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Arab families, gender, war and transnationalism

JMEWS 5.3 Special Issue — War and Transnational Arab Families

Available in Fall of 2009

This special double issue of JMEWS reframes the study of Arab families and the complex interweaving of gender relations within them in the context of two major dynamics – war and transnationalism. The issue represents the publication of the first empirical research results of the Arab Families Working Group, a network of 15 scholars who have worked together since 2001 to carry out critical comparative, collaborative, and interdisciplinary research on Arab youth and families in Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, and their diasporas in the United States and Canada.  

War and transnationalism are shaping not only the Arab world but the globe. In conversation, consultation, and comparative research, the seven contributors to this volume have been engaged in an intellectual project to understand how the site of “Arab families” – whether as social institution or social imaginary, statist project, discourse, trope of modernity, or tradition, or in their multiple lived realities –  allows new understandings of the conflicts and contradictions besetting the region. The articles carry out critical historical and comparative and empirical research to offer new theoretical frameworks for problematizing Arab families and youth. The articles track the genealogy of domestic service in war-torn Lebanon for over half a century; analyze the transformation of the cultural politics of weddings in Palestine between the two Intifada’s; evaluate the consequences of repeated displacement on women and youth in Beirut and its suburbs; assess the impact on household decision making on the international migration of male household heads in Lebanon; identify the reaction of Arab Americans (especially Lebanese Americans) in Detroit to the 2006 war on Lebanon; and document the transformation of notions of citizenship and child socialization among transnational Lebanese families in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and Ottawa, Canada. The authors’ empirically-rich projects offer complementary investigations into “the family” as constantly re-invented in the context of state projects in crisis, border crossings, global transformations, and failed modernisms.

The Arab Families Working Group’s empirical and theoretical projects can be browsed on the AFWG website, http://sjoseph.ucdavis.edu/afwg/. For more information on AFWG, contact AFWG facilitator at sjoseph@ucdavis.edu.

JMEWS 5.3 SPECIAL ISSUE War and Transnational Arab Families

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION, Penny Johnson and Suad Joseph 

ESSAYS

Weddings and War: Marriage Arrangements and Celebrations in Two Palestinian Intifadas, Penny Johnson, Lamis Abu Nahleh, and Annelies Moors

The Politics of Group Weddings in Palestine: Political and Gender Tensions, Islah Jad

Displaced Arab Families: Mothers’ Voices on Living and Coping in Postwar Beirut, Jihad Makhoul and Mary Ghanem

In the Shadows of Family Life: Toward a History of Domestic Service in Lebanon, Ray Jureidini

Male Migration and the Lebanese Family: The Impact on the Wife Left Behind, Mona Chemali Khalaf

Geographies of Lebanese Families: Women as Transnationals, Men as Nationals, and Other Problems with Transnationalism, Suad Joseph

Transnational Families Under Siege: Lebanese Shi‘a in Dearborn, Michigan, and the 2006 War on Lebanon, Nadine Naber 

BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS

Women’s Memory Symposium: Women’s Library and Information Center, Istanbul, Diane James

Violence That Bleeds Borders: Transnational Engagement in the Women in Conflict Zones Symposium, Naazneen Diwan

BOOK REVIEWS

Nefissa Naguib, Women, Water and Memory: Recasting Lives in Palestine, Reviewed by Rana Sharif

Iman Humaydan Younes, Wild Mulberries, B as in Beirut, Reviewed by Maya Mikdashi

Schüssler Fiorenza: Leading feminist thinker and activist

Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion

JFSR Volume 25 Issue 1

Special Issue: In Honor of Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza

This special issue of JFSR highlights leading feminist scholar Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s contributions to feminist studies in religion through various constructive engagements with her work. The academic world too often divides itself into categories of expertise and discipline. As this volume shows, however, the work of a leading feminist thinker and activist like Schussler Fiorenza cuts across these lines and engages a wide range of topics and conversations. Many people are familiar with Schussler Fiorenza’s groundbreaking work in feminist biblical studies. Her path-breaking book In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins has been translated into more than 10 languages. However, even those familiar with her work in this area are often unaware of her contributions to feminist studies in religion more broadly. Speaking about topics ranging from "the religion of thinness" to metaphysics, from feminist hermeneutics to pedagogy, from Muslim feminist theology to the politics of nationalism, this volume engages the work of Schussler Fiorenza from areas of interest beyond Christian Testament studies. In the process, key theoretical models in feminist studies in religion and feminist theologies that Schussler Fiorenza has pioneered — critical rhetorical feminist analysis and critical liberationist feminist theology — are explored, applied and developed in new and creative ways, demonstrating the ongoing vibrancy of the field of feminist studies in religion.

