Team 5a First Reading Session Report: Islam and the Culture of Dress　

Terming "Islam in Daily Life" as our theme, the first reading session of　the Islam and the Culture of Dress was held on Monday, August 31 at Sophia University after a public offering was held by Team 5a. The text used in the session and the presenters are as follows:

Lindisfarne-Trapper, N. & B. Ingham (eds.), Languages of Dress in the Middle East, London: Curzon Press, 1997.

1. Chapter 1 "Approaches to the Study of Dress in the Middle East"1 N. Lindisfarne-Trapper & B. Ingham

Presenter: Tsuyoshi Saito(Graduate School, Tokyo Metropolitan University)

Commentator: Reiko Ohtsubo (Graduate School, University of Tokyo )

2. Chapter 9 "Faith and Fashion in Turkey"2 J. Norton

Presenter: Eiko Suzuki (Graduate School, Ochanomizu University)

Commentator: Kaoru Murakami (Institute of Developing Economy)

Written by Mayuko Ohkawa (Graduate School, Tokyo Metropolitan University)

1 The objective of this book is to "illustrate the intimate relation between aspects of clothing technologies, language use and social relations" (from Resume) by focusing on the particularity of dress----dress convention in a particular setting.　The authors first criticize the widely accepted functionalist approach of explaining the dress in the Middle East as lacking the factor of its variation, although participants argued that the functionalist approach also has some validity in its argument. The authors also characterize the dress as a language in that dress can create and confirm personal and collective identities. However, from what perspective they link the notion of language with that of dress is unclear. In addition, since it is uncertain whether it is necessarily only the dress of the "Middle East" that could be characterized as a language, we need to look closely at other regional cases and also think over the meaning of the book's title. Furthermore, in their argument of dress and gender, the authors criticize the Orientalist discourse that tends to generalize the Middle East. Although veil is often argued in the context of the state supervision and religion, some participants introduced examples of veil as 'fashion' and as a means of 'anonymity', not as a symbol, in Yemen and Oman, where Islamic revivalism has not come to the surface.　In sum, voices were heard that the content was so comprehensive that we cannot see the authorsﾕ point.

2 The dresses of the Ottoman people was reviewed briefly followed by Ataturk's prohibition of the Turkish hat (fez). History of the role of the dress in the controversy between Islamist and secularist following the prohibition was traced. Dress is undetachable from the rhetoric of modernization in Turkey, and the fact that the state power was undeniably strong was confirmed.　However, some comments were raised that the report lacked economic and political depiction; that the effects of the Iranian Revolution were left unmentioned. However, we all agreed on author's point that the Turkish dress "mirrored the era" (from Resume).