Gender and Sexuality in Islam CC 4V

Omnia El Shakry is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of The Great Social Laboratory: Subjects of Knowledge in Colonial and Postcolonial Egypt, and articles on the history of the human sciences, gender politics, and visual cultures in Egypt. Her current book project is titled, ‘The Arabic Freud: Psychoanalysis and Islam in Modern Egypt’.

This four-volume compendium of previously published articles and book chapters explores the religious, legal, and cultural injunctions and practices pertaining to gender and sexuality in Muslim societies around the world. The 61 articles go back to the early 1980s, when the status of Muslim women became a hotly debated issue in both academic journals and popular media. The current political rise of radical Islam has revitalized interest in the subject both within Muslim countries and in the West. Volume 1 focuses on gender and sexuality as presented in the Qur'an and Muslim religious discourse. Volume 2 explores colonial and postcolonial discourse as it relates to veiling, seclusion, and the general position of women in Muslim societies. Volume 3 examines the different manifestations of intimacy and sexual practices, including homosexuality as perceived and acted upon in Muslim countries today. The essays in volume 4 center on how gender and sexuality are represented in literature, arts, the media, and fashion. This rich and fairly inclusive collection of material is written by a diverse group of authors on a sensitive, highly contested subject; it provides a rich overview of gender and sexuality in Islam. --A. Rassam, CUNY Queens CollegeSumming Up: Highly recommended

• Volume I Gender and the Ethical Subject, Volume II, Gender, Empire, and Nation, Volume III Sexualities, Intimacy, and the Body, Volume III Sexualities, Intimacy, and the Body