As researchers in Central Asian Studies, we discuss the different perspectives our methodological approaches provide to understanding the content and context of Islam, security, and the state in the region. We acknowledge the role of bias in creating narratives that dominate regional and international discourse and question mono-causal explanations of Islamic practice and the roots of radicalism. As such, we offer insights into the challenges and best practices of doing research on Islam and security and posit Central Asian Studies as a case for the value of multi-disciplinary research.

This article provides a brief overview of the heuristic framework of the Modern Muslim Subjectivities Project that is being conducted at the University of Southern Denmark as of the writing of this article. The project explores ways in which Islamic traditions have played a role in the construction of modern Muslim subjectivities. Applying a problem-driven perspective, it selectively borrows from theories of successive modernities, sociology of religion, and poststructuralist approaches to modern subjectivity formation, introducing a novel heuristic framework to the field of Islamic studies. In posing the question as to the ways in which Muslims have constructed modern selfhoods, the project combines studies on Islamic reform, young Muslims in Egypt and Denmark, (post)modern Sufism, Islamic higher education, and changing notions of intimacy in two Egyptian revolutions. In criticizing the alleged exclusivity of Western modernity, the project wants to make original contributions to both conceptual discussions in the humanities and our knowledge of modern Muslim societies.

With the worldwide expansion of the modern university system during the twentieth century, higher education has become an important feature of our modern society at a global level. Islamic universities form part of this global phenomenon, but so far major studies on the globalized higher education system have ignored the role of religion in this field. This article briefly explores the role of Islam at three Islamic universities in India, with a primary focus on the Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) in New Delhi. JMI was established in 1920 and holds a long history of providing higher education, particular for Muslims, within the specific national context of India, where Muslims constitute a significant minority. More precisely, the article investigates how the “Islamic” is defined and expressed differently at the three institutions and what that difference means in conceptual terms. Finally, the findings are placed in relation to the issue of standardization/localization within the theory on globalized education.

The aim of this project is to discuss how Islamic universities in the West facilitate and condition the formation of modern Muslim subjectivities. The central question of the study is: How is the formation of modern forms of subjectivities tied together with the reinterpretation of Islamic traditions? The paper provides analysis of the curricula, and institution background, values and aims of two universities—Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, the first Muslim liberal arts college in the U.S.; and Cambridge Muslim College, the first to offer a Diploma in Muslim community leadership in Britain. Alongside the textually founded analysis, interviews conducted with leadership, faculty and students, and participatory observation inform the discussion. Analysis demonstrates that both institutions see themselves as mediators between Islamic traditions and modern Muslims in the West, and as having a responsibility to engage in the development of both Muslim minorities and the wider societies within which they operate.

A primary concern of this project is to integrate the discussion of gender and gender subjectivities in the discussion of the overall dynamics of revolutions including the conditions that led to them, the understanding of their different actors, and their agendas for change. Another focuses on understanding the way revolutions and the crises of modernity to which they responded influenced the production of gender subjectivities and contributed, in turn, to the development of working subjects who were also private actors shaped by technologies of the self that helped them deal with complex tensions and dilemmas.

Along with the periodic irreverence towards Area Studies by its disciplinary counterparts, there has also been some discomfort within the narrow confines of Film Studies for scholarship that focuses on individual national or regional cinemas. And yet, the growing interest in the cinema of the Middle East (North Africa included) is unquestionable. The four books reviewed here are part of this trend; dozens of other publications on Middle Eastern cinema have been authored in English alone in the new millennium. Explanations for this (re)ignited interest go beyond the obvious political currents in the Middle East and include, inter alia, the increasingly common practice of co-productions, mainly between Europe and the Maghreb, where the terms of the co-production often result in availing Middle Eastern films to international markets and in the inclusion of these films in prestigious film festivals worldwide. The launching of new international film festivals in the Arab world/Middle East furthers the cinematic dialogue between this region and the rest of the world. Concurrently, even a cursory survey will point to the significant surge in courses on Arab/Middle Eastern cinema since the early 2000s in institutions of higher education in the United States and beyond.