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Best Strategies to Teach about Women and Gender in the Middle East and North Africa

Wed, September 9, 8:00am to 12:00pm MDT (8:00am to 12:00pm MDT), TBA

Session Submission Type: Pre-conference Short Course Half Day

Session Description

Despite its global significance, the MENA region remains one of the most poorly understood regions for Americans. Some topics, such as women, Islam, American invasions and interventions are particularly challenging to cover and can easily turn into hot-headed discussions.
This short course seeks to help political science faculty and students those who currently teach or preparing to teach courses on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The course will share best strategies to address some of the most contested topics, provide a platform to exchange ideas with each other, and also share resources, such as reading and documentary/movie lists. The short course will also bring together a number of experts in a panel addressing women and gender in the MENA.

At the end of the course, the participants:

1) will articulate some of the best strategies to cover controversial topics;
2) will have access to reading and documentary/movie lists;
3) will have shared ideas with other colleagues;
4) will have access to resources on women and gender.


Gamze Çavdar is an associate professor in the department of Political Science at Colorado State University teaching general comparative politics courses as well as MENA related courses. Her research involves Islamist movements, gender, social policy and the politics of food. Çavdar has led a number of research projects on teaching; more recently, she has completed a study on student biases towards MENA (Çavdar et al. 2019). She was the recipient of the course redesign fellowship by the Institute of Teaching and Learning (TILT) at Colorado State University in 2011-2012, the TILT fellowship on writing in 2014 and the College of Liberal Arts Excellence in Teaching Award in 2019. She was one of the Co-PIs of Bimson Seminar in 2018, a seminar that aimed to bring K-12 teachers and the faculty of College of Liberal Arts at Colorado State University together to identify the common challenges of teaching MENA at K-12 and the co-organizer of the 2019 APSA short course on Student biases towards the MENA.

Marwa M. Shalaby is an assistant professor in the departments of Political Science and Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research areas are gender politics, research methodology, and legislative politics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). She taught classes on Gender and Politics in the Middle East, Introduction to Middle East Politics and Governments, Women and Politics, and Introduction to Research Methodology. Beside in-class instruction, Shalaby supported and mentored students through her role as the director of Rice University’s Center for the Middle East travel awards which provided funding for graduate and undergraduate research in the MENA region. She was also the program advisor for students’ research trips to Qatar, Jordan, and the United Arab of Emirates.

8:00 am - 8:30 am
Welcome and Introductions

8:30 am - 8:45 am
Undermining Bias and Introducing a Framework in Teaching Gender Politics of MENA, Gamze Cavdar

8:45 am - 9:00 am
Adressing Issues of Structure and Agency, Valentine Moghadam

9:00 am - 9:15 am
Teaching Gender and Politics of the Middle East Comparatively: Experiences from the US South, Shirin Saeidi

9:15 am - 9:30 am
Teaching Gender Politics and the Middle East: A Feminist Engaged Pedagogy, Nermin Allam

9:30 am - 9:45 am
Teaching Gender Politics of MENA in Adverse Social and Political Environments, Marwa Shalaby

9:45 am - 10:00 am
Break

10:00 am - 10:50 am
A Panel on Challenges
Featuring: Gamze Çavdar, Valentine Moghadam, Marwa Shalaby, Nermin Allam and Shirin Saedi

10:50 am - 11:00 am
Break

11:00 am - 11:30 am
Small Group Discussions, select one
1) COVID-19 with Marwa Shalaby
2) Arab Spring and Consequences with Valentine Moghadam
3) Race in Middle Eastern Studies with Shirin Saedi
4) Classroom Dynamics: How Can We Handle Conflict and Discuss Controversial Gender Topics in the Classroom with Nermin Allam
5) Online Teaching with Gamze Cavdar

11:30 am - 11:35 am
Break

11:35 am - 12:00 pm
Sharing Resources and Concluding Remarks

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