26112 - Gender, Cultures and Conflicts in the Mediterranean Region

Learning outcomes

The course aims to provide useful knowledge and tools  for understanding the evolution and transformation of gender ideologies in the context of Middle Eastern and Muslim diaspora in Europe. At the end of the course the student: -is able to understand and critically analyze the factors which determine gender roles in the area in question -is able to discern and evaluate the importance of a gender perspective for understanding and critically analyze broader issues such as the relationship between state and Islam, development, citizenship in the Middle East.

Course contents

The course includes three areas of study:

 

- Colonialism, Orientalism and national liberation movements: Women and gender in colonial context (Italian and French colonialism in Libya and Algeria; Protectorates in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt); Gender, colonial imaginaries and Orientalism; National liberation movements and women participations.

 

- National building, women movements and Islam: the National building process in the Mediterranean region and the "woman's issue" (Turkey, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia); Socialism, Pan-Arabism and “women emancipation movements”; Islamist movements and Islamic feminism in the MENA region.

 

- Gender, citizenship and development: Concepts of gender and masculinities  in the Mediterranean region; debates on the relations between Islam and modernity; the family law reforms, political participation and civil society; gender, development, rights and citizenships.

Readings/Bibliography

- Abu Lughod, L. (2003) “Saving Muslim Women or Standing with them? On Images, Ethics, and War in Our Times”, Insaniyaat, Spring 2003, Vol. 1 Issue 1.

- Badran, M. (1995). Feminists, Islam, and nation: gender and the making of modern Egypt. Princeton University Press. Meyda Yegenoglu, Colonial fantasies: towards a feminist reading of Orientalism, Cambridge : Cambridge university press, 1998

- Moghadam Valentine M. , Modernizing women : gender and social change in the Middle East : Lynne Rienner, 1993.

- Moha Ennaji and Fatima Sadiqi (eds.), Gender and violence in the Middle East, UCLA center for Middle East development (CMED), 4, 2011, New York, NY : Routledge

- Nikki R. Keddie, Women in the Middle East : past and present, Princeton ; Oxford : Princeton University Press, 2007

- Sadiqi, Fatima; Moha, Ennaji (eds.), Women in the Middle East and North Africa. Agents of Change, Routledge, 2010

- Salih, R., Musulmane Rivelate. Donne, Islam, Modernità, Roma: Carocci, 2008.

- Suad Joseph, Gender and citizenship in the Middle East, Syracuse : Syracuse University press, 2000

- Zakya Daoud, Feminisme et politique au Maghreb : sept decennies de lutte, Casablanca : EDDIF, 1996

Teaching methods

Lectures, seminars, workshops, students presentations, documentary projections.

Assessment methods

For the students attending classes the evaluation will be based, according to the student preference, on an oral presentation or a term paper. The topic will be agreed at the beginning of the classes and discussed during the final examination.

Students not attending classes will discuss during the examamination the following texts:

- Suad Joseph (ed.), Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East, Syracuse University Press, 2000

- Fatima Sadiqi, Moha Ennaji (eds.), Women in the Middle East and North Africa. Agents of Change, Routledge, 2010 (only four chapters)

Teaching tools

Video, Power Point, DVD

Office hours

See the website of Silvia Bruzzi