I am an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Florida. To date, my research has focused on the so-called traditionalist Muslim community in Indonesia. My newest book, A Peaceful Jihad: Negotiating Modernity and Identity in Muslim Java (Palgrave McMillan, 2005) examines how this community is engaging globalization through educational and other means. Based on extensive ethnographic research, this book examines how the Islamic community in Java, Indonesia, is actively negotiating both modernity and tradition in the contexts of nation-building, globalization, and a supposed clash of civilizations. The pesantren community, so-called because it is centered around an educational institution called the pesantren, uses education as a central arena for dealing with globalization and the construction and maintenance of an Indonesian Islamic identity. However, the community's efforts to wrestle with these issues extend beyond education into the public sphere in general and specifically in the area of leadership and politics. The case material is used to understand Muslim strategies and responses to civilizational contact and conflict. I have also published on sacred geography, religious commoditization, and popular culture.
You can find my vitae here http://www.unf.edu/coas/soc-anth/Faculty%20Profiles/LukensBullCV.pdf