Women & Iranian Culture
This guide includes resources that explore the topic of women and Iranian culture. For each subject tab, print and e-books are listed. In addition, selected lists of media resources (DVDs, streaming audio and video), journals, databases, and websites are featured.
Women & Iranian Culture: Resources
Print Books
Contemporary Iranian Art: From the Street to the Studio by Call Number: Stacks N7285 .G75 2014In the first comprehensive look at Iranian art and visual culture since the 1979 revolution, Talinn Grigor investigates the official art sponsored by the Islamic Republic, the culture of avant-garde art created in the studio and its display in galleries and museums, and the art of the Iranian diaspora within Western art scenes.
Music of a Thousand Years: A New History of Persian Musical Traditions by Call Number: Music Library Stacks ML344 L83 2019Iran's particular system of traditional Persian art music has been long treated as the product of an ever-evolving, ancient Persian culture. In Music of a Thousand Years, Ann E. Lucas argues that this music is a modern phenomenon indelibly tied to changing notions of Iran's national history. Rather than considering a single Persian music history, Lucas demonstrates cultural dissimilarity and discontinuity over time, bringing to light two different notions of music-making in relation to premodern and modern musical norms. An important corrective to the history of Persian music, Music of a Thousand Years is the first work to align understandings of Middle Eastern music history with current understandings of the region's political history.
New Visual Culture of Modern Iran by Call Number: Stacks NX180.S6 A24 2006Showcases innovative work from visual artists living and working in Iran today.
Picturing Iran: Art, Society and Revolution by Call Number: Stacks N7285 .P43 2002This book assesses modern Iranian visual culture from the 1960's and 1970's and suggests that modernity in Iran was a creative, complex, and contested process. It examines the expression of Iranian modernity in a variety of media including painting and sculpture, photography, posters, and graphic arts. It highlights new modes of artistic production and the expanding scene in Iran: developments in Iranian art criticism, exhibition apparatus, education, and patronage. The contributors also address changes in the iconography of Iranian art and in the increasingly social role of the artist. This groundbreaking work demonstrates that the visual arts serve as an important archival record of a critical period in Iranian history.
Shirin Neshat by Call Number: Stacks N7289 .N47 D36 2010Internationally acclaimed photographer, videographer, and filmmaker Shirin Neshat first came to prominence in the mid-1990s when she exhibited her series the Women of Allah, an extraordinary body of work exploring women in Islamic culture. Since then, the Iranian-born artist has continued to explore difficult subjects: the boundaries between East and West, men and women, the sacred and the profane, exile and belonging. Her work is marked by its graphic boldness and stirring imagery: photographs of women cloaked in black veils with excerpts of Farsi poetry inscribed across the surface; videos of clans of men and women in barren landscapes chanting or groups of men and women listening to rousing moralistic sermons in a public hall; and, as in her most recent projects, magical realist works in which women fly or plant themselves in gardens to ensure their fertility. Renowned art critic and historian Arthur C. Danto explores the entirety of the artist's rich and varied oeuvre, from the earliest photographs to her latest work, the film Women Without Men. Her first feature film, for which she was awarded the prestigious Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival, is based on the novella of the same name that was banned in Iran; it has taken nearly seven years to complete. In addition to the important essay by Danto, the book includes a foreword in the form of a letter by artist Marina Abramović and commentaries for each series of work by Neshat herself, allowing a glimpse into the creative process of one of the most unique artists of her time.
Shirin Neshat by Call Number: Stacks N7289.N47 A4 2013A catalogue published in conjunction with the exhibition Shirin Neshat, Detroit Institute of Arts, April 7-July 7, 2013.
In her mesmerizing films and photographs, Shirin Neshat (Iranian-American, b. 1957, Qazvin) examines the nuances of power and identity in the Islamic world--particularly in her native country of Iran, where she lived until 1975.
Soundtrack of the Revolution: The Politics of Music in Iran by Call Number: Music Library Stacks ML3917.I7 S49 2017Music was one of the first casualties of the Iranian Revolution. It was banned in 1979, but it quickly crept back into Iranian culture and politics. The state made use of music for its propaganda during the Iran-Iraq war. Over time music provided an important political space where artists and audiences could engage in social and political debate. Now, more than thirty-five years on, both the children of the revolution and their music have come of age. Soundtrack of the Revolution offers a striking account of Iranian culture, politics, and social change to provide an alternative history of the Islamic Republic. Drawing on over five years of research in Iran, including during the 2009 protests, Nahid Siamdoust introduces a full cast of characters, from musicians and audience members to state officials, and takes readers into concert halls and underground performances, as well as the state licensing and censorship offices.
Tehrangeles Dreaming: Intimacy and Imagination in Southern California's Iranian Pop Music by Call Number: Music Library Stacks ML3477.8.L67 H46 2020Los Angeles, called Tehrangeles because it is home to the largest concentration of Iranians outside of Iran, is the birthplace of a distinctive form of postrevolutionary pop music. Created by professional musicians and media producers fleeing Iran's revolutionary-era ban on "immoral" popular music, Tehrangeles pop has been a part of daily life for Iranians at home and abroad for decades. In Tehrangeles Dreaming Farzaneh Hemmasi draws on ethnographic fieldwork in Los Angeles and musical and textual analysis to examine how the songs, music videos, and television made in Tehrangeles express modes of Iranianness not possible in Iran. Exploring Tehrangeles pop producers' complex commercial and political positioning and the histories, sensations, and fantasies their music makes available to global Iranian audiences, Hemmasi shows how unquestionably Iranian forms of Tehrangeles popular culture exemplify the manner in which culture, media, and diaspora combine to respond to the Iranian state and its political transformations. The transnational circulation of Tehrangeles culture, she contends, transgresses Iran's geographical, legal, and moral boundaries while allowing all Iranians the ability to imagine new forms of identity and belonging.
Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities by Call Number: Music Library Stacks ML3500 .V36 2017The emergence of modernity has typically focused on Western male actors and privileged politics and economy over culture. The contributors to this volume successfully unsettle such perspectives by emphasizing the social history, artistic practices, and symbolic meanings of female performers in popular music of Asia. Women surfaced as popular icons in different guises in different Asian countries through different routes of circulation. Vamping the Stage is the first book-length study of women, modernity, and popular music in Asia, showcasing cutting-edge research conducted by scholars whose methods and perspectives draw from such diverse fields as anthropology, Asian studies, cultural studies, ethnomusicology, and film studies.
Note the chapter: “Googoosh Voice: An Iranian Icon in Silence and Song” by Farzaneh Hemmasi.
Women Singers in Global Contexts: Music, Biography, Identity by Call Number: Music Library Stacks ML82 .W687 2013Exploring and celebrating individual lives in diverse situations, Women Singers in Global Contexts is a new departure in the study of women's worldwide music-making. Ten unique women constitute the heart of this volume: each one has engaged her singing voice as a central element in her life, experiencing various opportunities, tensions, and choices through her vocality.
Note the chapter: “Sima's choices: Negotiating Repertories and Identities in Contemporary Iran” by Gay Breyley.
