Benjamin Moseley’s Dissertation Defense｜Conversion and Power at the “Ends of the Earth”: Islam, Christianity, and Localization in Southeast Asia’s Eastern Archipelago, 1450 – 1650 (April 9)

Please join us for Benjamin Moseley’s dissertation defense on April 9th from 9:30 – 11:30 AM (HST) in Sakamaki A-201, and on Zoom (link below)!

Dissertation Defense: Thursday, April 9 from 9:30-11:30 AM (HST).
Dissertation Title: Conversion and Power at the “Ends of the Earth”: Islam, Christianity, and Localization in Southeast Asia’s Eastern Archipelago, 1450 – 1650
Zoom link: https://hawaii.zoom.us/j/82992652654
Meeting ID:  829 9265 2654
Passcode: 556883

Between the late fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the islands of Southeast Asia’s eastern archipelago—particularly those of Indonesia’s present-day Maluku and North Maluku provinces—became the site of overlapping and competitive processes of Islamization and Christianization. Although these world religions became integral to local identities, the peoples of the region were not passive recipients but active agents who interpreted, adapted, and integrated Islam and Christianity within existing cultural, political, and spiritual frameworks. Drawing on the concept of localization, this study shows how foreign religious ideas and practices were selectively reconfigured within pre-existing systems of authority, cosmology, and social organization. Conversion was layered, negotiated, and often reversible, occurring at elite, communal, and individual levels without requiring the abandonment of earlier beliefs. While rulers frequently adopted Islam or Christianity for strategic purposes, individuals were also motivated by concerns over illness, spiritual protection, and salvation. By integrating political, social, and spiritual perspectives, this dissertation reframes the eastern archipelago not as a peripheral frontier of global religions, but as a dynamic arena of religious creativity.