The Indiana University India Studies Program presents

Visibly Muslim:
The Emergence of New Islamic Fashions in the West

Emma Tarlo
Reader
Department of Anthropology
Goldsmiths, University of London


Thursday, September 23 at 7:00 pm
Woodburn Hall
Room 004

Emma Tarlo  is the author of the award winning book, Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India (Chicago 1996), Unsettling Memories: Narratives of the Emergency in Delhi (California 2003) and co-editor (with Annelies Moors) of Muslim Fashions, a special double issue of the Journal, Fashion Theory (2007). She runs the British wing of the Norface comparative international project on the emergence of Islamic fashion in Europe and is a co-researcher on an AHRC project on Modest Fashion and Internet Retail which focuses on Muslim, Christian and Jewish  perspectives. Her most recent book, Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith traces transformations in Muslim dress practices and the emergence of Islamic fashion in Britain (Berg 2010).

ABSTRACT

Visibly Muslim dress has in recent years become a focus of intensive media scrutiny and controversy, but very little attention has been paid to the wide range of new Islamic fashions emerging in the West. Based on her recent research on transformations in Muslim dress practices in Britain and Europe post 9/11, Emma Tarlo will explore how ideas of the Islamic are conceptualized by designers and wearers of Islamic fashion and how they are represented in online Islamic stores catering to Muslims in the West. How are ideas of fashion and faith integrated by a new generation of Western Muslims? And what role are new Islamic fashions playing in combating negative stereotypes of Muslims, transgressing national and ethnic boundaries and challenging the polarity often assumed between eastern and western, religious and secular modes of dress?

For more information regarding this and other India Studies events, please contact the India Studies Program at india@indiana.edu or 812-855-5798.

Copies of the latest book by author Emma Tarlo, /Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith/, are available at the IMU Bookstore and can be signed by Dr. Tarlo at her lecture this evening.