HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: Glocal International Development

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: English

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr. Areen Hawari

Coordinator Email: areen.hawari@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours:

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Hawari Areen

Course/Module description:
This course will present feminist theories that analyze the role of gender, not only as a term referring to social and cultural distinctions between women and men, which exceed the biological differences among them, but rather as a structure of power. Such power intersecting with other systems of power, such as class, race, and colonialism. The course will especially focus on theories and activism from the Global South, specifically the Middle Eastern and Palestinian contexts.

Course/Module aims:
The goal of the course is to construct a critical understanding of gender as an intersectional category and to be exposed to transnational feminist theories and activism especially from the Middles East.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
• Identify and explain what are gender constructions
• Understand gender as an intersectional category that has a complex relationship other systems of power such as class and colonialism.

• Construct an argument and prove it using articles and scholars that will be studied throughout the course
• Read complex texts that discuss gender norms and development, analyze them and discuss them in class

Attendance requirements(%):
Mandatory attendance and active participation

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: A mix of lecture-based and seminar-style instruction

Course/Module Content:
- Introduction: Gender, Feminism, sexual politics, intersectionality, women as the “other”.

-The Intersectionality of Gender, Class and colonialism


Gender and the Global South

– Gender, colonialism and post colonialism in the middle East and North Africa

Feminism, agency, Islam and the post-colonial state in the Middles East

Gender, state and women activism: The case of the Palestinian women

Visit to feminist organizations (not sure)

Required Reading:
Students are not required to read all the texts

Setting the Terms of the Debate

Class 1 –2

Introduction: Gender, Feminism, sexual politics, intersectionality, women as the “other”.


Simone de Beauvoir. The other sex” introduction”

Kate Millet.(1969) 2000. Theory of sexual politics. Urbana and Chicago. Illinois press. Pp 23-59

bell hooks, “Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression” in Feminist Theory From Margin to Center. US: South end Press. Pp 17-31.

Nicholson, Linda. (2010). Feminism in ‘waves’: Useful metaphor or not?. New Politics, 12(4), 34-39.


The Intersectionality of Gender, Race, Class and colonialism

Class 3—
Midgley, Clare. 1998. "Introduction: Gender and Imprialism: Mapping the Connections". Pp 1-18 in in Midgley, Clare (Ed.). Gender and Imperialism. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
Ahmed, Layla. (2011). Quiet Revolution: The Veil's Resurge. Yale University Press: (Unveiling-Pp19-45).

Class 4+5

Kimberle Crenshaw “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics The University of Chicago Legal Forum, vol. 1989, issue 1, p. 139.

Watch this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v&eq;-DW4HLgYPlA


Co Mohanty, C. (1988). Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Feminist review, 30 (1), 61-88.
Conell, Robert and James, Messerchmidt. 2005. " Hegemonic masculinity: rethinking the concept". Gender and Society, 19(6): 829-859.

Gender and the Global South

Class 6
Transnational Feminism as a Paradigm for Decolonizing the Practice of Research Identifying Feminist Principles and Methodology Criteria for US- Based Scholars Sylvanna M. Falcón
Bloomsbury Publishing

Chant, Sylvia, 2015. “Gender and poverty in the global south.” In Anna Coles, Leslie Gray, and Janet Momsen (eds), The Routledge handbook of gender and development. London: Routledge.
Dogra, Nadita. 2011.”The Mixed Metaphor of ‘Third World Woman’: gendered representations by international development NGOs”. Third world Quarterly. Vol 23 (2). Pp 333-348.
True, Jacqui, 2012. The political economy of violence against women, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Introduction.
Abouelnaga, Shereen. “Reconstructing Gender in Post-Revolution Egypt” in El Said, M., Meari, L., & Pratt, D. N. (Eds.). (2015). Rethinking gender in revolutions and resistance: Lessons from the Arab world. London: Zed Books. Pp35-58.

– Gender, colonialism and post colonialism in the middle East and North Africa

Class 7-

Abu-Lughod, L. (Ed.). (1998). Remaking women: Feminism and modernity in the Middle East. Princeton University Press.(Introduction)

Kandiyoti, D. (2004). Identity and its discontents: Women and the nation. Dossier, 26,45-58 .

Class 8-9 Cases from Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Egypt

Charrad, M. (2001). States and women's rights: The making of postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. University of California Press.

Charrad, M. M. (2012, May). Family law reforms in the Arab world: Tunisia and Morocco. In Report for the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), Division for Social Policy and Development, Expert Group Meeting, New York (pp. 15-17).

Hatem, M.F. (1997). Secularist and Islamist discourse on Modernity in Egypt and the evolution of the postcolonial state. In Y.Y. Haddad & J.L. Esposito (Eds.), Islam, gender, and social change (pp. 85-99). Oxford University Press




Feminism, agency, Islam and the post-colonial state in the Middles East

Class 10-11

Nadja Al-Ali, 2000. Secularism, Gender and the State in the Middle East: The Egyptian Women’s Movement. Cambridge University press. Pp. 19- 50, 51- 84.


El Hajjami, A. (2013). The religious arguments in the debate on the reform of the Moroccan family code. In Z. Mir-Hosseini, K. Vogt, L. Larsen & C. Moe (Eds.), Gender and equality in Muslim family law: Justice and ethics in the Islamic legal tradition (pp. 81-106). London: IB Tauris.

Badran, M. (2005). Between secular and Islamic feminism/s: Reflections on the Middle East and beyond. Journal of Middle East women's studies, 1(1), 6-28.

Mahmood, Saba. (2001). Feminist theory, embodiment, and the docile agent: Some reflections on the Egyptian Islamic revival. Cultural anthropology, 16(2), 202-236.


Gender, state and women activism: The case of the Palestinian women

Class 12-13-14

Raneen Geries (Filming and editing). 2007 "Women testimonies of the Nakba". Zochrot. https://zochrot.org/ar/testimony/52612

Abdo, Nahla. 2011. Women in Palestine: The Relevance of History” in Women in Israel: Race, gender and citizenship. Zed Books Ltd.:“Pp 54 -99 “.

Nusair, Isis. (2010). Gendering the narratives of three generations of Palestinian women in Israel. Displaced at Home: Ethnicity and Gender among Palestinians in Israel, 75-92.

Hasan, Manar. Palestine's Absent Cities: Gender, Memoricide and the Silencing of Urban Palestinian Memory. Journal of Holy Land and Palestine studies. Volume 19, Issue 1, May, 2020

Ben Shitrit, L. (2013). Women, freedom, and agency in religious political movements: Reflections from women activists in Shas and the Islamic movement in Israel. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 9(3), 81-107.

Visit to feminist organizations (Not sure).

Additional Reading Material:
Please see the course's website (moodle)

Grading Scheme :
Essay / Project / Final Assignment / Home Exam / Referat 60 %
Presentation / Poster Presentation / Lecture/ Seminar / Pro-seminar / Research proposal 20 %
Submission assignments during the semester: Exercises / Essays / Audits / Reports / Forum / Simulation / others 20 %

Additional information:
The lectures will be based on weekly reading assignments. The students are expected to attend the meetings, read the assigned texts, participate in class, and write 3responses to items from the syllabus. Students are expected to design a project of their own: research or analytical paper, based on one of the topics discusses in class. Each student is expected to present and discuss one item from the syllabus, or other relevant textvideo cultural artifact or interview analysis that is related to his project.
By one month after the end of the course, the students are expected submit papers between 5-8 pages each, based on his presentation (1.5 space).