E-Books
Modernity, Sexuality, and Ideology in Iran: The Life and Legacy of a Popular Female Artist by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2011In Iran, since the mid-nineteenth century, one issue has been a common concern: how should Iran become modern? More than a century of struggle for or against modernity has constituted much of the social, political, and cultural history of the country. In this book, Talattof finds that the process of modernity never truly unfolded, due in large part to Iran's reluctance to embrace the seminal subjects of gender and sexuality. Talattof profiles several female artists of the 1970s, analyzing their lives and work as windows through which to examine what Iranian culture allowed and what it repudiated. This work explores the integral role of popular culture and female artists in the shaping of modern Iran.
Note the chapter "Social Change in Iran and the Transforming Lives of Women Artists."
Music of a Thousand Years by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2019Iran's particular system of traditional Persian art music has been long treated as the product of an ever-evolving, ancient Persian culture. In Music of a Thousand Years, Ann E. Lucas argues that this music is a modern phenomenon indelibly tied to changing notions of Iran's national history. Rather than considering a single Persian music history, Lucas demonstrates cultural dissimilarity and discontinuity over time, bringing to light two different notions of music-making in relation to premodern and modern musical norms. An important corrective to the history of Persian music, Music of a Thousand Years is the first work to align understandings of Middle Eastern music history with current understandings of the region's political history.
Print Books
Gender Equality in Iranian History: From Pre-Islamic Times to the Present by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .D47 2006In the last two decades, under the Islamic Republic, laws and regulations affecting the status of Iranian women came in the form of different religious decrees that were justified by the argument that they all complied with the Quran and the shariah. Iranian women have refused to abandon their quests for an equal status. This book examines the changes which have affected Iranian women's lives after the coming of Islam in the seventh century and after the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Islamic Fundamentalism, Feminism, and Gender Inequality in Iran under Khomeini by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .K39 2002In this book, utilizing the case of Iran under Khomeini, the author analyzes the relationship between Islam, Islamic fundamentalism and gender inequality.
Muslim Women of the Fergana Valley: A 19th Century Ethnography from Central Asia by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.27 .N3513 2016Muslim Women of the Fergana Valley is the first English translation of an important 19th-century Russian text describing everyday life in Uzbek communities.
The Story of the Daughters of Quchan: Gender and National Memory in Iranian History by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2.Z9 Q36 1998In 1905 Iranian women had been sold to pay taxes or taken as booty in a raid by tribesmen from a village. The narration of this event took all Iran by storm and shortly after the opening of the new parliament in 1906 relatives of these women demanded that parliament punish those responsible. Najmabadi investigates why this incident was so powerful.
Women and Islamic Cultures: Disciplinary Paradigms and Approaches: 2003-2013 by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .W697 2013The first decade of the 21st century witnessed an explosion in scholarly and public interest in women and Islamic cultures, globally. From misguided media representations, to politically motivated state manipulations, to agenda-driven Islamist movements, to feminist and international NGO projects - the subject and image of Muslim women has become iconic and riveting. This volume unpacks the representations, motivations, agendas, and projects by focusing on the advances in scholarly research on women and Islamic cultures in the first decade of the 21st century.
Women and the Islamic Republic: How Gendered Citizenship Conditions the Iranian State by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .S225 2022Based on extensive interviews and oral histories as well as archival sources, Women and the Islamic Republic challenges the dominant masculine theorizations of state-making in post-revolutionary Iran. Shirin Saeidi demonstrates that despite the Islamic Republic's non-democratic structures, multiple forms of citizenship have developed in post-revolutionary Iran.
Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam To 1800 by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .W656 2003Combining scholarship from a range of disciplines, this collection of essays is a comprehensive examination of the role of women in Iranian society and culture, from pre-Islamic times to 1800.
Women in the Islamic World: From Earliest Times to the Arab Spring by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .S3713 2014This book describes and analyses the different roles women have played in the Islamic world, past and present. Starting with Sharia regulations and their applications in societies throughout history, it addresses the obstacles and opportunities women have faced, and still face, in various Islamic societies. The last chapter addresses women's participation in the Arab Spring and their hopes and disappointments. The result is a vivid portrait of the different worlds of women in Islam, encompassing religion and law, sexuality and love, literature and the arts, law and professional life, and politics and power.
E-Books
Muslim Women of the Fergana Valley: A 19th Century Ethnography from Central Asia by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2016Muslim Women of the Fergana Valley is the first English translation of an important 19th-century Russian text describing everyday life in Uzbek communities.- The Story of the Daughters of Quchan: Gender and National Memory in Iranian History by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 1998In 1905 Iranian women had been sold to pay taxes or taken as booty in a raid by tribesmen from a village. The narration of this event took all Iran by storm and shortly after the opening of the new parliament in 1906 relatives of these women demanded that parliament punish those responsible. Najmabadi investigates why this incident was so powerful.
Women and Islamic Cultures: Disciplinary Paradigms and Approaches: 2003-2013 by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2013This volume unpacks the representations, motivations, agendas, and projects by focusing on the advances in scholarly research on women and Islamic cultures in the first decade of the 21st century.
Print Books
Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Politics of Patriarchy in Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .M62 2005Minoo Moallem challenges the mainstream stereotypical representation of Islam and Muslims as backward, fanatical, and premodern by showing how Islamic nationalism and fundamentalism are by-products of modernity. Writing with a deep personal and scholarly concern for recent Iranian history, Moallem refers to the gendered notions of brother and sister as keys to understanding the invention of the Islamic ummat as a modern fraternal community. Using magazines, novels, and films, she offers a feminist transnational analysis of contemporary Iranian culture that questions dominant binaries of modern and traditional, West and East, secular and religious, and civilized and barbaric.
Inside the Islamic Republic: Social Change in Post-Khomeini Iran by Call Number: Stacks DS318.9 .I67 2016The post-Khomenei era has profoundly changed the socio-political landscape of Iran. Since 1989, the internal dynamics of change in Iran, rooted in a panoply of socioeconomic, cultural, institutional, demographic, and behavioral factors, have led to a noticeable transition in both societal and governmental structures of power, as well as the way in which many Iranians have come to deal with the changing conditions of their society.
Navigating Contemporary Iran: Challenging Economic, Social and Political Perceptions by Call Number: Stacks DS318.9 .N39 2012This detailed examination of contemporary Iran addresses the most important current social, political, and economic issues facing the nation and the way it is perceived by the outside world. The volume brings together some of the most important scholars and researchers in the field, working in such diverse disciplines as anthropology, economics, history, international relations, philosophy, political science, and sociology, to offer a broad range of perspectives on the significance of three decades of changes for Iran's current and near-term-future domestic and international politics. Drawing upon a wealth of original field research, the authors challenge conventional wisdom and simplistic media stereotypes about the Islamic Republic. The chapters reach beyond traditional images of the country to show that, as a consequence of thirty years of economic and social changes, the reality, or 'essence', of contemporary Iran is more complex and nuanced than is often portrayed in the international media.
Women and Politics in Iran: Veiling, Unveiling, and Reveiling by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .S43 2007Why were urban women veiled in the early 1900s, unveiled from 1936 to 1979, and reveiled after the 1979 revolution? This question forms the basis of Hamideh Sedghi's original and unprecedented contribution to politics and Middle Eastern studies. Using primary and secondary sources, Sedghi offers new knowledge on women's agency in relation to state power. In this rigorous analysis she places contention over women at the centre of the political struggle between secular and religious forces and demonstrates that control over women's identities, sexuality, and labor has been central to the consolidation of state power. Sedghi links politics and culture with economics to present an integrated analysis of the private and public lives of different classes of women and their modes of resistance to state power.
