"Kyai Haji Abdullah Gymnastiar, known affectionately by Indonesians as ""Aa Gym"" (elder brother Gym), rose to fame via nationally televised sermons, best-selling books, and corporate training seminars. In Rebranding Islam James B. Hoesterey draws on two years' study of this charismatic leader and his message of Sufi ideas blended with Western pop psychology and management theory to examine new trends in the religious and economic desires of an aspiring middle class, the political predicaments bridging self and state, and the broader themes of religious authority, economic globalization, and the end(s) of political Islam.
At Gymnastiar's Islamic school, television studios, and MQ Training complex, Hoesterey observed this charismatic preacher developing a training regimen called Manajemen Qolbu into Indonesia's leading self-help program via nationally televised sermons, best-selling books, and corporate training seminars. Hoesterey's analysis explains how Gymnastiar articulated and mobilized Islamic idioms of ethics and affect as a way to offer self-help solutions for Indonesia's moral, economic, and political problems. Hoesterey then shows how, after Aa Gym's fall, the former celebrity guru was eclipsed by other television preachers in what is the ever-changing mosaic of Islam in Indonesia. Although Rebranding Islam tells the story of one man, it is also an anthropology of Islamic psychology."
Contents and AbstractsIntroduction: Authority, Subjectivity, and the Cultural Politics of Public Piety chapter abstractThe Introduction frames the book in terms of the anthropology of psychology and it within theoretical conversations concerning religious authority, Muslim subjectivity, and the cultural politics of public piety. It argues that Aa Gym garnered religious authority through adept use of media and the deliberate cultivation of his personal brand in the religious marketplace of modernity. His authority was marked by distinctive affective and economic relationships between preacher-producer and consuming devotees. It also argues that Islamic self-help psychology promotes models of personhood that are commensurate with, but cannot be reduced to, neoliberal logics of self-enterprise and democratic notions of civic virtue. Aa Gym also leveraged his public pulpit into political voice in an attempt to discipline state actors during the drafting of controversial anti-pornography legislation. The Introduction argues that scholarly understandings of political Islam must focus on popular culture, not simply electoral politics and formal institutions. 1Branding Islam: Autobiography, Authenticity, and Religious Authority chapter abstractKnown across the Indonesian archipelago as a shrewd entrepreneur, doting husband, and virtuous family man, Gymnastiar legitimated his claim to religious authority through his ability to market himself as the embodiment of Islamic virtue. This chapter/////// 2Enchanting Science: Popular Psychology as Religious Wisdom chapter abstract 3Ethical Entrepreneurs: Islamic Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism chapter abstract 4Prophetic Cosmopolitanism: The Prophet Muhammad as Psycho-Civic exemplar chapter abstract 5Shaming the State: Pornography and the Moral Psychology of Statecraft chapter abstract 6Sincerity and Scandal: The Moral and Market Logics of Religious Authority chapter abstract Conclusion: Figuring Islam: Popular Culture and the Cutting Edge of Public Piety chapter abstract
James B. Hoesterey is Assistant Professor of Religion at Emory University.
Reviews for Rebranding Islam: Piety, Prosperity, and a Self-Help Guru
The story of Aa Gym holds many lessons on the interface between globalization, marketing, and religious authority in the contemporary Muslim world. James Hoesterey's stunning ethnography is much more than just a superb account of religious life in the world's largest Muslim nation; his work also identifies broader trends around the political economy and sociology of Islamic knowledge that are relevant to many settings today. -- Peter Mandaville, Professor of International Affairs George Mason University This work is quite simply one of the best written, theoretically well-informed, and downright interesting works in both anthropology and religious studies that I have read in the past four years. It speaks engagingly across a variety of disciplines and debates, including Islamic studies of contemporary Sufism and sociological and political science studies of Islam's crisis of religious authority. I can think of no other work that achieves this work's balance of readability and theoretical depth. -- Robert W. Hefner, Director, Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs Rebranding Islam is a welcome and overdue response to analyses of political Islam that focus on either violence or voting as the only two modes of political expression in the 21st century. By analyzing the vibrant styles of Islamic political communication in Indonesia, the world's largest majority-Muslim country, Hoesterey powerfully and singularly broadens our questions. This book should challenge assumptions that undergird pernicious claims about the incompatibility of Islamic piety and democratic politics. -- Carla Jones, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Rebranding Islam represents a study that transcends conventional scholarly approaches in grasping the dynamics of religious life in Indonesia ... These and other theoretical questions the book provokes attest to its analytical richness inviting the reader to rethink the ways Islamic developments in Indonesia have been investigated so far ... In short, the book is a must-read for scholars and students of Indonesian Islam, as well as highly recommended for a wider scholarly audience interested in the transformation of religion in the contemporary era at large. -- Martin Slama Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde
