Project Overview
Islam and US Foreign Policy in Cold War Indonesia
Department(s)
Religion
Abstract
This Summer Research Fellowship will focus on my second book project, tentatively entitled "Cold War Islam: Religion and US Foreign Policy in Indonesia." Specifically, the book investigates American relationships with major Indonesian Muslim political parties who aligned themselves against the increasingly powerful Indonesian left in the 1950s and early 1960s. It asks: how did US efforts to mobilize anti-communist Muslim allies impact Islamic politics in Indonesia? How, in turn, did Indonesian Muslims sometimes further and sometimes undercut American foreign policy aims during the Cold War? I have been working on this project for two years now. I have gathered tens of thousands of pages of archival documents, have taken hundreds of pages of notes on those documents, and have written the first draft of 20 pages on Islamic labor unions in Cold War Indonesia. Student research assistants will help me trace and analyze US relationships with 1-2 major Indonesian Muslim leaders. This is a great opportunity to get experience with archival research and to learn a lot about both US foreign policy and Islamic politics in the world's most populous Muslim country!
Student Qualifications
No experience with archival research or Indonesia is required! However, students should be interested in religion, history, and US foreign policy and enjoy working both collaboratively and independently on a detailed research project. Preference will be given first to Religion majors and second to Religion minors, but students in related fields (like history, political science, IR, PCON, etc) will absolutely be considered as well.
Project Length
8 weeks
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