Women and Politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1236.5.I7 V35 2011
Women in Place: The Politics of Gender Segregation in Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .S534 2020ISBN: 9780520304277Publication Date: 2019While much has been written about the impact of the 1979 Islamic revolution on life in Iran, discussions about the everyday life of Iranian women have been glaringly missing. Women in Place offers a gripping inquiry into gender segregation policies and women's rights in contemporary Iran.
Women, Power and Politics in 21st Century Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1236.5.I7 W65 2012This book examines the women's movement in Iran and its role in contesting gender relations since the 1979 revolution. Looking at examples from politics, law, employment, environment, media and religion and the struggle for democracy, this book demonstrates how material conditions have important social and political consequences for the lives of women in Iran and exposes the need to challenge the dominant theoretical perspectives on gender and Islam.
E-Books
- Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Politics of Patriarchy in Iran by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2005Minoo Moallem challenges the mainstream stereotypical representation of Islam and Muslims as backward, fanatical, and premodern by showing how Islamic nationalism and fundamentalism are by-products of modernity.
Navigating Contemporary Iran: Challenging Economic, Social and Political Perceptions by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2013This detailed examination of contemporary Iran addresses the most important current social, political, and economic issues facing the nation and the way it is perceived by the outside world. The volume brings together some of the most important scholars and researchers in the field, working in such diverse disciplines as anthropology, economics, history, international relations, philosophy, political science, and sociology, to offer a broad range of perspectives on the significance of three decades of changes for Iran's current and near-term-future domestic and international politics.
Women, Power and Politics in 21st Century Iran by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2012This book examines the women's movement in Iran and its role in contesting gender relations since the 1979 revolution. Looking at examples from politics, law, employment, environment, media and religion and the struggle for democracy, this book demonstrates how material conditions have important social and political consequences for the lives of women in Iran and exposes the need to challenge the dominant theoretical perspectives on gender and Islam.
Print Books
Constructing a Religiously Ideal 'Believer' and 'Woman' in Islam by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .D83 2011In this comprehensive study, Adis Duderija examines how Neo Traditional Salafi thought (NTS) and progressive Muslims interpret the normative concepts of 'Believer' and 'Muslim Woman' in contemporary Islam.
Female Personalities in the Qur'an and Sunna: Examining the Major Sources of Imami Shi'i Islam by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .O76 2015This book investigates the manner in which the Qur'an and sunna depict female personalities in their narrative literature. Providing a comprehensive study of all the female personalities mentioned in the Qur'an, the book is selective in the personalities of the sunna, examining the three prominent women of ahl al-bayt; Khadija, Fatima, and Zaynab.
The Idea of Women in Fundamentalist IslamCall Number: Stacks BP173.4 .S48 2003In an attempt to create a working prevalent theory about gender in Islam, this work deconstructs the religio-political writings and political practices of the nine Islamic ideologies of the 20th century who masterminded the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism.
Identity Crisis: Standing Between Two Identities of Women Believers from Muslim Backgrounds in Jordan by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .Y66 2015This book provides a general overview of the identity crises BMB (believer from Muslim background) women in Jordan go through and reasons for it.
Islam and Gender : The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .M55 1999ISBN: 0691058156Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the re-introduction of Sharica law relating to gender and the family, women's rights in Iran suffered a major setback. However, as the implementers of the law have faced the social realities of women's lives and aspirations, positive changes have gradually come about. Here Ziba Mir-Hosseini takes us to the heart of the growing debates concerning the ways in which justice for women should be achieved.
An Islam of Her Own: Reconsidering Religion and Secularlism in Women's Islamic Movements by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .H34 2011As the world grapples with issues of religious fanaticism, extremist politics, and rampant violence that seek justification in either "religious" or "secular" discourses, women who claim Islam as a vehicle for individual and social change are often either regarded as pious subjects who subscribe to an ideology that denies them many modern freedoms, or as feminist subjects who seek empowerment only through rejecting religion and adopting secularist discourses. Such assumptions emerge from a common trend in the literature to categorize the 'secular' and the 'religious' as polarizing categories, which in turn mitigates the identities, experiences and actions of women in Islamic societies. Yet in actuality Muslim women whose activism is grounded in Islam draw equally on principles associated with secularism. In An Islam of Her Own, Sherine Hafez focuses on women's Islamic activism in Egypt to challenge these binary representations of religious versus secular subjectivities.
Islamic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: Transformations and Continuities by Call Number: Stacks BP173.25 .I85 2016In recent decades, traditional methods of philology and intellectual history, applied to the study of Islam and Muslim societies, have been met with considerable criticism from rising generations of scholars who have turned to the social sciences, most notably anthropology and social history, for guidance. This change has been accompanied by the rise of new fields, studying, for example, Islam in Europe and Africa, and new topics, such as the role of gender. This collection surveys these transformations and others, taking stock of the field and showing new paths forward.
Medicines of the Soul: Female Bodies and Sacred Geographies in a Transnational Islam by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .M35 2001In Medicines of the Soul, the autobiographical writings of three leading women in today's Islamic revival movement reveal dramatic stories of religious transformation. As interpreted by Fedwa Malti-Douglas, the autobiographies provide a powerful, groundbreaking portrayal of gender, religion, and discourses of the body in Arabo-Islamic culture. At the center of each story is a lively female Islamic spirituality that questions secular hierarchies while reaffirming patriarchal ones.
Muslim Women Domestic Violence and Psychotherapy: Theological and Clinical Issues by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .I71 2019Muslim Women, Domestic Violence, and Psychotherapy reconciles newly emerging Islamic practical theology with the findings and theories of contemporary social sciences. It is an inquiry about the lived experience of the Islamic tradition and its application in Islamic counseling with Muslim women subject to domestic violence.
Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer, and Poetry in Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .H333 2021Following the 1979 revolution, the Iranian government set out to Islamize society. Muslim piety had to be visible, in personal appearance and in action. Iranians were told to pray, fast, and attend mosques to be true Muslims. The revolution turned questions of what it means to be a true Muslim into a matter of public debate, taken up widely outside the exclusive realm of male clerics and intellectuals. Say What Your Longing Heart Desires offers an elegant ethnography of these debates among a group of educated, middle-class women whose voices are often muted in studies of Islam.
Submitting to God: Women and Islam in Urban Malaysia by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .F75 2009In recent decades, Malaysia has been profoundly changed both by forces of globalization, modernization, and industrialization and by a strong Islamization process. Some would argue that the situation of Malay women has worsened, but such a conclusion is challenged by this study of the everyday religious practice of pious women within Kuala Lumpur's affluent Malay middle class. Here, women play an active part in the Islamization process, not only by heightened personal religiosity but also by organizing and participating in public programs of religious education. By organizing new forms of collective ritual and assuming new public roles as religious teachers, these religiously educated women are transforming the traditionally male-dominated gendered space of the mosque and breaking men's monopoly over positions of religious authority. Exploring this situation, Submitting to God challenges preconceptions of the nature of Islamization as well as current theories of female agency and power.
Woman's Identity and Rethinking the Hadith by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .B347 2015The Prophet Muhammad's reported traditions have evolved significantly to affect the social, cultural, and political lives of all Muslims. Though centuries of scholarship were spent on the authentication and trustworthiness of the narrators, there has been less study focused on the contents of these narratives, known as Hadith or Sunnah, and their corroboration by the Qur`an. This book is a first step in a comprehensive attempt to contrast Hadith with the Qur`an in order to uncover some of the unjust practices by Muslims concerning women and gender issues.
