Women and Gender in the Middle East

Catalog description

This course aims to provide a nuanced historical understanding of gender, sexuality, and women’s roles in the Middle East from the early modern period to the present day. After a brief introduction to the origins of Islamic norms of gender and family, we will consider such topics as women and sex in Islamic law, life and power in the harem, Western representations of the “oriental woman,” gendered colonialism, the rise of women’s rights movements, and the politicization of sexual identities in the modern age. Through novels, films and other media, we will put legal and social norms in conversation with the complex fluidity of people’s lived experiences.