Book Exhibit

The book Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject is about the Islamist culture movement in Cairo, Egypt. The book also critiques secular-liberal assumptions that people thought about during the movement. The book discusses three questions including “How do movements of moral reform help us rethink the normative liberal account of politics? How does the adherence of women to the patriarchal norms at the core of such movements parochialize key assumptions within feminist theory about freedom, agency, authority, and the human subject? How does a consideration of debates about embodied religious rituals among Islamists and their secular critics help us understand the conceptual relationship between bodily form and political imaginaries?” These three questions serve as the books main argument as it answers them clearly. This is a functional argument because it answers how religion plays into effect in the Islamist movement of culture. 

The next book Taking America Back for Good brings out the phenomenon of Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism means the United States should be known as a Christian nation. One simple example of this is the controversy of whether the phrase “under God” should remain in the pledge of allegiance or not. The book discusses “Christian nationalism demands that we must preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone–Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women recognizes their “proper” place in society.” The book illustrates the influence Cristian nationalism has on society today which is the main argument of the book. Since this argument discusses how it affects society, it is a functional argument that explains how religion is affected by this movement.

Liz Bucar’s book Pious Fashion explains her take on clothing worn by Muslim women. She explains it to be a far cry from the older feminist attitude toward veiling. Bucar explains “that modest clothing represents much more than social control or religious orthodoxy. Today, headscarves are styled to frame the head and face in interesting ways, while colors and textures express individual tastes and challenge aesthetic preconceptions. Brand-name clothing and accessories serve as conveyances of social distinction and are part of a multimillion-dollar ready-to-wear industry.” Bucar uses a different view that on more than just a veil by including head to toe pious fashion. The main argument of the book is explaining how Pious Fashion defines modesty in Islamic dress as a constantly changing social practice for Muslim women. This created a range of available clothing styles that are seen as appropriate and attractive in society today. This argument is functional because Pious Fashion is an important movement in the way Muslim women dress and how they go about their everyday lives. 

These three books are different but also similar is their own ways. The first one discusses the Islamic movement of the feminist subject. The next one focuses on the importance of Christian nationalism in the United States. The last one explains Pious Fashion of Muslim women. These three books all have an effect on society today through a different lens. The three books come together to create a functionalist approach to the effects of religion on our society through feminism, religion and clothing. These differ from what we learned in class about Tylor and Freud. Tylor discussed the origin of religion but these books focus more on what has shaped religion today rather than what started it. It is important to discuss both the origin and how it is shaped today in order to get a full functional meaning behind it.