Monday Night Update

Course: Problems & Methods of Middle Eastern Studies
Goal: Critical, well-thought-out paper, 15-20 pages, double-spaced.
Goal for tomorrow: (still) Read "Researching Gender in a Palestinian Camp: Political, Theoretical and Methodological Issues" by Rosemary Sayigh. Read "Some Awkward Questions on Women and Modernity in Turkey" by Deniz Kandiyoti (I love her!). Flip through the 2 new books I checked out from the New School library today. Start writing something—anything—substantial.
Progress: 6 articles read (officially not including the 2 I'm definitely not using for my paper). (still) 1 page written.

And look, I've taken to memes to diffuse my way-too-academic LJ entries :D

( An informative meme... )

Kandiyoti Again

SOME AWKWARD QUESTIONS ON WOMEN AND MODERNITY IN TURKEY
Deniz Kandiyoti, Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, Lila Abu-Lughod, ed., 1998.

Motivation Summary: "What, if anything, singles out Middle Eastern reformers is the relentless search for local roots for their reformist ideals and the references they make to a 'tradition' that better approximates their modernist vision than do the current arrangements in their societies." (p. 271)

Afterword Purpose: To further focus on modernity, postcoloniality, and feminism and their debates through exploring omissions and silences.
To what extent are:
- Middle East discourses on modernity "conditioned not only by colonial encounters with the West but by societies' changing and troubled relations to their varied ancien régimes?"
- "contested images and attributions of tradition and modernity also mediated through the internally heterogenous nature of Middle Eastern societies?"
- discourses on reforming women "also about reshaping gender by establishing new models of masculinity and femininity to better institutionalize the monogamous, heterosexual, nuclear family?" (pp. 271-272)

( Summary of summary of articles... )

"refashioning gender...implies the creation of new images of masculinity and femininity that involve the repudiation of the old as well as the espousal of the new." (p. 284)

I can FINALLY cross this off my "goals" list!

RESEARCHING GENDER IN A PALESTINIAN CAMP: POLITICAL THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
Rosemary Sayigh, Gendering the Middle East, Deniz Kandiyoti, ed., 1996.

Purpose: "This paper focuses on a particular fieldwork experience and tries to use it to explore dilemmas of researching gender in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon." (p. 145)

Method: intersubjectivity: "intersubjectivity differs radically from the classical anthropological concept of rapport in that it is not a technique of entry to a research milieu, nor of establishing relationships through which data may be extracted, but rather is a concept that calls into question all stages of research, from conception to writing up." (p. 145)

( Article Notes... )

"In the shadow of every completed piece of anthropological writing there lurks a history of false starts and unresolved problems that is suppressed by professional pressures to finish on time and produce a coherent account." (p. 145)

Cultural Feminism

A CULTURALIST CRITIQUE OF TRENDS IN FEMINIST THEORY
Ruth H. Bloch, Debating Gender, Debating Sexuality, Nikki R. Keddie, ed., 1996.

Purpose: "What is it about society that explains the position of women? This essay explores some of the most common answers that have been given to this question, arguing that one of the very strengths of feminist theory—its refusal to accord the anatomical difference of sex the ability to determine social life—has itself encouraged what may in fact be an equally fallacious intellectual tendency." (p. 73)
"I will attempt to clarigy what I mean by the term 'culture,' itself one of the most widely appropriated and misunderstood concepts in social science." (p. 73)

( Article Notes... )