Gender and Sexuality in Islam

Catalog description

This course will investigate how Muslims across space and time have imagined gender and sexuality. How have Islamic societies mapped the possibilities of sexed bodies and gendered performances? In what ways have they cultivated and disciplined human desire? What boundaries or spectra have they negotiated and contested? What modes of subjectivity and agency have their worlds made possible? Throughout the semester, students will develop a self-reflexive approach to their own ethical ideals, exploring how a critical engagement with diverse Islamic perspectives can illuminate the complexities of gender and sexuality both in the past and today.