Women and Islam: Myths, Apologies, and the Limits of Feminist Critique by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .B68 2014Muslim women of all ages, economic status, educational backgrounds, sexual orientations, and from different parts of historically Muslim countries suffer the kinds of atrocities that violate common understandings of human rights and are normally denounced as criminal or pathological, yet these actions are sustained because they uphold some religious doctrine or some custom blessed by local traditions. Ironically, while instances of abuse meted out to women and even female children are routine, scholarship about Muslim women in the post 9/11 era has rarely focused attention on them, preferring to speak of women's agency and resistance. Too few scholars are willing to tell the complicated, and at times harrowing, stories of Muslim women's lives. Women and Islam: Myths, Apologies, and the Limits of Feminist Critique radically rethinks the celebratory discourse constructed around Muslim women's resistance.
Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .S33 2013Asma Sayeed's book explores the history of women as religious scholars from the first decades of Islam through the early Ottoman period.
Women's Islam: Religious Practice Among Women in Today's Iran by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .K36 1998
E-Books
Female Personalities in the Qur'an and Sunna: Examining the Major Sources of Imami Shi'i Islam by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2015This book investigates the manner in which the Qur'an and sunna depict female personalities in their narrative literature. Providing a comprehensive study of all the female personalities mentioned in the Qur'an, the book is selective in the personalities of the sunna, examining the three prominent women of ahl al-bayt; Khadija, Fatima, and Zaynab.
An Islam of Her Own: Reconsidering Religion and Secularlism in Women's Islamic Movements by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2011As the world grapples with issues of religious fanaticism, extremist politics, and rampant violence that seek justification in either "religious" or "secular" discourses, women who claim Islam as a vehicle for individual and social change are often either regarded as pious subjects who subscribe to an ideology that denies them many modern freedoms, or as feminist subjects who seek empowerment only through rejecting religion and adopting secularist discourses.
Islamic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: Transformations and Continuities by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2016In recent decades, traditional methods of philology and intellectual history, applied to the study of Islam and Muslim societies, have met with considerable criticism from rising generations of scholars who have turned to the social sciences, most notably anthropology and social history, for guidance. This change has been accompanied by the rise of new fields, studying, for example, Islam in Europe and Africa, and new topics, such as the role of gender. This collection surveys these transformations and others, taking stock of the field and showing new paths forward.- Medicines of the Soul: Female Bodies and Sacred Geographies in a Transnational Islam by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2001In Medicines of the Soul, the autobiographical writings of three leading women in today's Islamic revival movement reveal dramatic stories of religious transformation.
Muslim Women, Domestic Violence, and Psychotherapy by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2019Muslim Women, Domestic Violence, and Psychotherapy reconciles newly emerging Islamic practical theology with the findings and theories of contemporary social sciences. It is an inquiry about the lived experience of the Islamic tradition and its application in Islamic counseling with Muslim women subject to domestic violence.- Woman's Identity and Rethinking the Hadith by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2015The Prophet Muhammad's reported traditions have evolved significantly to affect the social, cultural, and political lives of all Muslims. Though centuries of scholarship were spent on the authentication and trustworthiness of the narrators, there has been less study focused on the contents of these narratives, known as Hadith or Sunnah, and their corroboration by the Qur`an. This book is a first step in a comprehensive attempt to contrast Hadith with the Qur`an in order to uncover some of the unjust practices by Muslims concerning women and gender issues.
Women and Islam: Myths, Apologies, and the Limits of Feminist Critique by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2014Muslim women of all ages, economic status, educational backgrounds, sexual orientations, and from different parts of historically Muslim countries suffer the kinds of atrocities that violate common understandings of human rights and are normally denounced as criminal or pathological, yet these actions are sustained because they uphold some religious doctrine or some custom blessed by local traditions. Ironically, while instances of abuse meted out to women and even female children are routine, scholarship about Muslim women in the post 9/11 era has rarely focused attention on them, preferring to speak of women's agency and resistance. Too few scholars are willing to tell the complicated, and at times harrowing, stories of Muslim women's lives. Women and Islam: Myths, Apologies, and the Limits of Feminist Critique radically rethinks the celebratory discourse constructed around Muslim women's resistance.- Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2013Asma Sayeed's book explores the history of women as religious scholars from the first decades of Islam through the early Ottoman period.
Women, Religion and Culture in Iran by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2002Investigates how women, religion and culture have interacted in the context of 19th and 20th century Iran, covering topics as seemingly diverse as the social and cultural history of Persian cuisine, the work and attitudes of 19th century Christian missionaries, the impact of growing female literacy, and the consequences of developments since 1979.
Women's Islam: Religious Practice Among Women in Today's Iran by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2013First published in 1998.
Print Books
Becoming Visible in Iran: Women in Contemporary Iranian Society by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .H66 2008The state of women in Islamic societies is the subject of much interest and heated debate, even as representations in the media rely on inadequate information and misperceptions. "Becoming Visible in Iran" disputes the widespread stereotypes about Muslim women prevalent in the West, providing a vivid account of young women in contemporary Iran. Beginning at home, women are infusing dramatic change by challenging the patriarchal conceptions of their fathers, brothers, uncles and others within the intimate sphere of family and home.
Burying the Beloved: Marriage, Realism, and Reform in Modern Iran by Call Number: Stacks PK6423 .M68 2012Burying the Beloved traces the relationship between the law and literature in Iran to reveal the profound ambiguities at the heart of Iranian ideas of modernity regarding women's rights and social status. The book reveals how novels mediate legal reforms and examines how authors have used realism to challenge and re-imagine notions of "the real."
Conceiving Citizens: Women and the Politics of Motherhood in Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .K377 2011While Iranian women have most frequently been viewed through the politics of veiling, Conceiving Citizens interprets modern Iranian politics and society through the history of women's health and sexuality. Drawing on archival documents and manuscript sources from Iran and elsewhere, Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet illustrates how debates over hygiene, reproductive politics, and sexuality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries explained demographic trends and put women at the center of nationalist debates.
Creating the Modern Iranian Woman: Popular Culture Between Two Revolutions by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .H367 2019Between the 1963 'White Revolution' and the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the position of women in Iran experienced a number of fundamental shifts. Policies and reforms were introduced, including land, suffrage, education and dress reforms which the Pahlavi regime claimed would advance the position of women and would lead to a swift modernisation of the country. In this book, Liora Hendelman-Baavur examines these changes, looking at the interactions between global aspects of modernity and notions of identity in Iranian popular culture.
Engaged Surrender: African American Women and Islam by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .R68 2004Commonly portrayed in the media as holding women in strict subordination and deference to men, Islam is nonetheless attracting numerous converts among African American women. Are these women "reproducing their oppression," as it might seem? Or does their adherence to the religion suggest unsuspected subtleties and complexities in the relation of women, especially black women, to Islam? Carolyn Rouse sought answers to these questions among the women of Sunni Muslim mosques in Los Angeles. Her richly textured study provides rare insight into the meaning of Islam for African American women; in particular, Rouse shows how the teachings of Islam give these women a sense of power and control over interpretations of gender, family, authority, and obligations.
