University of Massachusetts Boston
Fall Institute: September 12-15, 2007
Engaging Islam: Feminisms, Religiosities, and Self-Determinations
For more details, visit us online at :
http://www.engaging islam.umb. edu
Call for Papers
The 2007 Fall Institute at UMass Boston invites proposals that explore critically
the relationship between Islam and Feminisms today. It seeks to examine the complex and rich terrain of Islam as a force for understanding global politics, an impetus for political and psychological self-determination, a stimulus for cultural productions, and a foundation for identity. By engaging Islam through a feminist lens, we hope to challenge inadequately interrogated assumptions and modes of thinking that posit secularism and democracy in opposition to religiosity and oppression. The critical perspective of feminist analysis provides a particularly valuable window into the many struggles internal to Islam, its changing dynamics over time, and the intersecting influences of economic/ cultural globalization, imperialism and patriarchal power structures in the lives of individuals, communities, and nations. This three-day institute will be organized by the following broad questions:
1. Why study Islam through the lens of feminisms?
2. What is the relationship among Islamic feminisms as social movements, as quests for personal identity, as forces of resistance?
3. What are the exigencies confronting Islamic feminisms particularly in the realms of democratic politics, cultural productions, and social policy? How are these exigencies negotiated?
4. What is the relation between state structure, its move towards democratization in a number of countries, and Islamic feminisms? How have state policies shaped the rise, content, and form of feminist resistance? How have they influenced, or not, the articulation between Islam and feminism?
The Fall institute will take place at University of Massachusetts Boston, from September 12-15, 2007. It will include 6-9 invited speakers and 15 participants who will be competitively selected from campuses across the United States. Papers from the Institute will be published in a special issue of the International Feminist Journal of Politics in Fall 2008.
The themes that the institute seeks to cover include:
Defining Islamic Feminisms
• Faith based feminisms/secular feeminisms
• Feminist interpretations of religious texxts
• Challenging imperial feminism through engagingg national, post-colonial, and transnational contexts
• Islamic masculinities, subjectivities, agency
Social Movements, Social Transformations
• Resistaance and occupation
• Democracy, civil society, and women's groups
• Political economy and globalizatioon
• Faith based tribunals/arbitrati on/courts
• L¢ Legal Reform and women's rights
Identities, Citizenship, Resistance
• Nationalism, sexuality, "War on TTerror"
• Immigration
• International Law and HumHuman Rights Regimes
• State Violence and its links too regimes of race/gender/nations/sexuality
• Coalitiion building, transnational solidarity practices
Challenging Hegemonic Representations of Islam, Muslims, and the West
• Islamic feminist engagements with crreative expressions of visual arts, cinema, literature
• Teaching, pedagogy and global education
• Co Colonial discourses, post-colonial modernities
Guidelines for Submissions:
Applicants must submit a two-page outline/proposal, including an abstract, and
a separate statement of interest in promoting understanding of Islam and the
Islamic world in his/her academic institution.
In your statement of interest, please address the following five questions:
1. What is the central question/argument/ idea that you would like to explore in your paper? Why is it important?
2. Why are you interested in attending this institute?
3. How are you currently engaged in the issues posted by the institute?
4. What, if any, are the current initiatives on your campus to discuss Islam and the Islamic world?
5. How will you use the outcomes of this institute on your campus? Do you anticipate institutional support for your plans?
Deadline for Submissions: February 15, 2007
Please send submissions by email to: Jennifer.Howard003@ umb.edu
Or by regular mail to:
2007 Fall Institute: Engaging Islam
Attention: Jennifer Howard
University of Massachusetts Boston
College of Liberal Arts
100 Morrissey Boulevard Boston, Massachusetts 02125
[sursa e-nass]
