
American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature
Moravian Soundscapes
A Sonic History of the Moravian Missions in Early Pennsylvania
In Moravian Soundscapes, Sarah Eyerly contends that the study of sound is integral to understanding the interactions between German Moravian missionaries and Native communities in early Pennsylvania. In the mid-18th century, when the frontier between settler and Native communities was a shifting spatial and cultural borderland, sound mattered. People listened carefully to each other and the world around them. In Moravian communities, cultures of hearing and listening encompassed and also superseded musical traditions such as song and hymnody. Complex biophonic, geophonic, and anthrophonic acoustic environments—or soundscapes—characterized daily life in Moravian settlements such as Bethlehem, Nain, Gnadenhütten, and Friedenshütten. Through detailed analyses and historically informed recreations of Moravian communal, environmental, and religious soundscapes and their attendant hymn traditions, Moravian Soundscapes explores how sounds—musical and nonmusical, human and nonhuman—shaped the Moravians' religious culture. Combined with access to an interactive website that immerses the reader in mid-18th century Pennsylvania, and framed with an autobiographical narrative, Moravian Soundscapes recovers the roles of sound and music in Moravian communities and provides a road map for similar studies of other places and religious traditions in the future.
Hip-Hop of the September 11 Generation
How do Muslims who grew up after September 11 balance their love for hip-hop with their devotion to Islam? How do they live the piety and modesty called for by their faith while celebrating an art form defined, in part, by overt sexuality, violence, and profanity?
In Representing Islam, Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir explores the tension between Islam and the global popularity of hip-hop, including attempts by the hip-hop ummah, or community, to draw from the struggles of African Americans in order to articulate the human rights abuses Muslims face. Nasir explores state management of hip-hop culture and how Muslim hip-hoppers are attempting to "Islamize" the genre's performance and jargon to bring the music more in line with religious requirements, which are perhaps even more fraught for female artists who struggle with who has the right to speak for Muslim women. Nasir also investigates the vibrant underground hip-hop culture that exists online. For fans living in conservative countries, social media offers an opportunity to explore and discuss hip-hop when more traditional avenues have been closed.
Representing Islam considers the complex and multifaceted rise of hip-hop on a global stage and, in doing so, asks broader questions about how Islam is represented in this global community.
Soundscapes of Uyghur Islam
Unity in Faith?
Edinoverie, Russian Orthodoxy, and Old Belief, 1800–1918
Founded in 1950, Indiana University Press is a full-service publisher committed to excellence in the dissemination of scholarly research and has worked at the forefront of journal publishing since 1987. Our more than three dozen scholarly journals play an important part in today’s increasingly global dialogue and feature essays, fiction, poetry, and art in a wide range of subject areas, including African studies, Jewish and Middle East studies, globalism, philosophy, religion, bioethics, folklore, electronic services, film, transnationalism, cultural studies, education, and environmental ethics.
Is Islam American Religion?
A virtual roundtable
This virtual roundtable sponsored by the Center for Religion & the Human and the academic journal American Religion, with funding provided by the Luce Foundation, took place on Thursday, October 15 at 5:00pm EDT via Zoom.

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