CALL FOR ABSTRACTS : SPECIAL ISSUE OF GENDER & HISTORY

Historicizing Sexuality and Gender
Issue Editors: Kevin P. Murphy, Dept. of History, University of Minnesota & Jennifer M. Spear, Dept. of History, Simon Fraser University

In the influential 1984 essay, "Thinking Sex: Notes Toward a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality," Gayle Rubin asserted that "although sex and gender are related, they are not the same thing, and they form the basis of two distinct arenas of social practice." Building on this insight, and challenging the tendency of feminist theory to treat sexuality as derivative of gender, Rubin declared it "essential to separate gender and sexuality analytically to reflect more accurately their separate social existence."

Over the past two decades, historians writing across period and région have, by and large, taken up the call of Rubin and her interlocutors to produce delineated analyses of "sexuality" and "gender." Yet, these efforts have produced anything but a stable or coherent sense of how "sexuality" and "gender" have functioned throughout human history. Indeed, many scholars -- especially those focusing on the pre-modern and non-western worlds -- have productively questioned the conceptualization of and distinction between these categories, demonstrating that sexual desire and practices have intersected with gendered identities and norms in complicated, sometimes inextricable ways. Some scholars have suggested, in particular, that "sexuality" as a category of identity and a technology of governance applies only to the modern West.

This special issue of _Gender & History_ examines the historical relationship between sexuality and gender writ large. We solicit work that explicitly examines the possibilities and limitations of thèse categories for analyzing the past. We especially encourage comparative analysis, scholarship that focuses on the nonwestern world, and work that contributes to the theorization of these categories and their relationship to one another. We welcome the submission of historical work produced within related disciplines and interdisciplinary fields.
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Publication : Deconstructing Sexuality in the Middle East

Deconstructing Sexuality in the Middle East - Challenges and Discourses. Edited by Pinar Ilkkaracan

Exploring the contemporary dynamics of sexuality in the Middle East, this volume offers an in-depth and unique insight into this much contested and debated issue. It focuses on the role of sexuality in political and social struggles and the politicization of sexuality and gender in the region. Contributors illustrate the complexity of discourses, debates and issues, focusing in particular on the situation in Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine and Turkey, and explain how they cannot be reduced to a single underlying factor such as religion, or a simple binary opposition between the religious right and feminists.

Contributors include renowned academicians, researchers, psychologists, historians, human rights and women's rights advocates and political scientists, from different countries and backgrounds, offering a balanced and contemporary perspective on this important issue, as well as highlighting the implication of these debates in larger socio-political contexts.

Contents:
- Introduction: sexuality as a contested political domain in the Middle East, Pinar Ilkkaracan
- Criminal Law, women and sexuality in the Middle East, Sherifa Zuhur
- How adultery almost derailed Turkey's aspirations to join the European Union, Pinar Ilkkaracan
- Fighting honor crimes: evidence of civil society in Jordan, Stephanie EileenNanes
- Sex education in Lebanon: between secular and religious discourses, Azzah Shararah Baydoun
- Contesting discourses of sexuality in post-revolutionary Iran, Hammed Shahidian
- Who said that love is forbidden?: gender and sexuality in Iraqi public discourse of the 1970s and the 1980s, Achim Rohde
- Militarization, nation and gender: women's bodies as arenas of violent conflict, Rubina Saigol
- Towards a cultural definition of rape: dilemmas in dealing with rape victims in Palestinian society, Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
- The 'Natasha' experience: migrant sex workers from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in Turkey, Leyla Gülçür and PinarIlkkaracan

« Showing how sexual and bodily rights continue to be a site of political contestation across the Middle East, this scholarly and lucid volume decenters religion and recenters discourses of sexuality and gender in struggles to define the nation. By uncovering wide variations in personal status laws, cultural practices, regulatory policies and movements of resistance, it challenges external stereotypes of Muslim societies while maintaining a critical perspective from within. Courageous and groundbreaking. » –Rosalind P. Petchesky, City University of New York, USA.