Gender in Contemporary Iran: Pushing the Boundaries by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .G46 2011This book examines gender and the dynamics of social change in contemporary Iran, documenting the changes in women's lives and showing how women have now become agents of social change rather than victims. Bringing together the detailed primary research of a number of eminent scholars working in Iran, this collection provides unique perspectives on the past decade in Iranian society. Chapters document and examine how different Iranian groups and classes are negotiating, resisting, and pressing for political and social change, to explore the complexity of a society that often is portrayed in monolithic stereotypes in the international media. Thematically arranged sections explore discourses around gender and the impact of these discourses on women; the gendered impact of educational, employment, communications, and cultural changes; changing gender attitudes among the post-revolutionary generation of youth; and the ways economic changes have been affecting women. Providing an important basis for understanding social and political developments in a country that has been a focus of international attention for much of the last decade, this collection will be an important reference for scholars of Iranian studies, gender studies, political science and sociology.
Iran Awakening: One Woman's Journey to Reclaim her Life and Country by Call Number: Stacks DS318.84.E22 I72 2007A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * The moving, inspiring memoir of one of the great women of our times, Shirin Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize and advocate for the oppressed, whose spirit has remained strong in the face of political persecution and despite the challenges she has faced raising a family while pursuing her work. Best known in this country as the lawyer working tirelessly on behalf of Canadian photojournalist, Zara Kazemi--raped, tortured and murdered in Iran--Dr. Ebadi offers us a vivid picture of the struggles of one woman against the system. The book movingly chronicles her childhood in a loving, untraditional family, her upbringing before the Revolution in 1979 that toppled the Shah, her marriage and her religious faith, as well as her life as a mother and lawyer battling an oppressive regime in the courts while bringing up her girls at home.
Iranian Feminism and Transnational Ethics in Media Discourse by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .S5 2022Iranian Feminism and Transnational Ethics in Media Discourse examines the mediated dialogue of #WhiteWednesdays, specifically between U.S. mainstream news narratives and Iranian activists on Twitter. These narratives highlight how hierarchies of visibility in both news and social media discourse overshadow transnational feminist politics while reinforcing femonationalist narratives.
Islam, Gender, and Development: rural-urban migration of women in Iran by Call Number: Stacks HB2096.4.A3 V45 2011
Islam, Gender, and Social Change by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .I73 1998For several decades, the Muslim world has experienced a religious resurgence. The reassertion of Islam in personal and political life has taken many forms, from greater attention to religious practice to the emergence of Islamic organizations, movements, and institutions. One of the mostcontroversial and emotionally charged aspects of this revival has been its effect on women in Muslim societies.The essays collected in this book place this issue in its historical context and offer case studies of Muslim societies from North Africa to Southeast Asia.
My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices by Call Number: Stacks DS266 .M92 2006In the first anthology of its kind, Lila Azam Zanganeh argues that although Iran looms large in the American imagination, it is grossly misunderstood-seen either as the third pillar of Bush's infamous "axis of evil" or as a nation teeming with youths clamoring for revolution. This collection showcases the real scope and complexity of Iran through the work of a stellar group of contributors-including Azar Nafisi and with original art by Marjane Satrapi. Their collective goal is to counter the many existing cultural and political clichés about Iran.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women by Call Number: Stacks BP173.4 .O94 2013Scholarship on Islam and women has expanded exponentially over the past twenty years, with increasing specialization within the field, as well as cross-pollination between other fields and disciplines. With this surge in interest there is a genuine need for a systematic reference work toprovide balanced comprehensive coverage of the field.The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women is designed to meet this need by providing clear, current, comprehensive information on the major topics of scholarly interest within the study of women and Islam.The Encyclopedia, which is based on the highly acclaimed Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World and is one of four encyclopedias in the Islamic World series, will be published as an e-book, in print, and on Oxford Islamic Studies Online. It will feature several hundred in-depth articles written by leading experts and is intended as a single source for accurate overview articles covering all aspects of this flourishing area of research.
The Poetics and Politics of the Veil in Iran: An Archival and Photographic Adventure by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .F38 2019This volume explores the lives of women in Iran through the social, political, and aesthetic contexts of veiling, unveiling, and re-veiling. Through poetic writings and photographs, Azadeh Fatehrad responds to the legacy of the Iranian Revolution via the representation of women in photography, literature, and film. The images and texts are documentary, analytical, and personal.
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Call Number: Stacks PE64 .N34 A3 2008#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * We all have dreams--things we fantasize about doing and generally never get around to. This is the story of Azar Nafisi's dream and of the nightmare that made it come true. For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments.
Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism and Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .N34 2007In Rethinking Global Sisterhood, Nima Naghibi makes powerful connections among feminism, imperialism, and the discourses of global sisterhood. Naghibi investigates topics including the state-sponsored Women's Organization of Iran and the involvement of feminists such as Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem in the Iranian feminism movement before and during the 1979 revolution.
Revolutionary Bodies: Technologies of Gender, Sex, and Self in Contemporary Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1075.5.I72 B38 2021Gender and sexuality in modern Iran is frequently examined through the prism of nationalist symbols and religious discourse from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this book, Kristin Soraya Batmanghelichi takes a different approach, by interrogating how normative ideas of women's bodies in state, religious, and public health discourses have resulted in the female body being deemed as immodest and taboo. Through a diverse blend of sources --a popular cultural women's journal, a red-light district, cases studies of temporary marriages, iconic public statues, and an HIV-AIDS advocacy organization in Tehran - this work argues that conceptions of gender and sexuality have been mediated in public discourse and experienced and modified by women themselves over the past thirty years of the Islamic Republic.Expanding upon existing philosophical theory, technological research and scholarship on gender and sexuality in Iran, this book focuses much needed attention on under-studied, marginalized communities, such as widows living with HIV. This work interrogates how bodily technologies are constructed discursively and socially in Iran and the values and perspectives which are incorporated in them.
Sexual Politics in Modern Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .A67 2009Janet Afary is a native of Iran and a leading historian. Her work focuses on gender and sexuality and draws on her experience of growing up in Iran and her involvement with Iranian women of different ages and social strata. These observations, and a wealth of historical documents, form the kernel of this book, which charts the history of the nation's sexual revolution from the nineteenth century to today.
Things I've Been Silent About: Memories by Call Number: Stacks PE64 .N34 A3 2008Azar Nafisi, author of the beloved international bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, now gives us a stunning personal story of growing up in Iran, memories of her life lived in thrall to a powerful and complex mother, against the background of a country’s political revolution. This unforgettable portrait of a woman, a family, and a troubled homeland is a stunning book that readers will embrace, a new triumph from an author who is a modern master of the memoir.
Voices from Iran: The Changing Lives of Iranian Women by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .K68 2002In the late 1990s, Mahnaz Kousha interviewed 15 Iranian women in Tehran who originally came from cities and towns throughout Iran. The youngest was 38, the eldest in her 50s. Extensive excerpts from their dialogues comprise the heart of this volume. The women explore their relationships with their mothers, fathers, husbands and children. They reflect upon the institutions of courtship and marriage and address issues of childcare, housework and women's employment. They talk openly about their concerns, ambitions and frustrations. Finally, they discuss everyday personal problems and the solutions they devise to cope with such difficulties.
