Claire-Marie Hefner, PhD.

I am a Visiting Assistant Professor of Islam in the Interdisciplinary Study of Religions Program at Bard College where I teach courses on Islam, gender, intimacy, and pop culture. I am currently completing my book manuscript Achieving Islam: Women, Education, and Morality in Indonesia. 

Based on over two years of field research, Achieving Islam is book-length ethnographic study of women’s achievement and moral learning in two Islamic boarding schools for girls in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It asks, how does Islamic schooling impact the imagined futures and real-life trajectories of their female students? What does the moral learning of Indonesian Islamic boarding school (pesantren) students tell us about how young Muslims today engage, reconceive, and enact Islam? What role does leisure and fun play in the ethical subject formation of Muslim women students? What lessons does this Indonesian example offer for how anthropologists understand freedom, agency, and human flourishing? 

Prior to my position at Bard College, I held a Hunt Fellowship from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (2021-2022). Previously, I have held visiting teaching positions at Florida State University (Religion Department, 2019-2021) and Manhattanville College (Department of Sociology and Anthropology, 2016-2019). My teaching experience includes introductory courses on Cultural Anthropology, gender and sexuality, Islam, and education as well as seminars on themes of gender and Islam; religion and new media; ethnographic writing; and Southeast Asian studies.