Women and Islam: Readings/Videos

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Dear WMST-L List Members:

I am looking for a novel or short story focused on women and/under Islam
written from a feminist or women-centered perspective to use in a course
titled "Global Feminisms."  I want to focus a large portion on the course
on Islamic women and feminism. This is a core women's studies course and I
typically use literature in core courses.

Thank you for your help and please respond privately.


Jill M. Bystydzienski
Director, Women's Studies Program
and Professor of Sociology
Iowa State University
349 Catt Hall
Ames, IA 50011
Tel.(515)294-9733
Fax (515)294-5104
e-mail: bystydj  @  iastate.edu

Here's what I plan on using in a course on Women of Color in the U.S.

Also, some more books that give other viewpoints not specifically feminist
(the Nye book is juvenile fiction, but still good as Naomi speaks from a
Palestinian/American pov):

(short stories, poetry, essays) Food for Our Grandmothers : Writings by
Arab-American and Arab-Canadian Feminists  by Joanna Kadi (Editor)  South
End Pr; ISBN: 0896084892

Bint Arab: Arab and Arab American Women in the United States
by Evelyn Shakir
Praeger Pub Text; ISBN: 0275956717

Arabian Jazz, Diana Abu-Jaber , Jordanian-American (Harcourt, 1993) 3
--A Jordanian-American family's life in a lower-middle-class town in
upstate New York. Past tragedies haunt the grown daughters and their
widowed father, as well as their aunt, Fatima. Yet there are
"laugh-out-loud" segments that make this a delight

Scattered Like Seeds, Shaw J. Dallal, Palestinian-American (Syracuse U.,
1998)--Arab-American Thafer Allam "tries to reconcile the pull of his
Palestinian heritage with his ties to America." The reader experiences the
frustration and anger of the Palestinian diaspora, from a Beirut refugee
camp to the "ghetto" of Kuwait. The book also offers an "inside view" of
the politics of the oil ministries of the Arab countries

Through and Through: Toledo Stories, Joseph Geha, Syrian/Lebanese-American
(Graywolf, 1990) 1--These stories have a "reminiscent" character, and
reveal the various facets of the immigrant experience

Habibi, Naomi Shihab Nye, Palestinian-American (Simon & Schuster, 1997) 2
--Beautifully-designed book for young adults, featuring a teenage girl,
Liyana, who moves with her family from St. Louis to Jerusalem and develops
a relationship with a Jewish boy

Deborah A. Miranda
Pacific Lutheran University
Dept. of English
Tacoma WA 98447
<mirandda  @  plu.edu>
253-535-7238

Author: Wood, Barbara.
Title: Virgins of paradise.
Edition: 1st ed.
Published: New York : Random House, c1993.
Description: 521 p. ; 24 cm.
ISBN: 0679415793

I read this novel several years ago for pleasure and I highly recommend it.
The protagonist is a child of an Eqyptian Muslim and an English Christian.
Very well written and very accessible.

Linda Bolton-Holder
lb2  @  ualberta.ca
holder  @  ocii.com
http://www.ualberta.ca/~lb2/home/HomeBasedEd.htm

If you don't mind stretching the category to women _under_ Islam, you might
try Gina B. Nahai's Cry of the Peacock, a historical novel covering several
generations of women in the Jewish community in Iran.
Leslie R.
lrichar  @  tulane.edu

1.Nawal al Sadaawi, Woman at Point Zero (novel) and other books by her.
(Egyptian)

2. Hanan al Shaykh, Women of Sand and Myrrh (novel).  (Lebanese).


Dr. Phillipa Kafka
Professor Emerita
Kean University
pkafka  @  lvcm.com

Sally, I quite like Fatima Mernissi's The Veil and the Male Elite.  Laurie
Finke, finkel  @  kenyon.edu

on 11/10/01 8:17 PM, Sally Markowitz at smarkowi  @  WILLAMETTE.EDU wrote:

> Anyone know of a good HISTORICAL analysis of the use of the veil in Islam,
> especially one that also cites various justifications for it and/or talks
> about the mutual influence between modern (nineteenth-century and after)
> Western and Islamic/Arab conceptions of feminine difference?

An excellent novel of short stories is Hanan al-Shaykh's I Sweep the Sun
Off Rooftops.  I hope this helps!!!
~Jennifer Brockman
lilacdaisy  @  juno.com

"I think - therefore I am single"  --- Lizz Winstead

Djebar, Assia. 1992. Women of Algiers in their apartment. Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia. (shorter pieces, but interwoven)
_____. 1995. So vast the prison (novel). New York: Seven Stories Press.
Rugh, Andrea B. 1986. Reveal and conceal: Dress in contemporary Egypt.
Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

***************************************************************
Judith Lorber, Ph.D.            Ph/Fax -- 212-689-2155
319 East 24 Street              judith.lorber  @  verizon.net
Apt 27E
New York, NY 10010

"Unless the past and future were made part of the present by memory
and intention, there was, in human terms, no road, nowhere to go."
Ursula LeGuin, The Dispossessed
****************************************************************

Probably the best known female novelist of the Maghreb is Assia Djebar. Hr
novels deal with women's roles in the Algerian independence movement and
their subsequent erasure from "HIStoriographies" of the anti-imperial
struggle, the cloistering of women into their private "spheres" hidden
behind veils. For further reading, I did a search on the WEb:
http://iupjournals.org/ral/ral28-2.html

Another novelist who writes on women's issues "behind the veil" is Egyptian
feminist novelist Nawal el-Saadawi.

Michael de Socio
desoc001  @  hotmail.com