Noah Salomon

 

Noah Salomon is a Ph.D. student in the History of Religions in the Divinity School.

Noah received his B.A. in religion from Reed College in 1999 and his M.A. from the Divinity School in 2001, with a focus in Islamic Studies. He has spent recent summers in Damascus and Khartoum studying Arabic language and engaging in prelimary fieldwork for his dissertation.

I completed my M.A. at the Divinity School in 2001, then left to pursue my Ph.D. work elsewhere. I wanted to see what graduate school life was like outside of the University of Chicago. Since this was the only place I had done graduate work, I was not really aware of how uniquely enriching an education at the Divinity School truly is. I was unsatisfied in my experience at this other institution, and decided to come back the Divinity School to complete my Ph.D.

I have seen both sides of the fence, and I feel confident in saying that there is nowhere like the Divinity School. The thing I missed most about the Divinity School when I was away was the real sense of intellectual community that it fosters. The intensity of the students and the faculty, and their sincere interest in one another's projects and academic achievements, makes this place special. People do not slip through the cracks here; there are no anonymous students. The faculty and the deans are keenly interested in each student's academic progress. Perhaps the most surprising thing about all of this is that this close-knit academic community survives in what is a great research institution as well. All of the faculty and students are currently involved in exciting projects and constantly have new research to share.

The other thing that I really missed about the Divinity was the interdisciplinary nature of the conversations here. Students approach religious traditions from a variety of perspectives: theology, history, anthropology, and literary criticism are just a few among many. Classes and lectures are therefore quite exciting, as questions are raised from all of these disciplinary perspectives. For example, the student whose training has been in anthropology is forced to address questions pertinent to the theologian and the literary theorist, while the theologian must answer to the critiques of the historian or the anthropologist. Scholarship at the Divinity School reflects the richness of the interdisciplinary approach.

As for my own research, I am focusing on the contemporary Islamic revival in the Middle East and Africa. I am particularly interested in the Islamization of public institutions (the judiciary, the education system, etc.) and its effects on religious discourse and practice among citizens. My dissertation will focus on contemporary Sudan, where I have been undertaking ethnographic fieldwork. Here I am focusing on the role of Islam in the new national curriculum. In my research I will look at what happens to Islamic discourse when it is forced to reason itself into the constraints of a school curriculum. Further, I aim to explore how Islam taught in schools is both utilized and reworked by a religiously diverse community, which includes Sufi and Salafi Muslims, Catholic, Orthodox, and protestant Christians, as well as followers of indigenous African religions.