Katia Chaterji was a 2020 Mellon Collaborative Fellow for Reaching New Publics with Jessica Bachman. Katia’s dissertation explores the relationship between Islam and the performing arts in the making of regional Islamic histories in maritime Southeast Asia. Approaching performance as a meaningful site of Islamic cultural knowledge production and transmission, she engages with performing arts traditions associated with dakwah (Islamic proselytization) in Indonesia’s northwestern island of Sumatra. Her project discusses issues of permissibility of art within Islamic practice, gendered stewardship of intangible heritage, and individual agency in the formation of Malay Islamic cultural identity and understandings of Islamic history in Sumatra.