and his Institutes of the Christian Religion, composed in 1536. Klein pointed out that Calvin's most significant contribution to the Protestant Reformation was his notion of predestination, while the more militant sense of religiosity in Calvinism had a lasting effect on the conflicts that the Reformation inspired in France and the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. (LW)

Icons: Communicating through Forms and Ritual, Anton Vrame (LW)

Vrame began by explaining the function of icons in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, summarizing the arguments he has put forth in his own research and writing. According to Vrame, icons inform, form and transform the Orthodox believer. These religious images are not merely religious art, he explained, but are better understood as liturgical art. They have their origins and meaning in prayer and worship, and many of the rules that we are accustomed to in Western art - both secular and religious - therefore do not apply to Orthodox Christian iconography.

The first function that the icon performs may be understood as informing: although the narrative line may at times be difficult for the uninformed viewer to follow or identify, on the most basic level it is easy for most viewers to recognize that icons contain a story. Often the origin of the story is biblical, but many layers of interpretation and legend and tradition have been superimposed upon and integrated with that root story.

As one of the first elements of the liturgy with which children come into close contact, the icon plays a role in forming the believer throughout his or her life. The icon also follows the hierarchy of saints and holy personages in the Orthodox canon and serves to communicate that context of worship to the believer. In a church fresco, this stable structure is transmitted by picturing Christ and Mary at the highest level, within the curve of the dome; by placing the archangels and evangelists at the next level below, in the area just beneath the dome; and with saints often pictured at sitting level. Individual icon images are also very firmly integrated with other forms of worship, and that close interweaving between image, song, and other elements of the liturgy and spiritual celebrations aids in the process of shaping the believer's faith.

Finally, it is believed that the icon itself has been transformed from a mere physical image to a holy object in the act of its creation. By engaging with the icon, the believer ultimately also is transformed into a holy member of the congregation and the larger Orthodox community.

Vrame shifted gears for the final portion of his presentation and showed images of various icons common in the Orthodox Church, in order to illustrate the principles he summarized earlier. He showed his listeners a range of images, some very old and others created in recent decades by contemporary icon painters. These images allowed Vrame to explain with visual accompaniment the points he had made earlier about the symbolic representation of architecture and urban forms and the way in which believers understand the icon image to be not simply a representation but a holy object itself imbued with the spirit of the divine. (LW)

For more on Anton Vrame's talk see the Fall 2003 ISEEES Newsletter at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~csees/publications/2003_20-03.pdf

Islam in America: Images and Reality, Laurence Michalak.

Laurence Michalak began his talk by discussing distorted images of Arabs in film, and then discussed how misconceptions of Islam can be effectively dealt with in the classroom. He suggested using an engaging quiz to begin a conversation about the subject.

Michalak argued that the cinematic image of Arabs in America has been largely limited to stereotypes. He identified seven important genres. The first depicts the Arab as seducer and abductor of white women. Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik was the most famous archetype of this genre. The second genre includes films about the French Foreign Legion such as Lawrence of Arabia. In this category of film, Arabs are cast as violent, but Europeans are able to conquer them with their superior technology. In the third genre, the Middle East is portrayed as a place of enchantment where flying carpets and cloaks of invisibility are commonplace. The fourth genre conceptualizes the Middle East not as a place of magic, but as a sexual or adventure playground for western men. Here, the Middle East only serves as a backdrop to western conflicts and fantasies. For example, in Casablanca, although the film partially takes place in Algeria, there is only one Arab present in the film. The fifth genre is based on hijackings that occurred in the 1970s, where Arabs are portrayed as irrational terrorists. Black Sunday and Delta Force are examples of films of this genre. The sixth genre attempts to portray aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Arabs in these films unscrupulously kill and rape Israelis. The last genre covers mummy movies where the mummy rises from the dead and threatens the social order and specifically western women. Here western science such as archaeology is pitted against Middle East magic. In these films, the West literally represents life and the Middle East epitomizes death.

In all these genres, Michalak argued, any real understanding of the Middle East or Arab peoples is missing. Rather, the cinematic representations are projections of Western fantasies of an area of the world largely unknown to American audiences.

In the second half of his talk, Michalak asked the audience to participate in a true-false quiz that would test their knowledge of Islam. He posed questions such as following: Is Islam the second largest religion in the world? (True) Is Allah the name that Muslims give to their god? (False, Allah is the Arabic word for God) Do Muslims believe that Jesus was divine? (True) Do Muslims bow toward the East when they pray? (False, they pray towards the city of Mecca) Many of the answers surprised the participants. Michalak suggested that a quiz like the one he presented would give teachers the opportunity to erase misconceptions about Islam and give students the opportunity to ask questions.

Lastly, Michalak extended advice to participants on how to approach Islam and religious studies to secondary school students. In the past, he has observed that students and parents are sometimes afraid that studying a religion entails proselytization. In order to obviate this problem, he suggested that teachers clearly articulate to their students that they are teaching about Islam rather than teaching Islam. He ended his talk by offering several handouts to the audience on teaching resources on Islam and the Middle East, including nonfiction and fiction books, videos, internet sources and contact organizations.

Funding is provided by Title VI grants from the United States Department of Education. 

510.643.0868 | orias@uclink4.berkeley.edu