Former CASBS fellow John R. Bowen (class of 1995-96) is among just 33 recipients of an Andrew Carnegie Fellows award. The Andrew Carnegie Corporation of New York announced the winners on Tuesday.
A sociocultural anthropologist, since 2000 Bowen has held the title of Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
According to its web site, the Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program “provides the most prestigious and most generous fellowships advancing research in the social sciences and humanities. The anticipated result of each fellowship is the publication of a book or major study.” Carnegie fellows are selected “based on the originality, promise, and potential impact of their proposals.”
Bowen won his award based on his proposal “Islam Adapting in the West.” His research broadly focuses on comparative social studies of Islam across the world. His Washington University faculty page indicates that he has conducted ethnographic studies worldwide, in particular analyzing “how Muslims (judges and scholars, public figures, ordinary people) work across plural sources of norms and values, including diverse interpretations of the Islamic tradition, law codes and decisions, and local social norms.”
Bowen worked on one of his many publications while a CASBS fellow. The result was his 2003 book Islam, Law and Equality in Indonesia: An Anthropology of Public Reasoning (Cambridge University Press), winner of the 2004 Herbert Jacobs Prize by the Law and Society Association for the outstanding book of 2003.
The book is a proud part of the famed Ralph W. Tyler Collection – works that were conceived, initiated, or completed by CASBS fellows during their fellowship year and that acknowledge the Center in print.