Conference Details
Engaging Islam:
Feminisms, Religiosities, and Self-determinations
UMass Boston - Campus Center - 2nd Floor - Alumni Room
*Please join us! The Institute panel discussions are free and open to the public. No registration is necessary.
Conference Program
Wednesday, September 12
Opening Remarks: Rajini Srikanth, Leila Farsakh, and Elora Chowdhury
Panel: Defining Islamic Feminisms – Campus Center, 2nd Floor Alumni Room
2-5 pm. Keynotes:
Amina Wadud “Defining Islamic Feminisms: Ethics, Agency and Religiosity”
Haideh Moghissi “Islamic Feminism Revisited”
Lara Deeb “Islamic Feminisms: Piety, Politics, and Critical Transnational Engagements”
Thursday, September 13
Panel: Negotiating Islam and the ‘Secular State – Campus Center, 2nd Floor Alumni Room
9-10 am. Keynote: Madhavi Sunder "The New Enlightenment: How Muslim Women are Bringing Religion Out of the Dark Ages"
10:30-12:30 pm. Panel with Discussant: Mickaella Perina
Berna Turam "When Feminism ‘Leads’ the Secular-Islamic Divide: Secularist and Islamist Women in Turkey”
Natasha Dar “Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité, and the Shari'a: The Production of Islamic Legal Knowledges and ‘The Muslim Woman’ in the French-North African Diaspora”
Mitra Rastegar “Reconsidering US Secularism: Patriotism, Islam and the Gender Litmus Test”
1:30 –2:30 pm. Keynote: Tariq Modood “Muslims, Multicultural Equality and Secularism in the West”
3-5 pm. Panel with Discussant: Darren Kew
Srimati Basu “Separate and Unequal: Muslim Women, Women’s Movements and Un-uniform Family Law in India”
Dina Siddiqi “Legislating Fatwas: Dilemmas and Contradictions for Feminists”
Friday, September 14
Panel: Challenging Hegemonic Representations of Muslim Women – Campus Center, 2nd Floor Alumni Room
9-10 am. Keynote: Lila Abu-Lughod “Interventions in the Circulating Discourses on Muslim Women’s Rights:
The Scandal of ‘Honor Crimes’”
10:30-12:30 pm. Panel with Discussant: Hamideh Sedghi
Elizabeth Bucar “Bad Hijabi Lessons for (Bad) Feminist Scholarship”
Peter McMurray “Speaking the Unspeakable: Three Representations of Wartime Sexual Violence Against Bosnian Muslim Women”
Surbhi Tiwari “Sexy Dress, Erotic Place: Indian Muslim Women and the 'Sport' of Spatial Identity”
Panel: Globalization, Gender Relations, and Sexuality – Campus Center, 2nd Floor Alumni Room
1:30-2:30 pm. Keynote: Jasbir Puar “Queer Secularism”
3-5 pm. Panel with Discussant: Heike Schotten
Ashley Al-Sayyad “Queer Muslim Women: On Diaspora, Islam, and Identity”
Chris Kelly “Crazy, or ‘Crazy Like a Fox’? Engaging the Stories of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Converts to Islam”
7:00-8:30pm. Keynote: Shahnaz Khan “Floating on Silent Waters: Religion, Nationalism and Dislocated Women in Khamosh Pani”
Panel Discussants: Linda Dittmar and Huma Dar
Saturday, September 15
Panel: Political Economy and Islamic Feminisms – Campus Center, 2nd Floor Alumni Room
9-10 am. Keynote: Lamia Karim "Rethinking Development and Women's Empowerment under Globalization."
10:30-12:30 pm. Panel with Discussant: Nazli Kibria
Fauzia Ahmed "Hidden Opportunities: Islamic Feminism, Masculinity and the Grameen Bank"
Roksana Bahramitash “Iranian Women of Low Income Households as “the Other”: The Subaltern Women and the Informal Economy and Micro Credit”
Damla Isik “On Sabir and Agency: The Politics of Pious Practice in Konya’s Weaving Industry”
Panel: Coalition-building and Transnationalism– Campus Center, 2nd Floor Alumni Room
1:30 pm. Keynote: Norani Othman “Creating & Promoting Islamic Feminism: Networks, Coalition-Building and Transnationalism”
3-5 pm. Panel with Discussant: Elizabeth Philipose
Azza Basarudin “(Re) creating A Community of the Faithful?: Negotiating Gender, Islam and Feminism in Malaysia”
Tina Nebe “Woman, Islam and the Public/Private Space: Turkey, Iran, and Nigeria”
Jasmin Zine “Negotiating Religion and the Secular State: Muslim Women and Shari’a Law Tribunals in Canada”
Sunday, September 16
Panel: Pedagogy and Islam – Campus Center, 2nd Floor Alumni Room
9-11:30 am. Panel with Discussant: Khanum Shaikh
Hilary Kalmbach “Female Leadership & Activism in Conservative Islamic Communities: An Islamic Form of Feminism?”
Juliet Gentile-Koren From ‘Honorary Male’to Sheikha: The Path of Sufi Women in the West”
Jennifer Fluri “The Corporeal Marker: Politics, Pedagogy, and Epistemologies of Islam and Feminism”
Free and open to the public. Please join us!
*Conference Attendees with Disabilities : Anyone requiring disability-related accommodations in order to fully participate in this event should contact Jennifer Howard by email at jennifer.howard003@umb.edu or by phone at 508-685-5988 as soon as possible.
The 2007 Fall Institute is made possible by a grant from the Ford Foundation.
