Carnegie Scholar Explores Women and Islam
Professor of Law Madhavi Sunder, increasingly recognized for her scholarly contributions where law and culture meet, was named a 2006 Carnegie scholar and will write her first book about Muslim women working to reform their religion from within. Her book will be titled The New Enlightenment: How Muslim Women Are Bringing Religion Out of the Dark Ages.
"Islam is stereotyped as regressive, anti-modern, anti-Western, and incompatible with democracy," Sunder said. "Too often, the media ignore those people doing the much harder work of exposing Islam's modern side."
Sunder's project, which received the maximum $100,000 award, is one of 20 that the Carnegie Corp. is funding this year to advance knowledge of Islam and of Muslim societies. That Carnegie promotes the communication of research beyond academia to policymakers and the public is in line with Sunder's thinking, "I want to take the ideas to the public."
June 26, 2006/Dateline UC Davis