Since Schussler Fiorenza is the co-founder of JFSR, it seems fitting that this volume celebrating her work also launches a bold new cover design for the journal. The complex interconnections of the symbols visually represent the broad range of religious traditions and their feminist intersections and conveys the journal’s commitment to fostering feminist conversation and activism that is multidiscipinary and multireligious.

IU Press Launches IU Press Online

Indiana University Press has launched IU Press Online, a robust and growing collection of electronic books and special journal issues in five of its main subject areas (African studies, African American and Diaspora studies, Jewish studies, philosophy, and Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies). Included in the collections are issues from Africa Today, Ethics & The Environment, Israel Studies, Jewish Social Studies, Nashim, Prooftexts, Research in African Literatures, and Transition and more than 200 of the Press’s leading book titles. The next collections to be added to the database are selections form the Press’s award-winning music and religion titles. The Press also plans to use the IU Press Online site for text promotion and will have news on that aspect of the project soon.

Access to IU Press Online may be purchased by individuals, institutions, libraries, and academic departments for various time periods, to individual titles, to individual collections, to any combination of collections, and to the full database of content. For more information, please click here. 

Additional journal issues and books are added to the collections on a regular basis so please bookmark IU Press Online and visit often. 

(Please note that electronic and print subscriptions to the Press’s fine list of journal titles, as well as print and electronic copies of journal issues, are available on the INscribe site.)

JMEWS Best Graduate Student Essay Competition

THE BEST GRADUATE STUDENT ESSAY

The Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies invites graduate students in all disciplines to submit research papers to the bi-annual competition for JMEWS Best Graduate Student Essay.

JMEWS is the official journal of the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS), an affiliate of the Middle East Studies Association. The journal is published three times a year by Indiana University Press. The editorial office is housed at the Center for Near Eastern Studies in the UCLA International Institute.

YOUR ESSAY

* is based on original research

* is double-spaced, 12-point font (including title, headings, block quotes, references and endnotes)

* maximum 7,500 words

* follows the Chicago Manual of Style (for more info click here)

HOW TO SUBMIT

[1] submit your essay

[2] include name, contact info, academic affiliation on a separate paper 

[3] send it to jmews@women.ucla.edu

DEADLINE

The deadline is June 30, 2009

MORE INFO

Fore more details please visit the website of the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies: http://inscribe.iupress.org/loi/mew

or email Diane James, Managing Editor: jmews@women.ucla.edu

 

Black Girls in White Schools

Joe R. Feagin, Texas A&M University, on the blog Racism Review discusses an article in the new issue of Race/Ethnicity Volume 2 Issue 2 — Spring 2009 Special Issue: Race and Secondary Education: Content, Contexts, Impacts. 

His post titled Black Girls in White Schools: School Settings and Racist Actors, June 20th states: There is much that is important and useful in this analysis of the pressures of white images of female-ness in society and in these predominantly white settings, and these young women are quite pointed and detailed in the gendered racism they describe in this school. These is much here to learn from them.

However, the researchers seem unwilling to examine directly and analytically the role of white teachers, white principals, and white students in such educational settings. These white actors certainly appear in the student accounts. 

Read More

Race/Ethnicity 2.2 features the art of Samella Lewis

(Click on image to enlarge)

Race/Ethnicity Volume 2, Number 2, "Race and Secondary Education: Content, Contexts, Impacts," features "The Barrier" by Samella Lewis. Pioneering artist and art historian Samella Lewis is renowned for her contributions to African American art and art history. She was born on February 27, 1924, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and her heritage led her to view art as an essential expression of the community and its struggles. Currently Dr. Lewis is Professor Emerita of art history at Scripps College of the Claremont Colleges.

Read more about the art featured in Race/Ethnicity at http://www.raceethnicity.org/coverart.html.

You may view more art by Samella Lewis and read about her accomplishments at these sites:

http://hearnefineart.com/hfa2/hfa2_samella.html

http://www.scrippscollege.edu/media/magazine/samella-lewis-contemporary-art-collection

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/special_report/black_history/article/samella_lewis/204933/

Race and Secondary Education: Content, Contexts, Impacts

Race/Ethnicity 2.2
Special Issue: Race and Secondary Education: Content, Contexts, Impacts

In the introduction the editors write:

"This issue of Race/Ethnicity explores the implications of race and ethnicity in systems of secondary education across the globe. We have chosen to focus on secondary education because it provides many children with their final level of formal education, making the content and character of that education a topic worth examining. In doing so, we recognize that formal learning environments must be considered within larger cultural, societal, national, and even global contexts to account for the overall impacts of the educational experience. All of these components work together to influence how children see themselves as individuals, national citizens, and global inhabitants.

