Undergraduate Course: Harems, homes and streets: Gender and space in Middle Eastern literatures (IMES10052)
Course Outline
| School |
School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College |
College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type |
Standard |
Availability |
Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) |
SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Credits |
20 |
| Home subject area |
Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies |
Other subject area |
None |
| Course website |
None
|
Taught in Gaelic? |
No |
| Course description |
The harem has come to be a symbol for Euro/American societies of all that is >wrong< with Islamicate societies. How did this space, with its many indigenous meanings, come to represent whole societies? And how has it been contested by indigenous representations? How does >the harem< come to signify domestic spaces, ritual practices, sexualities, and above all, gendered bodies? How do works from Euro/American traditions construct >the harem< and respond to earlier constructions from within Arab-Islamicate culture, and how are they in turn buttressed, countered, complicated, or rejected by fiction and autobiography produced in Muslim-majority societies in the 19th and 20th centuries? This course asks how gender, sexuality, and the body emerge through cultural representations, as we read European representations of gendered seclusion and harem life, historical essays that take up seclusion as lived reality in the early Islamic period as well as later (e.g., in the Ottoman Empire) and more recent memoirs, which also provide a critique of seclusionary practices that emerged with the rhetorics of modernity. Finally, we will read fiction through which Muslim women of the past century have interrogated, critiqued, and at times lauded practices of gender segregation. We will read selectively from recent theoretical literature on the social construction and gendering of space. |
Entry Requirements
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites |
|
| Prohibited Combinations |
|
Other requirements |
None
|
| Additional Costs |
None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Delivery period: 2010/11 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1)
|
WebCT enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| Central | Seminar | Seminar | 1-11 | 13:10 - 14:50 | | | | | | Central | Lecture | Seminar | 1-11 | 15:00 - 15:50 | | | | |
| First Class |
Week 1, Monday, 13:10 - 14:50, Zone: Central. Room G/22, ground floor, 19 George Square |
| Exam Information |
| Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Hours:Minutes |
Stationery Requirements |
Comments |
| Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May) | | 3:00 | 16 sides | |
|
| Delivery period: 2010/11 Semester 1, Part-year visiting students only (VV1)
|
WebCT enabled: Yes |
Quota: 15 |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| Central | Seminar | | 1-11 | 13:10 - 14:50 | | | | | | Central | Seminar | | 1-11 | 15:00 - 15:50 | | | | |
| First Class |
Week 1, Monday, 13:10 - 14:50, Zone: Central. Room G/22, ground floor, 19 George Square |
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students should:
1. Be familiar with some key organizing concepts of Middle Eastern societies concerning gender and space, as modulated by historical specificities that have generated different practices across time and space.
2. Recognize major outlines of current debates on gender and space emerging from a variety of historically and geographically specific contexts, and be able to think critically about their applicability to Middle East and/or Islamicate contexts.
3. Understand how controversies over ?veiling= have entered into shifting practices and representations of gender and space in both Middle Eastern and Euro/American contexts, and the significance of issues of ?veiling= and ?seclusion= to contemporary gender studies focused on Middle Eastern contexts, especially in the disciplines of history and literature.
4. Be able to conduct in-depth, critical analysis and comparative studies of a selection of key works from modern Arabic, Turkish and/or Persian literature (in translation) in relation to current theoretical debates.
|
Assessment Information
One 2,500 word essay (30%)
One 3 hour examination (70%)
Visiting Student Variant Assessment
two x 2500 word essays |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Not entered |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Not entered |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords |
Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser |
Prof Marilyn Booth
Tel: (0131 6)50 7181
Email: M.Booth@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary |
Ms Rhona Cullen
Tel: (0131 6)50 4182
Email: Rhona.Cullen@ed.ac.uk |
|
copyright 2011 The University of Edinburgh -
31 January 2011 7:50 am
|
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