{"id":8397,"date":"2013-11-26T09:45:26","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T14:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=8397"},"modified":"2014-01-25T18:09:48","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T23:09:48","slug":"tajikistan-expert-professor-jo-ann-gross-shares-her-research-to-promote-understanding-dispel-stereotypes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=8397","title":{"rendered":"Tajikistan expert Professor Jo-Ann Gross shares her research to promote understanding, dispel stereotypes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"gross-and-students\"<\/a>
Professor Jo-Ann Gross (center) with students in this year’s “Maymester” Silk Road Tour at the shrine complex Shah-i Zinda in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With one foot in the mountains of Tajikistan and the other on TCNJ\u2019s campus, history Professor Jo-Ann Gross<\/strong> sheds light on a region of the world that she says is often viewed only through the distorting prism of politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans generally have a limited understanding of Islam based on popular media. I\u2019m interested in the deeper, more complex religious traditions of Islam,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel very strongly about the teaching of my scholarship. I feel the obligation to share it today more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gross\u2019s scholarship was sparked by a visit to Central Asia decades ago. It evolved as she delved into the study of Sufism\u2014the mystical aspect of Islam\u2014and its culture of shrines. Her research at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Uzbekistan led her eventually to Tajikistan, where her interest deepened. She recalls being swept off her feet at the sight of the shrine of Muhammad Bashara, who, according to oral tradition, is said to have brought Islam to the region at the urging of the Prophet himself.<\/p>\n

In Tajikistan, Gross\u2019s research took an ethnographic turn, as she interacted with people and places in order to, \u201cunderstand the culture through people who are alive today as well as through historical documents,\u201d she says. \u201cThe Tajik people are very open to that kind of research. I speak the language and they are honored and grateful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though her forthcoming book, Muslim Shrines and Spiritual Culture in the Perso-Islamic World<\/em>, is grounded in the country\u2019s ancient shrine culture, Gross\u2019s research comes alive through its multiple perspectives: the religious figures buried in the shrines, local shrine traditions, universal Islamic sacred history, political history, and her engagement with the Tajik people of today.<\/p>\n

Gross illuminates this part of the world through other avenues, too. She introduces her students to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on \u201dMaymester\u201d trips and inspires budding scholars, including Esther Tetruashvily \u201911<\/strong>, now completing her master\u2019s degree at Harvard, and Bryan Furman \u201913<\/strong>, a Fulbright student scholar currently in Tajikistan. She has also developed a summer volunteer program in Tajikistan through America\u2019s Unofficial Ambassadors, a non-governmental organization based in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n

Gross recently was honored by the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan for her groundbreaking work on the nation\u2019s \u201csacred geography\u201d and her longstanding support for its scholars. She was voted a lifetime member of the academy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With one foot in the mountains of Tajikistan and the other on TCNJ\u2019s campus, history Professor Jo-Ann Gross sheds light on a region of the world that she says is often viewed only through the distorting prism of politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-spotlight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}