While it is impossible, and not particularly desirable, to synthesize educational
practices across the globe, the essays within this volume provide some insight into the similarities and differences in the education of children and how issues of race and ethnicity are engaged in that process…

… The global impact of educational practices in all nations makes the ongoing discussion surrounding secondary education an important one to pursue, and we hope that the articles in this issue will contribute to conversations that will bring practitioners, researchers, and concerned citizens together in praxis in their continued work on the issues of access, equity, value, and reform."

The table of contents includes:

Race / Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts Apr 2009, Vol. 2, No. 2

Chapter 2 from Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Paolo Freire

Selected Responses to Editors' Queries on Education
Robin Burns, Grace Takaheebwa, Robert Aspelagh, Erica Frankenberg, Sylvère Farraudiere

Social Studies Teachers' Reflections on Citizenship Education in Bavaria, Germany
Debora Hinderliter Ortloff

End of the Line: Tracing Racial Inequality from School to Prison
Lizbet Simmons

I Am Because We Are: Increasing Educational Opportunity for Early Childhood Education in Ghana, West Africa
Cynthia B. Dillard

Black Girls' Voices: Exploring Their Lived Experiences in a Predominately White High School
Tiffany A. Eggleston, Antoinette Halsell Miranda

Muslim Uyghur Students in a Dislocated Chinese Boarding School: Bonding Social Capital as a Response to Ethnic Integration
Yangbin Chen, Gerard A. Postiglione

Susan Weiss wins "Women in Law" award

Jerusalem lawyer, Susan Weiss is one of the contributors in the newly published issue of Nashim 17. We have just learned that Susan was awarded this year’s “Women in Law” citation by the Israel Bar Association, at a ceremonial dinner held on June 2 in Eilat.

Susan Weiss is the founder and executive director of the Center for Women’s Justice in Jerusalem, which is committed to advancing the rights of women to equality, dignity and justice under Jewish law.

You can check out their website at www.cwj.org.il.

Susan's contribution to Nashim 17 is Under Cover: Demystification of Women's Head Covering in Jewish Law and can be found in Nashim's newest special issue titled: Sexuality in Jewish Contexts.

How Women Wrote History in the Early Modern Era

Devoney Looser will present an invited lecture, "Catharine Macaulay in Context" at the conference Comment les femmes écrivent l’histoire à l’époque moderne (XVI-XVIIIe siècles) (How Women Wrote History in the Early Modern Era, 16th-18th Centuries), to be held June 6th at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Université de Paris III.  The conference is the first of two planned colloquia, reflecting on the relative invisibility of women historians in the early modern era. The conference sets out to investigate the extent to which history writing was a masculine bastion, as has been previously assumed. Looser's paper looks at the ways women historians were discussed and labeled after Catharine Macaulay (1731-1791) became widely known as the "celebrated female historian" in the 1760s. 

Looser is the author of British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670-1820 (2000), Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750-1850 (2008), and is the co-editor of the Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies. 

 

IU Press Director Chosen as a Top Woman in Publishing

Janet Rabinowitch, Director of Indiana University Press since 2004, has been chosen by Book Business magazine as one of the top women in publishing for 2009.  Rabinowitch has been at the Press since 1975, first as sponsoring editor and senior sponsoring editor and then as editorial director.  She was named interim director in 2003.

During her 34 years at the Press, Rabinowitch has acquired more than 500 titles and has become one of the most distinguished editors in the field of Russian and Eastern European studies. In addition, she has established internationally respected lists in Jewish and Holocaust studies, African studies, Middle Eastern studies, and continental philosophy. Many of her books have won prestigious awards, including the Vucinich Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, the Herskovits Award from the African Studies Association, the National Jewish Book Award, the Austrian Cultural Institute Prize, and the Koret Jewish Book Award. In addition, her books have been honored by the American Library Association as Choice Outstanding Academic books and as selections of the History, Reader’s Subscription, and Jewish Book clubs.

Rabinowitch is the fourth director and the first woman to head the Press. She has a BA in French from Wellesley College and a PhD in Russian studies from Georgetown University.