John R. Bowen is the Dunbar–Van Cleve Professor in Arts and Sciences, Washington University, St Louis. His fieldwork in Indonesia, France and England, on topics ranging from poetics and political history to civil law reasoning and everyday forms of Islam, has spanned over thirty years. He has published widely on his research interests, and his Islam, Law and Equality in Indonesia (Cambridge, 2003) won the prize for best work from the Law and Society Association.