Women and Gender in the MENA

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

The field of transnational feminist studies is an interdisciplinary body of knowledge that examines how identities, locations, and experiences are shaped by certain assumptions and particular ways of knowing ourselves and others we may (never) encounter. How does gender studies examine the ways in which power proliferates to constitute and shape difference across multiple and intersectional axes of identity at local and global scales? What role do states play in shaping power hierarchies and social inequalities, and how have transnational feminists resisted such dominant and hegemonic formations? Attending to these questions, in this course we will examine how gender as a category of analysis and an axis of identity shapes local and global realities at the intersections of race, class, sexual, national, embodied, and religious differences in the Middle East North Africa (MENA), also known as South West Asia North Africa (SWANA). In doing so, we will examine how gender difference is constructed, articulated, and resisted across various geopolitical contexts, and in relation to specific forms of power. As we learn about historical struggles for gender, racial, and economic equality in the transnational MENA/SWANA, we will also explore what feminist critiques and resistance to patriarchy, colonialism, globalization, and war look like in relation to dominant global powers, structures, and processes today.