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Erin E. Stiles

Soon-to-be Associate Professor and Undergraduate Advisor

Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis

Ansari Business, Room 502
(775) 682-7686
estiles@unr.edu

Specializations and Areas of Interest

Anthropology of Religion; Anthropology of Law; Islamic Studies; Islamic Law and Courts; Religion and Gender; Marriage and Divorce; Religious Practice; Swahili; East Africa (Zanzibar, Tanzania, Ethiopia); Indian Ocean; Mormonism and religions in the western United States

Research

My research focuses on the intersections of religion, law, and gender, and I do fieldwork in East Africa and in Utah. Since 1999, I have done ethnographic research on Islamic courts in Zanzibar, Tanzania. My work in Zanzibar has focused primarily on the way lay people and legal professionals understand, interpret, and use Islamic legal ideas in marital disputes. I work both in and out of courts, and I am particularly interested in how Islamic judges, called kadhis, and litigants reason using not only their understandings of Islamic law but also their views of real and ideal marital behavior, patterns of local authority, and the role of Islamic courts in present-day Zanzibar. Presently, I am conducting research in northern Utah on the way in which both LDS and non-LDS women think about marriage vis-a-vis ideas and practices associated with Mormonism. In the future, I plan to return to working in East Africa with a project on Islamic law and marital disputing among Muslims in Ethiopia.

Teaching

• ANTH 101 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
• ANTH 201 Peoples and Cultures of the World
• ANTH 411B/611B Anthropology of Islam and Muslim Cultures
• ANTH 420/620 Magic, Witchcraft and Religion
• ANTH 436/636 History of Anthropology
• ANTH 439/629 Anthropology of Law (Fall 2013)
• ANTH 703 Graduate Core Course in Cultural Anthropology

Selected Publications

• Forthcoming. "The Right to Marry: Daughters and Elders in Islamic Courts of Zanzibar." Islamic Law and Society.
• In Press. "Islamic Law in East Africa." In Jonathan A. C. Brown, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islamic Law. Oxford University Press.
• In Press. "The Laws of Marriage: Sexuality, Impotence, and Divorce Suits in Zanzibar's Islamic Courts" Journal of Women Living Under Muslim Laws, Dossier 32.
• 2012 J. Brodd, L. Little, B. Nystrom, B. Platzner, R. Shek, E. Stiles, An Invitation to World Religions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• 2012 "Contemporary Expressions of Social Justice in Islam" In The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Religion and Social Justice, editors Michael D. Palmer and Stanley M. Burgess. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.
• 2012 "Hana Uwezo (He Doesn't Have the Power!): Alleged Impotence in Zanzibari Divorce Suits." Proceedings of the Southwestern Anthropological Association, Volume 5: 45-48.
• 2011 "Women and Sharia" Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World edited by Mary Zeiss Stange and Carol K. Oyster. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference.
• 2010, Editor, Proceedings of the Southwestern Anthropological Associaton, Volume 4.
• 2009 An Islamic Court in Context: An Ethnographic Study of Judicial Reasoning. New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• 2006 "Broken Edda and Marital Mistakes: Two Recent Disputes from an Islamic Court in Zanzibar." In Dispensing Justice in Islam: Qadis and their Judgments, editors Muhammad Khalid Masud, Rudolph Peters and David S. Powers. Leiden: Brill: 95-116.
• 2005 "'There is No Stranger to Marriage Here!' Muslim Women and Divorce in Rural Zanzibar." Africa: Journal of the International Africa Institute 75 (4): 582-598.
• 2004 "Women, Gender and the Articulation of Islamic/non-Islamic Legal Spheres: Sub-Saharan Africa." Encyclopedia of Women in Islamic Cultures, ed. Suad Joseph. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
• 2004 "Women, Gender, and Customary Law: Sub-Saharan Africa." Encyclopedia of Women in Islamic Cultures, ed. Suad Joseph.Leiden: E. J. Brill.
• 2003 "When is a Divorce a Divorce? Determining Intention in Zanzibar's Islamic Courts." Ethnology: An International Journal of Cultural and Social Anthropology 42 (4): 273-288.
• 2002 "Buying a Divorce in Zanzibar." ISIM Review: the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World 10 (2)

Links

• Southwestern Anthropology Association (SWAA)
• Women's Studies/Gender, Race, and Identity (www.unr.edu/cla/womenstudies)
• Minor in Religious Studies