Week 1: Coercive Governance — Concepts and Frameworks

Hosted on Zoom

Suggested Readings:

• Holger Albrecht and Oliver Schlumberger. “Waiting for Godot: Regime Change without Democratization in the Middle East.” International Political Science Review 25, no. 4 (2004): 371–392.
• Eva Bellin. “The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective.” Comparative Politics 36, no. 2 (2004): 139–157.
• Aziz Al-Azmeh. Islams and Modernities. (1993). Chapter 1. Verso.
• Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (2010). Cambridge University Press. Introduction.

Week 2: Islamic Law, State Power, and Religious Legitimacy

Hosted on Zoom

Suggested Readings:

• Wael Hallaq. The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament (2013). Columbia University Press. Introduction and Chapters 1–2.
• Khaled Abou El Fadl. Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women (2001). Oneworld. Chapters 1–2.
• Noel Coulson. A History of Islamic Law (1964). Edinburgh University Press. Chapters 8–9.
• Asifa Quraishi-Landes. “The Sharia Problem with Sharia Legislation.” Ohio Northern University Law Review 41 (2015): 545–566.

Week 3: Gender, Patriarchy, and Islamic Feminist Thought

Hosted on Zoom

Suggested Readings:

• Amina Wadud. Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective (1999). Oxford University Press. Introduction and Chapter 1.
• Fatima Mernissi. The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam (1991). Perseus Books. Chapters 1 and 3.
• Ziba Mir-Hosseini. “Muslim Women’s Quest for Equality: Between Islamic Law and Feminism.” Critical Inquiry 32, no. 4 (2006): 629–645.
• Kecia Ali. Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (2006). Oneworld. Introduction and Chapter 1.
• Margot Badran. Feminism in Islam: Secular and Religious Convergences (2009). Oneworld. Introduction.

Week 4: Security Sectors, Intelligence, and Gendered Repression

Hosted on Zoom

Suggested Readings:

• Valentine Moghadam. Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East, 3rd ed. (2013). Lynne Rienner. Chapter 3.
• Dara Kay Cohen. Rape during Civil War (2016). Cornell University Press. Introduction and Chapter 1.
• Human Rights Watch. Boxed In: Women and Saudi Arabia’s Male Guardianship System (2016). HRW Report.
• Nadje Al-Ali and Nicola Pratt. What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq (2009). University of California Press. Introduction.
• Cynthia Enloe. Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives (2000). University of California Press. Introduction

Week 5:  Iran: Revolution, Theocracy, and Women’s Resistance

Hosted on Zoom

Suggested Readings:

• Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Richard Tapper. Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform (2006). I.B. Tauris. Chapters 1–3.
• Nayereh Tohidi. “Women’s Rights in the Muslim World: The Universal-Particular Interplay.” Hawwa: Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 1, no. 2 (2003): 152–188.
• Shirin Ebadi. Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope (2006). Random House. Chapters 1–4.
• Camelia Entekhabifard. “Iran’s Women’s Movement and the One Million Signatures Campaign.” Muslim World Journal of Human Rights 5, no. 1 (2008).
• Homa Hoodfar and Shadi Sadr. “Islamic Politics and Women’s Quest for Gender Equality in Iran.” Third World Quarterly 31, no. 6 (2010): 885–903.

Week 6: Case Study — Saudi Arabia: Guardianship, Reform, and Dissent

Hosted on Zoom

Suggested Readings:

• Madawi Al-Rasheed. A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics and Religion in Saudi Arabia (2013). Cambridge University Press. Introduction and Chapters 1–2.
• Eleanor Doumato. “Manning the Barricades: Islam According to Saudi Arabia’s School Texts.” Middle East Journal 57, no. 2 (2003): 230–247.
• Amnesty International. Detained, Tortured, Jailed: Activists Imprisoned for Peaceful Work in Saudi Arabia (2019). AI Report.
• Hatoon Al-Fassi. “Saudi Women’s Drive for Change.” Journal of Arabian Studies 3, no. 2 (2013): 203–222.
• Kristin Smith Diwan. “Saudi Arabia’s Constrained Consultative Commission.” Middle East Brief (Brandeis University), no. 93 (2016)

Week 7: Case Study — Afghanistan: War, Taliban Rule, and Women’s Agency

Hosted on Zoom

Suggested Readings:

• Lila Abu-Lughod. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? (2013). Harvard University Press. Introduction and Chapters 1–2.
• Sippi Azerbaijani-Moghaddam. “Afghan Women on the Margins of the Twenty-First Century.” In Nation-Building Unraveled? Aid, Peace and Justice in Afghanistan, ed. Donini et al. (2004). Kumarian Press.
• Rosemarie Skaine. Women of Afghanistan in the Post-Taliban Era (2008). McFarland. Chapters 1–2.
• UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). A Return to Darkness: Human Rights in Afghanistan 2021–2022 (2022). UN Report. Sections on women’s rights.
• Anand Gopal. No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes (2014). Metropolitan Books. Chapters 1 and 8.

Week 8: Case Study — Yemen: Conflict, Displacement, and Women’s Political Participation

Hosted on Zoom

Suggested Readings:

• Helen Lackner. Yemen in Crisis: Autocracy, Neo-Liberalism and the Disintegration of a State (2017). Saqi Books. Chapters 1 and 5.
• Susanne Dahlgren. Contesting Realities: The Public Sphere and Morality in Southern Yemen (2010). Syracuse University Press. Introduction and Chapter 2.
• Stacey Philbrick Yadav. “Antecedents of the Revolution: Intersectoral Networks and Post-Partisan Coalitions in Yemen.” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 11, no. 3 (2011): 550–563.
• Human Rights Watch. Yemen: Events of 2022 (2023). HRW World Report.
• Sarah Phillips. Yemen and the Politics of Permanent Crisis (2011). Routledge / IISS. Introduction.

Week 9: Transnational Feminism, Human Rights Law, and Local Moral Orders

Hosted on Zoom

Suggested Readings:

• Celestine Nyamu-Musembi and Andrea Cornwall. “What Is the ‘Rights-Based Approach’ All About? Perspectives from International Development Agencies.” IDS Working Paper 234 (2004). Institute of Development Studies.
• Inderpal Grewal. Transnational America: Feminisms, Diasporas, Neoliberalisms (2005). Duke University Press. Chapter 5.
• Saba Mahmood. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (2005). Princeton University Press. Introduction and Chapter 1.
• Ratna Kapur. “The Tragedy of Victimization Rhetoric: Resurrecting the ‘Native’ Subject in International/Post-Colonial Feminist Legal Politics.” Harvard Human Rights Journal 15 (2002): 1–37.
• Karen Engle. The Grip of Sexual Violence in Conflict: Feminist Interventions in International Law (2020). Stanford University Press. Introduction.

Week 10: Legitimacy, Justice, and Political Futures

Hosted on Zoom

Suggested Readings:

• Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im. Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari’a (2008). Harvard University Press. Introduction and Chapter 1.
• Nadje Al-Ali. “Gendering the Arab Spring.” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5, no. 1 (2012): 26–31.
• Chandra Talpade Mohanty. Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (2003). Duke University Press. Introduction and Chapter 1.
• Fatemeh Sadeghi. “Bypassing Islamism and Feminism: Women’s Resistance and Rebellion in Post-Revolutionary Iran.” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 128 (2010): 209–228.
• Robin Wright, ed. The Islamists Are Coming: Who They Really Are (2012). United States Institute of Peace. Selected chapters on Iran and the Gulf.