B Arts, M Arts, PhD

Deputy Director, Griffith Asia Institute

Contact details for Professor Julia Howell

Research interests

• Religion, society and modernity
• Indonesian studies
• Sociology of Islam
• Asian New Religious Movements in Western societies
• Spiritual practices and religious experiences in Hindu and Sufi traditions
• Gender studies

Recent publications

Refereed journal articles

• 2006 "The New Spiritualities East and West: Colonial Legacies and Changing Patterns of Glocalisation." Australian Religion Studies Review 19,1.
• 2006 "Many Paths to God and Modernity: Of Sufism, Syncretism and Universalism in Twentieth Century Indonesian Islam." (Condensed reprint.) Revue Esprit (Paris).
• 2005 "Muslims, the New Age and Marginal Religions in Indonesia: Changing Meanings of Religious Pluralism." Social Compass, published by Sage for the Société Internationale de Sociologie des Religions (International Society for the Sociology of Religion), Leuven, Belgium.(52,4: 473-493.)
• 2005 "Urban Heirs of Ibn al-'Arabi and the Defence of Religious Pluralism in Indonesia." Australian Religion Studies Review 18,2 (Nov/Dec 2005).
• 2001 "New Faces of Indonesian Sufism: A Demographic Profile of Tarekat Qodiriyyah-Naqsyabandiyyah, Pesantren Suryalaya in the 1990s." Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs 35,2:33-60. (With M.A. Subandi, 2nd author, and Peter L. Nelson, 3rd author.)
• 2001 "Sufism and the Indonesian Islamic Revival." (PDF 148k) Journal of Asian Studies 60,3 (August):701-729.
• 2000 "Reason and Religion in Post-Modern Societies: New Prospects for Complementarity." Ihya 'Ulum al-Din (Semarang) 2,2 (December):197-210. ISSN:1411-3708.
• 2000 "The Brahma Kumaris in the Western World, Part II: Demographic Change and Secularization in an Asian New Religious Movement." Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion 11:225-239. Greenwich, Conn.: Jai Press. (With Peter L. Nelson)

Books

• 2007 Sufism and the ‘Modern’ in Islam, edited by Martin van Bruinessen and Julia Day Howell. London: I.B. Tauris.

Book chapters

• 2008 "Sufism and the Indonesian Islamic Revival." In Sufism: Critical Concepts , ed. by Lloyd Ridgeon. London: Routledge.
  
• Forthcoming. "Modulations of Active Piety: Professors and Televangelists as Promoters of Indonesian 'Sufisme'." In Islam in Indonesia, Contemporary Piety and Politics, ed. by Greg Fealy and Sally White. Singapore: ISEAS Press.
  
• Forthcoming. "Many Paths to God and Modernity: Of Sufism, Syncretism and Universalism in Twentieth Century Indonesian Islam." In L’islam dans les rythmes du temps mondial, edited by Patrick Haenni and Olivier Roy. Paris: Karthala Publishers.
• 2007 "Between ‘Jihad’ and ‘McWorld’: Engaged Sufism in Indonesia." In Islam and Political Violence, edited by Shahram Akbarzadeh, and Fethi Mansouri. London: I.B. Tauris, pages 165-179.
• 2007 "Introduction." In Sufism and the ‘Modern’ in Islam, edited by Martin van Bruinessen and Julia Day Howell. London: Routledge (with Martin van Bruinessen).
• 2007 "Modernity and Islamic Spirituality in Indonesia’s New Sufi Networks." In Sufism and the ‘Modern’ in Islam, edited by Martin van Bruinessen and Julia Day Howell. London: Routledge.
• 2005 "Sufisme dan Islam Liberal" [Sufism and Liberal Islam]. In Islam, Negara dan Civil Society: Gerakan dan Pemikiran Islam Kontemporer [Islam, State and Civil Society: Contemporary Islamic Movements and Thought], edited by Komaruddin Hidayat and Ahmad Gaus, AF. Jakarta: Paramadina, pages 441-462.
• 2005 "Gender in New Religious Movements." In Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements edited by Peter Clarke. London: Routledge. (1000 word essay)
• 2000 "Religion." In Culture and Society in the Asia-Pacific, edited by Richard Maidment and Colin Mackerras. London: Routledge, pages 115-140.
• 2000 "Religious Traditions in Asia." In Eastern Asia, An Introductory History, 3rd edition, edited by Colin Mackerras. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, pages 51-64 (with David Schak, 2nd author).
• 2000 "The Role of Religions in Modernizing Asia." In Eastern Asia, An Introductory History, 3rd edition, edited by Colin Mackerras. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, pages 405-415 (with David Schak, 2nd author).

Essays and short entries in reference work

• 2007 "Repackaging Sufism in Urban Indonesia." ISIM Review (a publication of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World) No. 19 (Spring):22-23.
• 2005 "Brahma Kumaris." In Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements edited by Peter Clarke. London: Routledge. (750 word entry)
• 2005 "Dada Lekhraj." In Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements edited by Peter Clarke. London: Routledge. (350 word entry)
• 2005 "Subud." In Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements edited by Peter Clarke. London: Routledge. (750 word entry)
• 2005 "Latihan." In Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements edited by Peter Clarke. London: Routledge. (350 word entry)
• 2001 "Indonesia’s Urban Sufis: Challenging Stereotypes of Islamic Revival." (PDF 3.7Mb) International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World Newsletter 6:17.

Refereed conference papers

• 2004 "Spirituality vs ‘Religion’ Indonesian Style: Framing and Reframing Experiential Religiosity in Contemporary Indonesia." (PDF 52k) Conference Proceedings for the 2004 meeting of the Asian Studies Association of Australia. (Web published refereed papers)
• 2002 "Seeking Sufism in the Global City: Indonesia’s Cosmopolitan Muslims and Depth Spirituality." (PDF 221k) Proceedings from the international conference on "Islam in Southeast Asia and China: Regional Faithlines and Faultlines in the Global Ummah " run by the City University of Hong Kong's Southeast Asia Research Centre, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Hong Kong, 28 November – 1 December 2002.