Fatima Mernissi
Women and Public Policy Program Weekly Study Group
A conversation with Fatima Mernissi, Sociologist, Author, Koranic Scholar (See Biography Below)
Thursday, April 23, 1998, 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., Taubman, Room 401
The Women and Public Policy Program sponsors the WAPPP Weekly, a study group for the KSG community that examines and highlights: how local, national, and global policies affect women; how women affect local, national, and global policies; gender perspectives on public policies; and women in public policy leadership. It is open to all students, faculty, staff and their guests.
For more information about WAPPP Weekly, please contact: Victoria Budson, Executive Director, at 495-1981.
Co-sponsored by The Women's Caucus, The Network of Women Faculty
Fatima Mernissi
Born in Fez, Morocco, in 1940, Fatima Mernissi is a sociology professor, prolific author, and respected feminist scholar of Islam who has traveled extensively throughout the world. According to Ann Louise Bardach, author of "Tearing Off The Veil," an August 1993 Vanity Fair article, Mernissi "is regarded by many as the greatest living Koranic scholar." The focus of Mernissi's research and writing has been developing a pluralist Islamic civil society where feminism--not extremism is the foundation.
Mernissi now writes her manuscripts only in English -- the language of the many letters she receives, particularly from Indonesian, Malaysian and Pakistani men and women. The wide audience for her work is evident in the fact that her books have been translated into Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. Her works include: Vanishing Orient: Papa's Harem is Shifting to Mama's Civil Society [1997]; Women's Rebellion and Islamic Memory (1996); Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (1994 Book-of-the-Month Club and Quality Paperback Book Club selections) (translated into 22 languages); Islam and Democracy (1992); The Forgotten Queens of Islam (1990); Shahrazad Is Not Moroccan: If She Were, She Would Be A Salaried Worker (in French only) (1988); The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam (1987); Doing Daily Battle (1983); and Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society (1975). From 1989 to 1995, Mernissi conducted most of the writing workshops at, and contributed to the series of books produced by, the collective "Femmes Maghred 2002." An informal network of women and men, from academia and media in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, Femmes Maghred 2002 has collectively and cheaply published 30 books for popular readership on women's democratic rights.
She received a Ph.D. in sociology from Brandeis, a Licence en Sociologie from the Sorbonne, and a Certificat en Sciences Politiques from Mohammed V University (Rabat, Morocco). Mernissi has been a visiting lecturer at U.C. Berkeley (1979) and Harvard (1986), and a visiting fellow at The Institute for Advanced Studies (Wissenschast College, Berlin) (1994-1995). In 1988, under a grant awarded from The Japan Foundation, she visited experts on Islam and interviewed leading feminists in Tokyo and Kyoto. As a 1998 Mellon Foundation Professor of the Humanities at Tulane University, Mernissi is currently teaching a course based on nine chapters of her latest work-in-progress: European Harem: Western Fantasies, Eastern Realities.
Mernissi has been a member of The Aga Khan Chancellor's Commission, The World Bank Middle East and North Africa Council of Advisors, and the United Nations University Council. Additionally, she has consulted to international agencies such as UNESCO and ILO on women's integration into development programs. While very proud to have received the Medal of Cultural Merit from the Institute of Arab-Portuguese Cooperation, Mernissi says the honor she most cherishes is from poor women in the Republic of Senegal (a West African country and 90% Muslim): the Prix Aline Sitoe Diatta from Association des Femmes Sengalaises pour la liberation des femmes.