Individual Listing

2021 CHASS INT NORTH
University of California
Riverside, CA 92521

Hafez, Sherine

Associate Professor

College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Women's Studies


Biography

Professor Hafez’s interests center on women studies in Middle Eastern and Muslim majority cultures. Specifically, her ethnographic research investigates women's Islamic activism in Egypt and is strongly interdisciplinary in its approach. Three major strands shape her research, one is to trouble wider theoretical and epistemological assumptions generally employed to interpret Islamic movements and practices around the world. Second, to bring women’s Islamic activism to the center of current scholarly debates on feminism, Islamic movements, modernity and postcoloniality. The third strand is to interrogate wider issues of power and gender relations in Middle Eastern societies and cultures. Her first book, The Terms of Empowerment: Islamic Women Activists in Egypt, (2003) questioned the applicability of empowerment as defined by western liberal discourses to Islamic women's activism. Her second book, An Islam of Her Own: Reconsidering Religion And Secularism In Women's Islamic Movements, (2011) challenges binary representations of women's subjectivities in Islamic movements as secular/ religious, liberal/non liberal, rational/irrational, by relating the interplay between the complex debates of modernity and postcoloniality to the particular historicity of Islam and secularism and the heterogeneous subjectivities which these produce. She is the co-editor of, Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa: Into the New Millennium (Indiana University Press, 2013. In Press). Sherine Hafez is President of the Association for Middle East Anthropologists (AMEA) and is a member of the board of the Association for Middle East Women's Studies (AMEWS).

Degrees

PhD Anthropology 2007

UC Davis

MA Anthropology 2001

American University in Cairo

Research Area

Women in Muslim majority societies and cultures; Islamic Movements; Women’s Islamic Activism; Gender and Sexuality in Muslim Societies and Cultures; Gender, Religion and Secularism in the Middle East.

Publications

BOOKS AND EDITED VOLUME
Co-Editor, The Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa: Into the New Millennium. Indiana University Press, 2013.

An Islam of Her Own: Reconsidering Religion and Secularism in Women's Islamic Movements. New York University Press, 2011.

Also published as a Middle East Version: The American University In Cairo Press, 2011.

The Terms of Empowerment: Islamic Women Activists in Egypt. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. 2003.


ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS
"Will the Rational Religious Subject Please Stand Up? Muslim Subjects and the Epistemology of Rationality" In, The Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa: Into the New Millennium. Indiana University Press, 2013. In Press.

Co-Author, “Introducing the State of the Art: Anthropology, Ethnography, and the Middle East,” Introduction, The Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa: Into the New Millennium Indiana University Press, 2013. In Press.

“ No Longer a Bargain: Women, masculinity and the Egyptian Uprising,” American Ethnologist, pp. 32-37, vol. 39, #1, Feb. 2012.

“Women Developing Women: Islamic Approaches For Poverty Alleviation in Rural Egypt,” Feminist Review. Pp. 56-73, 97, 2011.

Review: Feminism In Islam: Secular and Religious Convergences by Margot Badran, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Pp. 114-117, 7:2, 2011.

"Literature Review: Egyptian Families," with Rania Salem and Alyce Abdallah in Suad Joseph (ed.), Arab Families Working Group, vol.1. Framings: Rethinking Arab Families. Pp. 212-251. http://www.afwg.info/volumes