Module ARA2118 for 2018/9
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
ARA2118: Gender-Identity and Modernity in the Middle East
This module descriptor refers to the 2018/9 academic year.
Module Aims
This module aims to provide you with an in-depth survey of the social, political, economic and cultural issues that affect gender relations in the contemporary Middle East and North Africa. We will investigate how gender is socially constructed and experienced, while at the same time exploring how states and regimes invoke gender on the level of politics. Weekly lectures, discussions and presentations will enable you to analyse how gender, identity and modernity shape – and are shaped by – diverse Middle Eastern and North African contexts. The course promotes politically active learning, primarily through discussion of current events and project-based assessment.
| On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
|---|---|
| Module-Specific Skills | 1. identify and assess the changing social, cultural, economic and political contexts that shape gender roles and relations. 2. evaluate different theoretical and methodological approaches employed in the study of gender in the Middle East |
| Discipline-Specific Skills | 3. analyse and assess academic texts and prevailing cultural notions critically 4. distinguish between a range of methodological approaches as well as variety of genres, i.e. anthropological and sociological texts, (auto)biographical writings and fiction 5. demonstrate an awareness and be sensitised to the various processes by which gender, i.e. femaleness and maleness, are socially and culturally constructed |
| Personal and Key Skills | 6. engage in independent study and group work, including the presentation of material for group discussion 7. digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment 8. examine and review existing literature. |
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:
Studying Gender in the Middle East & North Africa
Representations: The Legacy of Orientalism & Colonialism
Islam, Patriarchy &‘Tradition’
Gendered Nationalisms & Nation-building Projects
The 'Woman Question' & the State: Citizenship, Modernization & Reform
Intimate Politics: Social Relations & Identity Constructions
Exploring Middle East Masculinities
Gender, Sexuality & Power: From ‘Honour Crimes’ to Queer Politics
War & Conflict: Gendering Violence & Peace in the Middle East
Refugees, Migration & Diaspora
Women’s Movements in the Middle East: Historical Roots & Contemporary Routes
Secular & Religious Feminisms: Different Strategies, Common Aims?
Gendering New Media & the Public Sphere in the Middle East
‘The Uprisings will be Gendered’: Political Protest, Transition & Transformation
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 128 | 0 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching activity | 22 | 11 x 2 hour seminars. |
| Guided Independent study | 44 | Weekly reading (4 hours per week) |
| Guided Independent study | 11 | Class/seminar prep (1 hour per week) |
| Guided Independent study | 38 | Project (23 hours researching/coordinating, 15 hours writing/preparing presentation) |
| Guided Independent study | 35 | Essay (20 hours reading, 15 hours writing) |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
Material will be posted on the Online Learning System and discussion lists will be created.
Other Learning Resources
Videos/films, TV programmes, online materials (news sites, websites/blogs, social media), images, music, memoirs.
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
Abdo, Nahla, Women in Israel: Race, Gender and Citizenship, 2011.
Abu-Lughod, Lila (ed.), Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, 1998.
Ahmed, Leila, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate, 1992.
Al-Ali, Nadje, Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present, 2007.
Al-Ali, Nadje & Nicola Pratt, Women & War in the Middle East, 2009.
Charrad, Mounira, Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East. Syracuse University Press, 2000.
Joseph, Suad (ed.) Intimate Selving in Arab Families: Gender, Self and Identity, 1999.
Kanaaneh, Rhoda, Birthing the Nation: Strategies of Palestinian Women in Israel, 2002.
Kandiyoti, Deniz (ed.), Women, Islam and the State, 1991.
Kandiyoti, Deniz (ed.) Gendering the Middle East: Emerging Perspectives, 1996.
Khalil, Andrea (ed.), Gender, Women and the Arab Spring, 2014.
Lewis, Reina, Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem, 2004.
Ouzgane, Lahoucine (ed.) Islamic Masculinities, 2006.
Singerman, Diane, Avenues of Participation: Family Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo, 1997.
Ye?eno?lu, Meyda, Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism, 1998.
