Women in Islam

Day: Mondays

Dates: September 9 – October 21, 2024

*Please note that there will be no lecture on Monday October 14, 2024 due to Thanksgiving*

Time: 9:30am-11:30am

Location: Online, via Zoom

Price: $150+HST

A zoom link will be sent by email 1-2 business days prior to the first day of the lecture series.  The zoom link provided is the same link for all 6 weeks of this lecture series.

Overview

This course is an introduction to contemporary issues related to Women in Islam. It exposes the participants to a broad range of fiction, non-fiction books, articles, and videos treating of the question of women in Islam written by mainly Muslim authors. It will focus on historical, social, media and political representations of Muslim women. This course will avoid the trap of easy media representation or sensationalism centered on the orientalist discourse of passive Muslim women in need to be saved. Instead, the course will examine a more nuanced and multidimensional approach to tackle the issues of women in Islam. The course will look at Women and Islam not as a homogenous entity, but it would emphasize on the heterogeneity of “Women” and of “Islam”. Participants will be introduced to several fiction works and non-fictions work by some of the most known contemporary Muslim women writers. Issues such as women’s role in Islam, veiling, polygamy, Islamic traditions, as well as Islamic feminism will be discussed.

Topics

Week 1: Introduction: Historical Context.

Week 2: To be a Muslim Woman: Beyond the Veil, Niqab, Polygamy, Honour Killing…

Week 3: Media Representation of Muslim Women.

Week 4: Feminism and Islam.

Week 5: Women in Saudi Arabia.

Week 6: Muslim Women and Discrimination.

About the Lecturer

Monia Mazigh is an academic, award-winning Canadian author and human rights activist. She writes in French and English and authored so far, a memoir, three novels, an essay and a collection of short stories, celebrated by the critique.

Her latest novel, Farida won the Ottawa Book Award for French fiction.

Monia Mazigh is an Adjunct and research Professor at Carleton University at the Department of English and Literature.

Her new memoir/essay, “Gendered Islamophobia: My Journey with a Scar(f)”, has been a finalist for the Governor General literary award in the non-fiction category for 2023.

Monia has published several articles with the Ottawa Citizen, the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star and regularly contributes to Islamic Horizons.