Postgraduate Module Descriptor

ARAM225: Gender and Politics in the Middle East

This module descriptor refers to the 2024/5 academic year.

Overview

NQF Level	7
Credits	30	ECTS Value	15
Term(s) and duration	This module ran during term 1 (11 weeks)
Academic staff	Dr Sabiha Allouche ()
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
Available via distance learning	No

This course explores the relationship between gender and politics in the modern Middle East and North Africa, providing an in-depth survey of key dynamics and debates that shape the region and its communities. Starting with the question of methodology and approach, you will interrogate discourses that ‘exceptionalise’ the MENA or ‘culturalise’ issues relating to gender therein. We will address how gender is constructed, experienced and performed, as well as how gender is significant to nation- and state-building, conflict and violence, and resistance and transformation. While the course is directly informed by feminist politics and praxis, it moves beyond a narrow focus on ‘women’ to include men and masculinities, as well as sexuality and queer politics. Through engaging with power, we will explore how gender shapes politics – and politics shapes gender – at the levels of subject, society and state across diverse Middle Eastern and North African contexts.

The course consists of weekly seminars, which foreground dialogue and encourage active learning. Students take a central role in telling the ‘story’ of our module by collectively structuring the core topics at the beginning of term. No prior knowledge of the subject is required.

Module created	01/10/2006	Last revised	01/06/2023