HIST 678A Gender and the Family in the Islamic World
This course surveys the development of family structures and conceptions of gender in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East from antiquity to the early modern period. We will examine the modes of family organization and ways of thinking about the relationship between the sexes characteristic of the medieval eastern Mediterranean, as well as how those facets changed from late antiquity to medieval Islam. Our second major goal will be to consider a range of methodologies, from social anthropology to gender studies, that have informed historians' attempts to understand the family in the historical settings of the eastern Mediterranean.
The course welcomes both specialists in Middle Eastern history and historians of other regions. Though topics related to the medieval Islamic world compose the bulk of our studies, we will also venture into the ancient Middle East, the Christian Roman Empire, and comparative material from the medieval Latin West. Perspectives and insights from other historiographical areas that aid us in the study of the eastern Mediterranean are encouraged and welcome.