Organized by Prof. Minoo Moallem
and Prof. Paola Bacchetta.
This conference honored the life and work of the recently deceased pioneer
feminist sociologist and writer Fatema Mernissi. Features an
international group of scholars who discuss some of the most
pressing issues with regard to gender, women and sexuality in the Muslim and Arab World.
For the full list of speaker and the presentation titles:
The first time I read a Mernissi book must have been 2001 when I began my MA in Women and Gender Studies and I fell in love with the language and her mixing the personal with the social and the political. The Dreams of Trespass as a autobiographical fiction probably triggered the kind of writing that I have been practicing in the past few years. However, the one I have used the most frequently has been Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems.
The idea of these essays came. when Fatema Mernissi was struck by Western male journalists’ idea of harem
life during her book tour of Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (1995) and the looks and the weird questions she was posed. Edward Said's arguments in Orientalism are still strong and alive but only changed forms. The East or the Orient is a product in the rationalized and self-serving history of the West. The word harem comes in the package!
The world Mernissi grew up in was one
of independent women and insecure men, of male-female relationships
much more complex than Westerners think. A world of passive, sex-starved women competing for their
all-powerful husband’s attentions simply did not exist.
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