« This book brings together an exciting collection of reflections on the contested politics of sexuality and gender in the Middle East. Its impressive breadth and range of contributions convey the contradictions and complexities of sexual politics in this region. It will be of enormous interest to academics and activists alike. » – Andrea Cornwall, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK.

Colloque sur genre et islam : appel à communication

Women, Leadership and Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority

The ability of women to exercise various types of Islamic religious authority has increased significantly since the early twentieth century, especially during the last two or three decades. Existing scholarship, however, has focused overwhelmingly on certain facets of this increase, in particular female leadership through Sufi groups and attempts to reinterpret Islam to accommodate gender equality, whether through an explicitly ‘feminist’ framework or not.

Missing from the literature is serious analysis of the growing acceptance of women within mosques and madrasas, spaces which have long been centres of Islamic authority but from which women have traditionally been excluded or marginalised. The acceptance of female leadership and activities in these spaces is a significant change from historic practices, signalling the mainstream acceptance of (some forms of) female Islamic leadership. The nature, dynamics and scope of female leadership activities within mosques vary widely, with differences between (and within) North Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and diaspora communities in North America and Europe.

Very few scholars have attempted to apply the exciting work on changing structures of Islamic authority to the activities of women, despite the fact that these changes are what have enabled women to take a much more active role within the religious sphere. Crucially, a fully-contextualised account of the activities of these groups often requires time-intensive fieldwork, making it difficult for a single author to consider multiple contexts in a monograph.

This conference will energize scholarship on Muslim women by bringing together scholars with geographically-diverse expertise to focus specifically on female leadership in mosques and madrasas and the structure of religious authority that enable or limit these activities.

The papers presented at this conference will investigate

- how women active in mosques and madrasas construct their authority as leaders,

- the impact they have on their students and the wider community, and

- how they use public space in mosques and madrasas, and present the rich social, political, economic and historical contexts of these activities.

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Nouvelle parution

Fatima Sadiqi, "Facing Challenges and Pioneering Feminist and Gender Studies: Women in Post-colonial and Today’s Maghrib"

in Journal of African and Asian Studies (AAS) 7, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, pp. 447-470

Abstract
Starting from the premise that the nature and impact of women’s agency can be understood only within specific historical and socio-cultural environments (Sadiqi, 2003), the major aim of this paper is to highlight the multi-faceted agency of women in post-colonial and today’s Maghrib. The Maghrib is a North African region that includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania,but I chose to focus on the first three countries given their common historical and socioculturalbackground. Not only have women in this region faced challenges, but they have also pioneered feminist and gender studies and raised new issues for these disciplines in the global South as well as the North. Four major interrelated domains where these achievements are significant are considered : women’s reproductive rights, women’s movements, women’s legal rights,and women’s knowledge production. Issues related to these domains are analyzed from a broad comparative perspective which involves an overall political and economic contextualization. The paper reveals the positive role that Maghribi women have been playing in the overall development of their countries and the main outcomes show that the future of the Maghrib is significantly linked to the fate of these gains.

APPEL A CONTRIBUTION: Interdits et genre : constructions, représentations et pratiques du féminin et du masculin

Voici un appel à communication récent pour un colloque traitant de "Interdits et genre" qui se tiendra au sein de l'Université François Rabelais (Tours).

Extrait de l'annonce:
"Toute vie sociale repose sur la loi et l’interdit qui construisent le genre, les pouvoirs et les hiérarchies au centre desquels se trouve la sexualité. La loi et l’interdit, nécessités sociales et expressions de pouvoir, se sont déclinées sous des formes infiniment diverses dans le temps et dans l’espace. Le plus souvent, leur efficience a été liée à leur sacralité, sacralité religieuse mais aussi laïque, s’exprimant tant au niveau collectif qu’au niveau du groupe."

« Interdits et genre : constructions, représentations et pratiques du féminin et du masculin », Appel à contribution, Calenda, publié le lundi 03 novembre 2008, http://calenda.revues.org/nouvelle11374.html

Date limite pour l'envoie des propositions: le 15 décembre 2008

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