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AMEWS: NEWS

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WOMEN AND ISLAMIC CULTURES
Suad Joseph announced her award of a Ford Foundation Grant (270,000 Dollars) for an Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures.

AWARDS
The AMEWS annual prize is awarded to a junior scholar working in any discipline on a topic concerned with Middle Eastern and/or North African women. Submissions of articles or book chapters published between July 31, 2000 and July 31, 2001 are invited. Eligible candidates are scholars working toward a graduate degree or who are no more than four years beyond the PhD. Submission deadline: August 1, 2001

Please submit materials to:
Marilyn Booth
1009 S. Orchard St.
Urbana IL 61801
(m-booth@UIUC.EDU).
For information contact:
Amaney Jamal
AMEWS Secretary/Treasurer,
(amaneyps@umich.edu).

FUTURE CONFERENCES
(Sponsored or Co-Sponsored Events with AMEWS)

Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio, Italy. AMEWS will be co-sponsoring a special conference "Women and Gender in the Middle East: A Multidisciplinary Assessment of the State of Theory &Research" organized by Sherifa Zuhur and fully funded by the Rockefeller Foundation at the Bellagio Center at Lake Como, Italy from 8/27/01 to 8/31/01. Participants include: Janet Afary, Yesim Arat, Islah Jad, Suad Joseph, Martina Kamp, Mona Khalaf, Margot Badran, Amira Sonbol, Miriam Cooke, Larry Goodson, Sondra Hale, Sherifa Zuhur, Nadia El-Cheikh, Wilhelmina Jansen, Dalenda Laguerche, Boothaina Shaaban, Fatima Sadiqi, Ella Shohat, Ruth Tsoffar, Lina Abou Habib, Moha Ennaji, Val Moghadam, and Farzaneh Milani

University of California, Berkeley. "Women in Islamic Societies: New Questions in an Era of Globalization A Symposium." 9:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Friday, November 16, 2001 Location: The Geballe Room, the Townsend Center, University of California Berkeley. Open to the public. Contact the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley.

This symposium will explore new areas for research on women and gender in Islamic societies. New approaches have arisen from contemporary scholarship in combination with the effects of globalization, social transformation, war, and legal reform on the Muslim world. Scholars will address their topics from various disciplines or interdisciplinary perspectives including history, sociology, law, political science and
women's studies in sessions that will deal with Muslim women in the United States as well as those in the region. The symposium is sponsored and funded by the Abdaljawad Research Program within the Al-Falah Program of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Co-sponsors include the Association for Middle East Women's Studies, the Women's Studies Program, UC Berkeley, and the Center for the Study of Gender, UC Berkeley.

Participants will include: Yvonne Haddad, Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Amaney Ahmad Jamal, Dept. of Political Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Amira Sonbol, Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Nancy Gallagher, University of California, Santa Barbara, Yesim Arat, Department of Political Science, Bogazici University, Sherifa Zuhur, Visiting Scholar, Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Scholars interested in presenting papers or serving as discussants should contact Sherifa Zuhur, szuhur@earthlink.net

Middle East Studies Association, San Francisco. At MESA San Francisco, AMEWS will be holding our annual (open) business meeting on Saturday, November 17, 6:30 p.m. and then hosting our annual reception and fundraiser open to the public at 8:00 with invited speaker, Dr. Farzaneh Milani, University of Virginia and our special guest, novelist, Ms. Goli Taraghi, of Iran. For other events of AMEWS (Nov. 17 20, 2001) which will be held at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco, 5 Embarcadero Center San Francisco, California 94111 Contact: 415/788-1234; 800/233-1234

Joint Session CCWH AMEWS AHA 2002
"Martyrs and Exemplars: Making Meaning in the Middle East and South Asia"
Panelists:
Eleanor Doumato studies hagiographies of missionaries developed by survivors and printed in the "Missionary Herald." Views that the martyr died while performing God's will encouraged survivors to continue the cause and gave meaning to their sense that they must stay at their posts.
Sita Raman studies two women, a doctor and an educator, who worked to improve women's conditions in the colonial south Indian province of Madras Presidency. These exemplary women founded social activist organizations, some secular, which cut across cultures, castes, classes, and religions. In spite of mixed perspectives and gender ideologies, such leaders fueled a movement to promote rights of Indian women, forming connections with women activists elsewhere in India and in Asia and the West.
David Pinault's research analyses a procession centering around the steed of Imam Husein, martyred in the seventh century in present day Iraq. Ladakhi Shi'ites of northeastern Jammu and Kashmir State in India practice self-flagellation during the Horse of Karbala processions, in hopes of gaining spiritual intercession and to assert Shi'a identity. The processional rituals have figured in transnational controversy over Shi'ite identity religious politics.
Ashraf Zahedi presents the case of widows of Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq War. Relying on the central Shi'a Muslim concept of martyrdom, the Islamic Republic government introduces these war casualties as martyrs who have died for their country and religion. As their widows, the surviving wives and also their children become significant figures around which officials promote loyalty to the regime and continuing sacrifice for the Shi'a community. Material support, advantageous opportunities, and respect and status encourage the martyrs' survivors into loyal rhetoric and support. Eventually some survivors as well as their observers begin to question the governments' martyrdom paradigm and policies.
Mary Elaine Hegland, chair and commentator, prepared for her task through extensive research and publishing about Shi'a martyrdom paradigms in the religious politics of the 1978-1979 Iranian Revolution and of the Shi'a mobilization in Pakistani sectarian conflict.

PAST CONFERENCES (2000-2001)

"Positioning Central Asian Women: Are They Destined To Be Second-Class Citizens?" April 18, 2001, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Co-sponsored by the Middle East Project and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, Washington, DC.

Nayereh Tohidi (Conference Organizer)
"Afghanistan Under Taliban: Women, Human Rights and the Role of the United States," May 17, 2001, sponsored by California State University, Northridge (Women's Studies, Religious Studies, Political Science, College of Humanities, College of Social Science, and Graduate Center for International Studies) and UCLA Center for the Study of Women.

Nikki R. Keddie (Conference Organizer).
Conference on Iran and the Surrounding World, April 14-15, 2000, UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies.

International conference on Islam and Human Rights in Post-Communist Europe, Sofia, Bulgaria, March 15-16, 1999, sponsored by Columbia University and New Bulgarian University.

Social History of Iran Workshop at the International Institute of Labor History in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.