Rethinking Islamic Studies Workshop on "Gender, Sexuality, and Bodies in the Text" Print

Friday, November 18, 1:00 PM–5:00 PM

Sponsored by the Islamic Mysticism Group and the Qur’an Group

In this workshop eight scholars will lead discussions on reading gender, sexuality, and bodies in classical sources. We will address matters such as the following:

  • Historically-grounded readings of gender and sexuality in the Hadith
  • Bodily representations of the Prophet’s wives in the Sira
  • Gender and bodies in Sufi metaphysics and hagiography
  • The role Fatima’s esoteric body plays in theological and hagiographical sources
  • Masculinity in Qur’anic accounts of the prophets and prophecy
  • Iconoclastic practices as they are embodied in the text of image, ritual action, and architecture

Each scholar will head a table focusing on a different topic and set of sources and discuss the methods, and even the salience, of reading gender, sexuality, and bodies in the sources. The scholar tables are as follows:

  • Aisha Geissinger, Gendering Human and Textual Bodies: Reading the Kitab al-Janna in the Sahih Muslim
  • Aysha Hidayatullah and Amanullah De Sondy, Beyond Sex: The Ethics of Reading Islamic Masculinities
  • Scott Kugle and Sadiyya Shaikh, Reading Gender in Sufi Sources
  • Richard McGregor, Contesting Iconoclasm: Bodies and Violence as Problems for Comparative Religion
  • Karen Ruffle, The Bleeding Tree in the Garden of Eden: The Construction of the Shi`i Body through Discourse of Exceptional Difference
  • Gordon Newby, Murû’ah and Dîn Revisited: Late Ancient Legacies of Maleness in Islamic Foundational Texts

     
 
The cost for the workshop is $30, which includes the entire afternoon of sessions and a coffee break. Registration is limited to the first 75 participants. To sign up for the workshop, log back into the online Annual Meeting registration system and add the workshop or fax in this form to +1-404-727-7959.