Women and Gender in Iraq: Between Nation-Building and Fragmentation by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735 .A625 2018Since the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, the challenges of sectarianism and militarism have weighed heavily on the women of Iraq. In this book, Zahra Ali foregrounds a wide-range of interviews with a variety of women involved in women's rights activism, showing how everyday life and intellectual life has developed since the US-led invasion. In addition to this, Ali offers detailed historical research of social, economic and political contexts since the formation of the Iraqi state in the 1920s. Through a transnational and postcolonial feminist approach, this book also considers the ways in which gender norms and practices, Iraqi feminist discourses, and activisms are shaped and developed through state politics, competing nationalisms, religious, tribal and sectarian dynamics, wars, and economic sanctions. The result is a vivid account of the everyday life in today's Iraq and an exceptional analysis of the future of Iraqi feminisms.
Women in Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .S53 2002 (2 vols.)Blending social scientific theories about feminism, social movements, and culture with the specifics of the Iranian situation, this work examines changes in the structure of patriarchy from the 1960s to the present, by looking at domestic labor, employment, education, politics, culture, and sexuality. Combining personal narratives and socio-philosophical discussion, Shahidian focuses on policies that shape gender relations, primarily on the Islamic government's strategies to re-strengthen patriarchal practices.
Women in Iraq: Past Meets Present by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735 .E47 2012Noga Efrati outlines the first social and political history of women in Iraq during the periods of British occupation and the British-backed Hashimite monarchy (1917-1958). She traces the harsh and long-lasting implications of British state building on Iraqi women, particularly their legal and political enshrinement as second-class citizens, and the struggle by women's rights activists to counter this precedent.
Women in Iraq: The Gender Impact of International Sanctions by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735 .A795 2008bIn this important book, Yasmin Husein Al-Jawaheri argues that the explosion of violence against Iraqi women since the removal of Saddam Hussein should not have taken people by surprise. The deterioration of gender relations was in fact, as she vividly demonstrates, a direct result of a decade of international economic sanctions.Al-Jawaheri explores the gender-related impact of those sanctions in the areas of employment, education, family relations, and domestic responsibilities. Also focusing on how the 2003 invasion and subsequent upsurge in sectarianism have intensified the problem, she assesses the prospects for women's rights in Iraq.
Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .N35 2005Drawing from a rich array of visual and literary material from nineteenth-century Iran, this groundbreaking book rereads and rewrites the history of Iranian modernity through the lens of gender and sexuality.
E-Books
- Becoming Visible in Iran: Women in Contemporary Iranian Society by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2009The state of women in Islamic societies is the subject of much interest and heated debate, even as representations in the media rely on inadequate information and misperceptions. "Becoming Visible in Iran" disputes the widespread stereotypes about Muslim women prevalent in the West, providing a vivid account of young women in contemporary Iran. Beginning at home, women are infusing dramatic change by challenging the patriarchal conceptions of their fathers, brothers, uncles and others within the intimate sphere of family and home. Empowered by education, they transport the power of their minds and beginning from the domestic to the public and political.Through detailed interviews and striking narratives, Mehri Honarbin-Holliday presents the experiences of these young women who wield a key if indirect political influence on the seemingly male dominated politics of this society, as they achieve a new visibility. For its direct presentation of women's perspectives as well as its analysis and insight, this book is a vital contribution to our understanding of the lives of Muslim women and the possibilities before them today.This title offers contemporary research on Iran. It provides original fieldwork, including interviews with young Iranian women. It is relevant for Gender Studies and Middle East specialists.
- Burying the Beloved: Marriage, Realism, and Reform in Modern Iran by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2012Burying the Beloved traces the relationship between the law and literature in Iran to reveal the profound ambiguities at the heart of Iranian ideas of modernity regarding women's rights and social status. The book reveals how novels mediate legal reforms and examines how authors have used realism to challenge and re-imagine notions of "the real."
Conceiving Citizens by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2011While Iranian women have most frequently been viewed through the politics of veiling, Conceiving Citizens interprets modern Iranian politics and society through the history of women's health and sexuality. Drawing on archival documents and manuscript sources from Iran and elsewhere, FiroozehKashani-Sabet illustrates how debates over hygiene, reproductive politics, and sexuality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries explained demographic trends and put women at the center of nationalist debates.- Engaged Surrender: African American Women and Islam by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2004Commonly portrayed in the media as holding women in strict subordination and deference to men, Islam is nonetheless attracting numerous converts among African American women. Are these women "reproducing their oppression," as it might seem? Or does their adherence to the religion suggest unsuspected subtleties and complexities in the relation of women, especially black women, to Islam? Carolyn Rouse sought answers to these questions among the women of Sunni Muslim mosques in Los Angeles.
Gender in Contemporary Iran: Pushing the Boundaries by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2011This book examines gender and the dynamics of social change in contemporary Iran, documenting the changes in women's lives and showing how women have now become agents of social change rather than victims. Bringing together the detailed primary research of a number of eminent scholars working in Iran, this collection provides unique perspectives on the past decade in Iranian society. Chapters document and examine how different Iranian groups and classes are negotiating, resisting, and pressing for political and social change, to explore the complexity of a society that often is portrayed in monolithic stereotypes in the international media. Thematically arranged sections explore discourses around gender and the impact of these discourses on women; the gendered impact of educational, employment, communications, and cultural changes; changing gender attitudes among the post-revolutionary generation of youth; and the ways economic changes have been affecting women. Providing an important basis for understanding social and political developments in a country that has been a focus of international attention for much of the last decade, this collection will be an important reference for scholars of Iranian studies, gender studies, political science and sociology.- Islam, Gender, and Social Change by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 1998For several decades, the Muslim world has experienced a religious resurgence. The reassertion of Islam in personal and political life has taken many forms, from greater attention to religious practice to the emergence of Islamic organizations, movements, and institutions. One of the most controversial and emotionally charged aspects of this revival has been its effect on women in Muslim societies.The essays collected in this book place this issue in its historical context and offer case studies of Muslim societies from North Africa to Southeast Asia.
Performing Islam: Gender and Ritual in Iran by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2007Performing Islam takes as its main focus the rich array of ceremonial activities that shape and inform the lives of circles of women in south Tehran. Based on anthropological fieldwork, the book describes and analyses rituals that mark religious anniversaries and life course events in Iran today. Arguing that the ritual performances are powerful forums where ideas develop, and where rules, symbols and discourses are contested, this book discusses the values and beliefs underpinning gender constructions in a rapidly changing and complex society. The ambiguous metaphorical language of the rituals is examined, revealing how gender ideologies are projected and renewed, but also challenged, destabilized and ridiculed. Thus the rituals provide possibilities for self-expression, innovation and incremental change. This study goes beyond questions of meaning and culture to interrogate the dynamics of gender performance as products of power and politics.
Public Urban Space, Gender and Segregation: Women-only Urban Parks in Iran by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2017Combining research approaches from urban planning and social sciences, this book analyses both technical and social aspects of women-only parks.- Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism and Iran by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2007Western women's involvement in Persia dates from the mid-nineteenth century, when female adventurers and missionaries first encountered their veiled Muslim "sisters." Twentieth-century Western and state-sponsored Iranian feminists continued to use the image of the veiled woman as the embodiment of backwardness. Yet, following the 1979 revolution, indigenous Iranian feminists became more vocal in their resistance to this characterization. In Rethinking Global Sisterhood, Nima Naghibi makes powerful connections among feminism, imperialism, and the discourses of global sisterhood.
