• A Conversation on Women in Science
  An online roundtable conversation with MENA Women in STEM
  March 9: 1:00 -2:00 pm.
  Virtual Event via Zoom
  Registration Required at: go.uic.edu/WomenScience

• Symposium on Gender and Sexuality in the Middle East, North Africa, and Related Diasporas
  April 5: 9:30 am – 5:00 pm
  In Person Event
  The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
  Residents’ Dining Hall
  800 South Halsted Street

  Symposium Program:
  
   9:30-9:45     Registration
   9:45-10:00    Welcome
  10:00-11:00    Feminists Representing Themselves: Challenging the Western Male Gaze
                          Chair: Sarah Abboud
  • وجدت حلاً (I Found a Solution): Portrayals of Arab Women in Media from a Middle Eastern Feminist Lens, by Walaa Albattat and Sara Hattab
  • Slice of Her Life, by Fiza Patel
  11:00-11:15    Break
  11:15-12:30    From the River and Across the Sea:Palestine Activism and Solidarity Movements in the US
                          Chair: Nadine Naber
  • Stereotypes and Perceived Images: Looking Through a Lens of a Palestinian Woman Living in America, by Saja Taha, Rana Suifan, and Lena Salem
  • Breaking the Silence: Palestinian Solidarity Movements in the US, BDS, and the Anti-Zionist movement, by Moon Goldstein
  • Liberation is Not Extremism: The US Surveillance State and Palestinian American Activists, by Mohammad Darwish
  12:30-1:00     Lunch Break
  1:00-2:00    Keynote Address: Dr. Suad Joseph, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Davis
                          Who Cares? Studying Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Middle East and North Africa
  2:00-3:30    The Possibilities of Feminist Engagement
                          Chair: Norma Moruzzi
  • Hela Hela, Hela Hela Ho! – The Revolutionary Potential of Worldmaking Practices in Lebanon, by Lynn Darwich
  • Women Political Representation and Policy Influence in Morocco and Rwanda, by Yasmine Haiti
  • The Politics of Care (al-r‘āīaa): Organizational Patronage in hashmī a-shamālī, by Josephine P Chaet
  • Vaginismus and Negotiations with Biomedical Authority in Turkey, by Neslihan Sen
  3:30-3:45    Break
  3:45-4:45    Policing Women’s Bodies
                          Chair: Zeina Zaatari
  • Sex Attitudes Among Arab American Women, by Laila Zayed
  • Mothering Under Settler-Colonialism, by Hala Khalil and Diya Suleiman
  4:45-4:50    Closing Remarks
• Dr. Suad Joseph, Keynote Speaker
  Dr. Joseph is a leading figure in the field of anthropology and women’s studies of the Middle East and North Africa. Joseph’s focus has primarily been on her native Lebanon and its diaspora, but she has also conducted research in Iraq and among Arabs in the US and Canada. Joseph has theorized culturally situated notions of "self", "rights", "citizenship" in the context of different political regimes and in the context of the pressures and processes of globalization. She is carrying out a long-term research project following a cohort of children in a Lebanese village, observing, as they grow, how they learn their notions of rights, responsibilities, nationality, citizenship; how these notions come to be gendered; and how the notions are transferred from family arenas into political/public arenas. She leads a project analyzing the representation of Arabs, Muslims, Arab American, and Muslim Americans in major American print news media. Prof. Joseph is the founder of the Middle East Research Group in Anthropology (which evolved into the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association), founder of the Association for Middle East Women's Studies (AMEWS) and the Arab Families Research Group. She founded and directs the University of California Davis Arab Region Consortium, including the American University of Beirut, the American University in Cairo, the Lebanese American University, Birzeit University, American University of Sharjah, and UC Davis. She was president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America in 2010-2011. She is co-founder and founding president of the Arab American Studies Association and co-founder of the Association for Middle East Anthropology. She is General Editor of the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures. She has edited or co-edited 10 books and published over 100 articles in journals and books. She is founding Director of the Middle East/South Asia Studies Program at UC Davis and was awarded the UC Davis Prize – the largest undergraduate teaching and research prize in the United States.

Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Middle East and North Africa is sponsored by: