Abstract: This study examines the impact of modernity and globalization on the cultural, religious, and economic lives of Muslim settlers in Elele, Rivers State, Nigeria. It focuses on a historically rooted but understudied Muslim minority community in southern Nigeria and explores how global forces and modern social transformations have reshaped religious practices, cultural identity, and economic activities. The research adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative interviews with quantitative questionnaire data collected from Muslim settlers and selected indigenes of Elele. It is anchored in acculturation and modernization theories to analyze processes of cultural adaptation and socio-economic change. Findings reveal that modernity and globalization have significantly influenced religious observance, dress patterns, intergenerational attitudes toward Islam, and economic diversification among Muslim settlers. While technological advancement and global economic networks have expanded livelihood opportunities and enhanced social mobility, they have also generated tensions regarding cultural preservation, religious commitment, and community cohesion. Younger generations demonstrate hybrid identities shaped by both Islamic traditions and global cultural influences. The study further identifies challenges related to identity maintenance, educational choices, and social integration within a rapidly changing environment. The paper concludes that the experience of Muslim settlers in Elele reflects broader dynamics of cultural negotiation in contemporary African societies and underscores the need to sustain cultural heritage while engaging the opportunities presented by modernity and globalization.
Abstract: This essay examines the divergent trajectories of popular music and Hindutva in the aftermath of the Babri Mosque demolition on December 6, 1992, in India, situating this exploration within the broader concept of yatra —both as a literal journey and a metaphor for cultural and political movement. It demonstrates how popular songs, particularly in Hindi cinema, emerged as a cultural counterforce to Hindutva’s increasing dominance. The first section analyzes how popular music resisted religious polarization through its inclusive and syncretic traditions, while the second section examines The Kashmir Files (2022) as a turning point in the infiltration of Hindutva into a historically pluralistic Indian cinematic space. The essay ultimately argues that while political ideologies shape cultural narratives, the inherent dynamism of artistic expression fosters resistance and ongoing reconfiguration.
Abstract: Research on calligraphy has gradually increased in scholarship on Islam and the arts, although it has yet to receive the attention that other manifestations of Islamic visual culture have. Most scholarship has focused on pre-modern masters of the art, manuscripts, and epigraphy, with scant consideration of contemporary practitioners. This is paradoxical given the lacunae in knowledge of the development of the scripts, of calligraphy’s relationship to other Islamic disciplines, and of its functions in Islamic societies—and beyond. Some master calligraphers who hold traditional titles of authority to teach have also obtained advanced degrees from modern universities and have published scholarly studies of the art accessible to a range of audiences. This study introduces two male and two female scholar-calligraphers from Turkey, Iran, Jordan, and China and their publications. The study suggests furthermore that in publishing and publicly demonstrating their art, these scholar-calligraphers, intentionally or not, exercise a de-facto role in Islamic outreach.
Abstract: Art museums are often understood as classic products of the Enlightenment, in which traditional objects are removed from their original contexts and reassembled according to rational paradigms (chronological, regional, technical, etc.). This essay argues, however, that art museums are charged and unstable repositories of sacred objects whose original significance has been lost to the collective imagination, but whose residual power still beckons with magnetic power. As repositories of the sacred, art museums unwittingly preserve certain liturgical behaviors otherwise lost to the modern mind. Can today's art museums become a tool to reclaim ancient religious rhythms and perspectives on the sacred?
Abstract: This article explores the relationship between memory work and secondhand economies in the United States. "Memory work" is about the practices and conditions that constitute the ongoing (yet always partial) processes of remembering and forgetting. The continuous acts of valuation that occur with secondhand objects spotlight the contingency of memory, and a capacity for erasure or reconfiguration that is inextricable from the paths of capitalist circulation. The central argument is this: secondhand economies are a potent site of memory work that allow for the interruption of remembering through practices of material separation as well as the restoration of memory through practices of material discovery. To illustrate, I present examples of religious ephemera that emerge from Christian contexts.