Women's Human Rights and the Muslim Question: Iran's One Million Signatures Campaign by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2012Women's Human Rights and the Muslim Question shows how Muslim women have made meaningful contributions to the development of the international framework on gender equality and women's rights. An investigation into the women's movement of Iran offers a practical grounding for this argument, and presents unprecedented findings on how ideological divisions along secular and religious lines have been worked in favour of a rights-based framework for change. The book presents a comprehensive synthesis and analysis of the campaign material of the women's movement 'Change for Equality Campaign'--one of the most progressive and sophisticated movements in the Middle East/Central Asia.
Women in Iraq: Past Meets Present by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2012Noga Efrati outlines the first social and political history of women in Iraq during the periods of British occupation and the British-backed Hashimite monarchy (1917-1958). She traces the harsh and long-lasting implications of British state building on Iraqi women, particularly their legal and political enshrinement as second-class citizens, and the struggle by women's rights activists to counter this precedent.- Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2005Drawing from a rich array of visual and literary material from nineteenth-century Iran, this groundbreaking book rereads and rewrites the history of Iranian modernity through the lens of gender and sexuality.
Print Books
Axis of Hope: Iranian Women's Rights Activism Across Borders by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .S23 2019Political tensions between Iran and the United States in the post-9/11 period and the Global War on Terror have set the stage for Iranian women?s rights activists inside and outside Iran as they seek full legal equality under the Islamic Republic. Axis of Hope recounts activists? struggles through critical analysis of their narratives.
The Making of the Modern Iranian Woman: Gender, State Policy, and Popular Culture, 1865-1946Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .A75 2002The Women's Awakening Project in late 1930s Iran under Reza Shah Pahlavi is the focus of this historical look at the emergence of the modern concept of womanhood in Iran. Amin's extensive research confirms that Reza Shah's controversial attempt to forcibly westernize Iranian women, and not the pre-revolutionary 1970's, marked the turning point for "the woman question" in Iran.
The Politics of Women's Rights in Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1236.5.I7 O83 2009In The Politics of Women's Rights in Iran, Arzoo Osanloo explores how Iranian women understand their rights. After the 1979 revolution, Iranian leaders transformed the state into an Islamic republic. At that time, the country's leaders used a renewed discourse of women's rights to symbolize a shift away from the excesses of Western liberalism. Osanloo reveals that the postrevolutionary republic blended practices of a liberal republic with Islamic principles of equality. Her ethnographic study illustrates how women's claims of rights emerge from a hybrid discourse that draws on both liberal individualism and Islamic ideals.
Whisper Tapes: Kate Millett in Iran by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .M68 2019Kate Millett was already an icon of American feminism when she went to Iran in 1979. She arrived just weeks after the Iranian Revolution, to join Iranian women in marking International Women's Day. Intended as a day of celebration, the event turned into a week of protests. Millett, armed with film equipment and a cassette deck to record everything around her, found herself in the middle of demonstrations for women's rights and against the mandatory veil. Listening to the revolutionary soundscape of Millett's audio tapes, Negar Mottahedeh offers a new interpretive guide to Revolutionary Iran, its slogans, habits, and women's movement--a movement that, many claim, Millett never came to understand.
Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .W655 2004Describes the influence of women in Iranian history.
Women, Islam, and Identity: Public Life in Private Spaces in Ubekistan by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.27 .P47 2014This pioneering ethnographic work centers on the dynamics of female authority within the religious life of a conservative Muslim community in the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan.
The Women's Rights Movement in Iran: Mutiny, Appeasement, and Repression from 1900 to Khomeini by Call Number: Stacks HQ1735.2 .S24 1982
E-Books
Islamic Feminisms: Rights and Interpretations Across Generations in Iran by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2016This book explores the contentious topic of women's rights in Muslim-majority countries, with a specific focus on Iran and the Iranian women's movement from 1906 to the present.
The Politics of Women's Rights in Iran by Call Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2009Arzoo Osanloo explores how Iranian women understand their rights. After the 1979 revolution, Iranian leaders transformed the state into an Islamic republic. At that time, the country's leaders used a renewed discourse of women's rights to symbolize a shift away from the excesses of Western liberalism. Osanloo reveals that the postrevolutionary republic blended practices of a liberal republic with Islamic principles of equality.
Women, Islam, and Identity: Public Life in Private Spaces in UbekistanCall Number: E-BookPublication Date: 2014This pioneering ethnographic work centers on the dynamics of female authority within the religious life of a conservative Muslim community in the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan.
DVDs
- 10DVD - Public Services Desk: HQ1735.2 .A128 2004
A portrait of contemporary Iran, as seen through the eyes of one woman as she drives through the streets of Tehran over a period of several days. Her journey is comprised of ten conversations with various female passengers, and shed light on the lives of these women whose voices are seldom heard. - Il Cerchio = The CircleDVD - Public Services Desk: PN1995.9.F67 C41122 2001
A woman is afraid to tell her pregnant daughter's in-laws that the expected male child did not arrive--it is a girl instead. A group of women recently released from prison can't escape from being prisoners. A destitute mother tries to abandon the daughter she can't provide for. The police pick up a prostitute while her customers go free. In the fundamentalist theocracy of Iran, these women have all committed an eternal crime: being female. Surrounded by suffering and oppression, the world closes in on these women, limiting those choices that haven't already been made for them, along the narrow, tragic paths of Iranian womanhood. - Divorce Iranian styleDVD - Public Services Desk: HQ922.56 .D58 2003
Looks inside an Iranian divorce court and shows how women are treated under Islamic law. - Four Wives -- One Man a DocumentaryDVD - Public Services Desk: HQ1170 .F68 2007
A portrait of a polygamist family in a rural Iranian village, exploring the intricacies of the relationships between the four wives, their husband, and their free-spoken mother-in-law and their numerous children. - The Glass HouseDVD - Public Services Desk: HQ1735.2 .Z9 T445 2009
The Glass House follows four girls striving to pull themselves out of the margins by attending a one-of-kind rehabilitation center in uptown Tehran. Forget about the Iran that you've seen before. With a virtually invisible camera, the girls of The Glass House take us on a never-before-seen tour of the underclass of Iran with their brave and defiant stories: Samira struggles to overcome forced drug addiction; Mitra harnesses abandonment into her creative writing; Sussan teeters on a dangerous ledge after years of sexual abuse; and Nazila burgeons out of her hatred with her blazing rap music. This groundbreaking documentary reflects a side of Iran few have access to or paid attention to: a society lost to its traditions with nothing meaningful to replace them and a group of courageous women working to instill a sense of empowerment and hope into the minds and lives of otherwise discarded teenage girls. - Shirin Neshat The Woman MovesDVD - Public Services Desk: N7289 .N47 S53 2003
An acclaimed photographer, filmmaker, and video artist, Iranian-born Shirin Neshat addresses the complex forces shaping the identity of Muslim women throughout the world and explores the social, political, and psychological dimensions of women's experiences.
Streaming Audio
- Music Online: Contemporary World MusicStreaming audio collection of sounds from around the world. Examples include (search these titles in Music Online): Sima Bina – Melodies of the Sahara, Golden Hits of Googoosh, Sima Bina vocal with Hossein Omoumi, From night to the Edge of Day – Ali Azam, Songs of Persian Women.
