Synopses & Reviews
Combining insider and outsider perspectives, Women in Lebanon looks at Christian and Muslim women living together in a multicultural society and facing modernity. While the Arab Spring has begun to draw attention to issues of change, modernity, and women's subjectivity, this book takes a unique approach to examining and describing the Lebanese "alternative modernities" thesis and how it has shaped thinking about the meaning of terms like evolution, progress, development, history, and politics in contemporary Arab thought. The author draws on extensive ethnographic research and her own personal experience.
About the Author
Marie-Claude Thomas is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Languages and Cultures Department at the US Naval Academy. Prior to starting at the US Navel Academy, she taught at Oberlin College and Baldwin-Wallace College. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Paris I, Panthéon, Sorbonne.
Table of Contents
Introduction
PART I: SAGHBINE, A CHRISTIAN VILLAGE: WOMEN, RELIGION, AND SOCIETY
Geography and Religious Spaces
The Childhood and Adolescence of Young Girls
Marriage and the Condition of Married Women
Adulthood, Married Life, and Women's Work
Interview - Christian Discourse
PART II: MUSLIM LEBANESE WOMEN AND AN ISLAMIC MODERNITY
Islam in Lebanon: An Overview
Struggle in Modern Islam, Women in Tradition, and the Discourse of the Veil
Veiling and Divergent Feminism Voices
Personal Status Laws in Islam, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah's Tafsir, and Hizbullah Lebanese Women
Interview - Individual and Communal Perspectives: Muslim Discourse
PART III: TRANSFORMATION WITHIN A MULTICULTURAL LEBANON
Modernity, Multiculturalism, and Lebanese Women
Christian-Muslim Relations, Women and Religion
Lebanese Women in all their Diversity: Convergence and divergence
En Route Toward a More Inclusive Civil Society
Conclusion