Academic papers

Here is a brief annotated bibliography of different papers on Sufi Orders or music in Islam.

McLaughlin, Fiona.  Islam and popular music in Senegal: the emergence of a ‘new tradition’. (i-epistemology.net)
The city of Dakar is a visual and verbal testament to the pervasive influence of Islam on Senegalese popular culture…images of the mosque of Touba, the holy city of the Mouride Sufi order, grace the facades of small restaurants and bread kiosks; and in a local nightclub, well dressed Dakarois dance to popular singer Youssou Ndour’s hit song about the founder of the Mouride order, Cheikh Amadou Barnba. In this article I explore the influence of Islam on a single aspect of Senegalese popular culture, but one which more than any other has transcended international boundaries, namely popular music. More…

John A Maurer IV Music in the World of Islam (i-epistemology.net)
In this paper, it is my goal to study the influence of the Qur’an and Islamic religious beliefs on the role and realization of sound art in the world of Islam. More…

Lovatt, Hugh Transnational Musics and Cultural Authenticity Between Global Beats and Local Sounds.
This essay will examine how global music markets continuously transform people’s measures of an indigenous music, as well as how music is authenticated at the levels of global and local music consumption. Firstly, it will investigate how cultural capitalis transmitted from the local to the global by discussing the process of self-exoticisation or self-orientalisation – to borrow from Said (1978)- enacted by World Music artists within global music markets. More…

The Good, the Bad, and the Highly Problematic: Complicating Notions of Muslim Engagement in the Indian Public Sphere Rachana Rao Umashankar, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Grave Danger: Deoband, Sufi Devotions, and Saints’ Shrines 
Brannon Ingram, Department of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Sharing Saints, Shrines, and Stories: Practicing Pluralism in Maler Kotla and North India 
Anna Bigelow, associate professor of Islamic studies, Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh