• Professor, Anthropology
• Professor, Religious Studies
• Chair and Professor, Social Thought & Analysis

John Bowen

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• Ph.D. in Anthropology at University of Chicago
• M.A. in Anthropology at University of Chicago
• B.A. in Interdisciplinary/Philosophical Anthropology at Stanford University

News Stories & Tip Sheets:

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Headscarves? Non! Why the French government banned headscarves in schools Dec. 14, 2006 -- Explaining "why the French don't like headscarves" in public schools. March will mark the third anniversary of a law passed by the French government banning from public schools all clothing that indicates a student's religious affiliation. Though written in a religion-neutral way, most people in France, and around the world, knew the law was aimed at keeping Muslim girls from wearing headscarves to class. But why? John R. Bowen, Ph.D., a sociocultural anthropologist in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was in France at the time and has written an enlightening book, recently published by Princeton University Press, titled "Why the French Don't Like Headscarves: Islam, the State and Public Space." More...

Highly competitive fellowship program Washington University's John Bowen one of 16 nationwide selected a Carnegie Scholar Nov. 11, 2005 -- John R. Bowen, Ph.D., the Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named a 2005 Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corp. of New York. Bowen, who also is chair and professor of Social Thought and Analysis in Arts & Sciences, is one of 16 scholars nationwide selected in this highly competitive fellowship program.

Tsunami relief Aceh province can rebuild, but United States needs to assist volunteer groups, says Indonesian expert Feb. 2, 2005 -- John Bowen doing fieldwork in Sumatra, Indonesia, in the late 1970s. Despite suffering large loss of life and devastation of cities and villages from the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami, Aceh province in Indonesia can rebuild. And at the same time, the United States can burnish its image among Indonesians — tarnished over the invasion of Iraq — by supporting Indonesian volunteer groups in the rebuilding process, says a sociocultural anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis who lived in Aceh for five years and has studied its people and culture since 1978.

St. Louis and beyond Inequalities in schools and neighborhoods focus of daylong conference Feb. 27 Feb. 18, 2004 -- Social inequalities in schools and neighborhoods will be addressed by leading national scholars as well as prominent local scholars, experts and activists during a daylong conference Feb. 27 at Washington University. WUSTL's Program in Social Thought & Analysis (STA) in Arts & Sciences is sponsoring the conference, titled "Inequalities in Schools & Neighborhoods: St. Louis and Beyond."

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Secularism, the French & Alfred Dreyfus The New York Sun July 7, 2006 -- Several hundred Parisians gathered at City Hall yesterday to pay tribute to a French army captain, Alfred Dreyfus,who was convicted wrongly of treason in a trial that divided France more than a century ago. Anti-Semitism and assimilation are still controversial subjects in France today. WUSTL anthropology professor John Bowen comments.

Identity Crisis: Old Europe Meets New Islam Frontline Feb. 1, 2005 -- Europe's 18 million Muslims represent the continent's fastest growing religion; however this community of immigrants who share religious and ethnic bonds has largely failed to integrate into European societies founded on secular principles. WUSTL anthropology professor John Bowen comments on the attempts by European governments to regulate Muslim groups.

Bowen's research is concerned primarily with the role of cultural forms (religious practices, aesthetic genres, legal discourse) in processes of social change. In most of his work he has looked outward from a long-term research site in the Gayo highlands of Sumatra, Indonesia, to the broader transformations taking place in the Indonesian nation and the worldwide Muslim community.

In most of his writing, Bowen has tried to link historical and ethnographic material. His first book focused on related changes in Sumatran political structures and cultural forms since 1900, and included analysis of oratory, song, and historical narratives. A second book traces divergences in religious institutions and ideas since the 1920s. In it, he examines how Gayo men and women draw on Islamic formulations in carrying out their activities of farming, healing, praying, and burying the dead. His third book concerns issues of legal change, and it grows out of research on Islamic and civil courts in Indonesia. Bowen's current work concerns the adaptation of Islam to France.

Along with with his anthropology appointment, Bowen also chairs the Committee on Social Thought and Analysis, a multidisciplinary program in the social sciences. Its colloquium series brings together faculty and students in economics, political science, history, social work, and literature, as well as anthropology, and gives graduate students a chance to hear speakers from a variety of disciplines.

Selected publications

1991 Sumatran Politics and Poetics: Gayo History, 1900-1989. New Haven: Yale University Press.

1993 Muslims Through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

1999 (with Roger Petersen) Critical Comparisons in Politics and Culture Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2002 Religions in Practice. Allyn & Bacon.

2002 Entangled Commands: Islam, Law, and Equality in Indonesian Public Reasoning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2003 The Development of Southeast Asian Studies in the United States. In The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines, edited by David L. Szanton. University of California Press/University of California International and Area Studies Digital Collection, Edited Volume #3, 2003.