Marilyn Booth speaking on her new book. This book is an intellectual biography of early Arabic feminist Zaynab Fawwaz (c.1850-1914) and a study of her life in Ottoman Syria and Egypt, in the context of Arabophone debates on gender, modernity and the good society, 1890s-1910. Chapters take up her writing and debates in which she participated, concerning socia ... Show More
Nov 21
Egypt’s Role, Identity, and Foreign Policy in a River of De-Nile
This MENA Politics Series Seminar was delivered on Tuesday 18 November in the MEC’s Boardroom by Dr May Darwich (University of Birmingham) and was chaired by Professor Neil Ketchley (St Antony’s College). This paper explains Egypt’s foreign policy stagnation, with a novel argumen ... Show More
34m 45s
Oct 31
NGOization of the Palestinian civil society post-Oslo: our community-based ways out
This seminar was delivered on 28 May 2025 by St Antony’s George Antonius Birzeit Visiting Fellow, Dr Amal Nazzal, and Palestinian political and feminist organizer at Rawa, Soheir Asaad. This seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on 28 May 2025 by St Antony’s George Anto ... Show More
1h 5m
Mar 2021
Nevin Reda and Yasmin Amin, "Islamic Interpretive Tradition and Gender Justice: Processes of Canonization Subversion and Change" (McGill Queens UP, 2020)
In their groundbreaking new book, Islamic Interpretive Tradition and Gender Justice: Processes of Canonization, Subversion, and Change (McGill, 2020), Nevin Reda and Yasmin Amin raise excellent questions about the existence and formation of a canon in the Islamic tradition. This ... Show More
1h 3m
Mar 2021
Hawraa Al Hassan, "Women, Writing and the Iraqi Ba'thist State" (U Edinburgh Press, 2020)
Hawraa Al Hassan’s Women, Writing and the Iraqi Ba’thist State: Contending Discourses of Resistance and Collaboration, 1968-2003 (University of Edinburgh Press, 2020) is unique because it both explores discourse concerning women and how women themselves used literature to create ... Show More
54m 54s
Apr 2014
Sa’diyya Shaikh, “Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn Arabi, Gender and Sexuality” (University of North Carolina Press, 2012)
Many Muslim debates regarding women are solely situated in legal or political frameworks. For example, we often find this tendency in conversations about women’s leadership in the mosque or the politics of veiling. Sa’diyya Shaikh, Professor of Religious Studies at the University ... Show More
55m 26s
Sep 2018
Women and the Egyptian Revolution: A Conversation with Nermin Allam (S. 7, Ep. 1)
Dr. Nermin Allam discusses her new book, Women and the Egyptian Revolution: Engagement and Activism During the 2011 Arab Uprisings, with Marc Lynch. Allam talks about how the she views the 2011 uprisings, and her book, which offers an oral history of women's engagement and histor ... Show More
24m 10s
Sep 2019
Elizabeth S. Kassab, "Enlightenment on the Eve of Revolution: The Egyptian and Syrian Debates" (Columbia UP, 2019)
The "Arab Spring" shook the world in 2011, revealing profound dissatisfaction throughout the Middle East and North Africa, as people throughout the region took to the streets demanding dramatic political change. The uprisings have been analyzed by scholars, journalists, and other ... Show More
59m 23s
Feb 2021
Celene Ibrahim, "Women and Gender in the Qur'an" (Oxford UP, 2020)
In Women and Gender in the Qur’an (Oxford University Press in 2020), Celene Ibrahim explores key themes related to gender in the Qur’an, focusing on women, such as female sexuality, female kin and relations, and female figures in the sacred text. Among her findings is that there ... Show More
55m 57s