Overview
I am a scholar of Asia with a primary interest in religion and politics, methodologically resting on archival research as well as ethnography to answer the question of “modernity” in the twentieth and twenty-first century. My research has addressed questions of Islamic statehood (Brill 2012), religious pluralism (Routledge 2014, Cornell UP 2021), and Muslim minorities (Oxford UP 2015) in Indonesia and Southeast Asia; the disciplinary intersection between Islamic Studies, History, and Area Studies (Cambridge UP 2021, Routledge 2021); and gendered care work in Indonesia (Stanford UP 2025). My current research applies the idea of gendered care work to ritual and environmental conservation.
I teach courses on various aspects of religion and society in Asia, and I am interested in supervising honors' theses and graduate students addressing topics at the intersection of religion, politics, gender and environmental change in a cross-spatial and/or cross temporal manner.
Publications
2025 Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health and Modernity in Indonesia, Stanford University Press.
Formichi (2020) Islam and Asia: A History, Cambridge University Press
2016 "Islamic Studies or Asian Studies? Islam in Southeast Asia," The Muslim World, 106 (4): 696-718.
2015 Formichi and Feener (eds), Shi'ism in Southeast Asia: 'Alid Piety and Sectarian Constructions (New York: Oxford University Press; London: Hurst Publishers).
2015 "One Big Family? Dynamics of Interaction among the 'Lovers of the Ahlul Bayt'," in Shi'ism in Southeast Asia, pp. 269-291.
2015 "Debating 'Shi'ism' in Muslim Southeast Asia," in Shi'ism in Southeast Asia, pp. 3-15. (with R.M. Feener)
2015 Formichi and O'Connor (guest editors), "Overlooked Religions in Hong Kong," Asian Anthropology 14 (1).
2015 "(Re)Writing the History of Political Islam in Indonesia," Sojourn, 30 (1): 105-140.
2015 "Religion as an Overlooked Category in Hong Kong Legislation," Asian Anthropology, 14 (1): 21-32.
2015 "Introduction: Overlooked Religions in Hong Kong," Asian Anthropology, 14 (1): 3-7. (with P. O'Connor).
2015 "Indonesian Readings of Turkish History, 1890s to 1940s," in A.C.S. Peacock and Annabel The Gallop (eds), From Anatolia to Aceh: Ottomans, Turks and Southeast Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 241-260.
2015 "Indonesia: un Universo Poco Noto," [Indonesia: a little-known world], in Biancamaria Scarcia and Leila Karami (eds), Il Protagonismo delle Donne in Terra d'Islam: Appunti per una Lettura Storico-Politica (Roma, Ediesse) pp. 287-303.
2014 "Violence, Sectarianism, and the Politics of Religion: Articulations of anti-Shi'a Discourses in Indonesia," Indonesia, 98 (October): 1-27.
2014 "Shaping Shi'a Identities in Contemporary Indonesia between Local Tradition and Foreign Orthodoxy," Die Welt des Islams, 54: 212-236.
2014 "From Fluid Identities to Sectarian Labels: A Historical Investigation of Indonesia's Shi'i Communities," al-Jamai'ah: Journal of Islamic Studies, 52 (1): 101-126.
2013 Formichi (ed.) Religious Pluralism, State and Society in Asia (London: Routledge).
2013 "Religious Pluralism, State and Society in Asia," in Formichi (ed.) Religious Pluralism, State and Society in Asia (London: Routledge), pp. 1-9.
2013 "Mustafa Kemal's Abrogation of the Ottoman Caliphate and its Impact on the Indonesian Nationalist Movement," in Madawi al-Rasheed, Carool Kersten, Marat Shterin (eds), Demystifying the Caliphate: Historical Memory and Contemporary Contexts (New York: Columbia University PRess; London: Hurst Publishers), pp. 95-115.
2012 Islam and the Making of the Nation: Kartosuwiryo and Political Islam in 20th century Indonesia (Leiden: KITLV; Manoa: University of Hawai'i Press).
2011 "Why did Kartosuwiryo Start Shooting?: an Account of Dutch-Republican-Islamic Forces' Interaction in West Java, 1945-49," Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 43 (3): 458-486. (with R. Elson).
2010 "Pan-Islam and Religious Nationalism: the Case of Kartosuwiryo and Negara Islam Indonesia," Indonesia, 90 (October): 125-146.
In the news
- Cornell Center for Social Sciences names spring grantees
- With Cornell grants, faculty launch social sciences research
- Social Science institute supports nine A&S faculty projects