- The Song of the NeyInstrumental Music
Contents: CD 1. Dastgâh-e homâyun (28:17) -- Avâz-e dashti (13:02) -- Dastgâh-e châhârgâh (28:44). -- CD 2. Dastgâh mâhûr (19:58) -- Afshâri (18:28) -- Esfahân (13:51) -- Dastgâh mâhûr (5:09)
Streaming Videos
- Āfsāīd = OffsideAcademic Video Online, 2007
From the director of THE CIRCLE and CRIMSON GOLD comes a smart comedy illustrating the fight for women's rights in Iran. Who is that strange boy sitting quietly in the corner of a bus full of screaming fans going to the football match? In fact, this shy boy is a girl in disguise. She is not alone, women also love football in Iran. Before the game begins, she is arrested at the check point and put into a holding pen just by the stadium with a band of other women all dressed up as men. They will be handed over to the vice squad after the match. But before this, they will be tortured! They must endure every cheer, every shout of a game they cannot see. Worse yet, they must listen to the play-by-play account of a soldier who knows nothing about football. Yet, these young girls just won't give up. They use every trick in the book to see the match. OFFSIDE is a smart comedy illustrating the fight for women's rights in Iran. - City Walls - My Own Private TehranAcademic Video Online, 2008
In this disarmingly intimate and revealing film three generations of women in an Iranian family describe their struggles for survival within marriages founded on Iranian traditions. The filmmaker's grandmother was married at 13 to a ne'er-do-well who spent what little money there was on opium and drinking. She became a maid and a wet nurse in order to earn enough to feed her six daughters. Both the filmmaker's mother and then the filmmaker herself entered difficult marriages, each of which ended in divorce. The third generation however had one advantage. The Revolution allowed girls to get a university education--even girls from poor families. So the filmmaker, Sonia, was able to study in Iran and abroad in Switzerland. As the women tell their stories the audience gets a glimpse of traditional customs in Iran and how they are carried forward today. A woman without a husband still encounters prejudices and a constricted life style. Sonia's shots of street scenes and of domestic life attest to her attachment to her country and her family. Yet she must leave it all behind if she is to realize her goals. - Expressing the Inexpressible Shirin NeshatFilms on Demand, 2005
Also known as "Shirin Neshat The Woman Moves."
An acclaimed photographer, filmmaker, and video artist, Iranian-born Shirin Neshat addresses the complex forces shaping the identity of Muslim women throughout the world and explores the social, political, and psychological dimensions of women's experiences. In this program, she explicates her haunting video installations Shadow Under the Web; Turbulent; Soliloquy; Rapture; and Fervor, as well as her seminal series of still images, The Women of Allah. In addition, she discusses being both an insider and an outsider in two different cultures, the narrative power of cinema, sexual taboos in Islamic society, the tension between traditional and modern values, the nature of expression when expression itself is forbidden, and the quiet strength and bravery of women that prompts them to rebel against repression. - The Female Voice of IranFilms on Demand, 2020
Dealing with issues of cultural censorship in Iran, this film is about female singers living inside Iran, their daily lives, and their use of digital media to achieve their deepest wish: "I want my voice to be heard." Invited by a magical entity - Negar - female voices from all over this vast country come out of isolation and gather in a garden in the middle of Iran to make their dream come true. Nobody has tried this before, so Negar seeks the help of two travellers to connect. Along the way they meet surprisingly strong female personalities of diverse cultural backgrounds and come closer to understanding the orient. - The Fifth Reaction Vākunish-i panjumAcademic Video Online, 2003
A young woman, Fereshteh who teaches in one of Tehran high school has lost her husband recently. According to law and tradition, she must leave the fate of her two sons (9 and 7 years old) and the wealth of her husband to her father in law who is traditional minded man. (In Persian with English subtitles.) - My Mother's Home, LagoonEthnographic Video Online, 2001
Like Kurosawa's Woman in the Dunes, 67-year-old Kobra battles the elements on a lagoon in Iran to eke out a living for herself and her 100-year-old invalid mother. Even on New Year's day she is out in her rowboat before dawn, dropping and hauling her nets for the modest catch. She must argue fiercely with the men in the marketplace for a fair price, and physically battle fishermen on the water who claim the territory where her nets are placed. In an unforgettable scene the men tear her nets and scuffle with her on the deck until she falls into the water. Mother and daughter live together in a weather- beaten cottage on the edge of the lagoon. Pictures of their deceased loved ones surround them. The Koran, the voice of the mullahs on the radio, and their love for one another sustain them. With simplicity and honesty, this documentary makes a universal statement of the harsh realities many women face, and the strength that sustains them. - They Call Me Muslim: A DocumentaryUTK Streaming Video, 2006
Two contrasting profiles of Muslim women who have made opposite decisions about wearing the traditional Muslim article of clothing, the Hijab. One in France has chosen to wear the hijab in defiance of French Law. The other skirts the law in Iran, by wearing it as little as possible. (In Persian with English subtitles.) - The Unwanted Woman Zan-i ziyādīAcademic Video Online, 2005
Searing tale about the struggles of women in modern-day Iran. Poor Sima puts up with her philandering and abusive husband, Ahmad. He is so blatant with his indiscretions that he asks Sima to cover for him when he plans a trip with his girlfriend Saba. In an Iran where unmarried couples can be arrested for fraternizing in public, Ahmad needs Sima to pretend that Saba is her cousin. Sima and the couple's young daughter accompany Ahmad and Saba on their trip - a humiliating situation for the devoted wife and mother. But, a surprising turn awaits the trio when they stop in a town where a man has just murdered his wife for her alleged affair. (In Persian with English subtitles.) - Women Come Out of the HouseAcademic Video Online, 2006
This documentary features Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian activist who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize award for her efforts promoting human rights in Iran. It presents a realistic picture of shifting identities for Iranian women today and defies stereotypes by showing a variety of Iranian women in rural and urban areas, educated and uneducated, devout and not, young and old - all with strong points of views about what it is like to be a woman in contemporary Iran. (In Persian with English subtitles.)
- EthnomusicologyPublished by the Society for Ethnomusicology.
- Journal of Middle East Women's StudiesPublished by the Association for Middle East Women's Studies.
- The Middle East JournalPublished by the Middle East Institute, Washington D.C.
- Ethnic NewswatchFull-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press of the United States.
- Historical Abstracts with Full TextIndexes scholarly literature on world history, excluding the United States and Canada. Covers the time period from 1450 to the present.
- Humanities International CompleteCitations and selected full-text for key Humanities journals. Excellent for cross-discipline searching. Indexes Journal of Middle East Women's Studies.
- Music Online: Contemporary World MusicStreaming audio collection of sounds from around the world. Genres include reggae, Balkanic jazz, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres such as traditional music - fado, flamenco, klezmer, gagaku, and more.
- Sociological AbstractsAbstracting and indexing of articles and book reviews covering the international literature of sociology, social work, and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences from 1952 to present.
- Iranian American Community of TennesseeThe Iranian American Community of Tennessee (IAC-TN) is a bi-partisan and non-profit organization consisting of Iranian-Americans and other concerned Tennessean coming together on civic engagement on various local and global issues such as cultural education and awareness, tolerance, bridge building, human rights and fostering core democratic values.
- National Iranian American Council (NIAC)The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 2002 to give voice to the Iranian-American community.