Other due dates:
Your paper prospectus is due Oct. 22nd.
You will be making group presentations on Nov. 19th, Dec. 3rd and Dec. 5th in class. (Your group assignments are in the group presentation link.)

I. Description, Purpose and Theme

This paper is a research paper designed to allow you to explore in some depth a particular aspect of Middle Eastern women's history that interests you. It will require that you engage in research and seek out additional material on the subject you select; it will require that you assimilate this material and use it to formulate your analysis; it will require that you immerse yourself more deeply in a specific subject within a broader topic; and that you utilize the more general knowledge you are presumably acquiring from the course.

You are to choose a specific subject or theme that comes from your first paper assignment, the book review. The subject may be any aspect of the book that attracts your interest: daily life in a 19th century upper-class Egyptian household; family relations as described in a middle-class Palestinian Jerusalem family; education; women's political involvement in early 20th century Iran, etc. Ideas should suggest themselves from the reading you will do for the book review. The idea is that the book will provide you with some foundation for the research papers and presentations.

Topics

The subject of your paper should be situated within a broader topic. Students will be grouped according to the following topics. Below I ask some questions to stimulate your thinking about these topics, as you read and become more knowledgeable, and think about what might interest you.
 

• Women and the economy. What have been some of the different roles women in the Middle East have played in the economy? How has this affected their lives, their status in society, in their families? Many questions may occur within this framework, and there are many possilibities to explore, such as how women acted as investors in property; women's role in factory work and production; women as professionals (lawyers, teachers, journalists, and so forth.) How has women's participation in the economy changed over time? How did class differences translate into different kinds of experiences for women from different classes?
• Women and law. How has Islamic law affected the status of women? What kinds of advantages/disadvantages do Muslim women have under Islamic law? Throughtout history, how have women utilized the law? How has the law been interpreted in issues affecting women's status?
• Women and politics. What is the history of women's involvement in politics? What kinds of political ideologies have attracted women? What is the history of women and nationalist movements? What kinds of issues and concerns have Middle Eastern feminists been involved in? What kinds of political power have women been able to exercise? What are the political limits of women's involvement? How have these various factors changed throughout history?
• Women and family. How has women's status as family members affected their lives? What role has marriage played? What have been the most important family relationships in women's lives, and how have different family roles changed? How did attitudes about women's family role differ among different classes? (Or not as the case may have been.)
• Women and education. The education of women was and still is one of extreme significance and sometimes controversy in parts of the Middle East. Why was this? What was the significance of female education in the region? What did education signify to women? How did male attitudes toward education differ? How did education -- either the acquisition of it or the denial of it --- affect women and change their lives?

II. Requirements and format

Sources: your primary source in most cases will be the autobiography or memoir. You may use additional primary sources (Qasim Amin, old newspapers, for example) but since they are not easy to find, they are not required. If you wish to do so, feel free to consult me about the possibilities. You ARE required to use

• at least 3 scholarly articles from journals or anthologies;
• and one monograph. A monograph is a scholarly piece of writing of essay or book length on a specific subject (it is not, for example, a collection of scholarly articles in an anthology, such as Keddie and Baron's Women in Middle East History). An example of a monograph about Egyptian women, for example, is Margot Badran's Feminists, Islam and Nation. Your monograph need not be specifically about women. For example, it could be about some topic related to the one you are researching.
• ON-LINE SOURCES MUST BE APPROVED BY ME IN ADVANCE. Click here for required reading about using on-line sources.

Bibliography and citing sources: you should include a separate bibliography at the end of the paper. Pay attention to when you must use quotations, italics or underlining for titles of works. You must cite your sources in footnote/bibliographical style, NOT MLA style. I will not accept papers that use MLA style citation. For information on how to do this, click here. (This link will also be on the resource page linked to the courses.) Make sure you cite both direct quotations and anything that is not your own thought or common knowledge. A good rule of thumb is, if you didn't think of it, cite the person who did. We will go over some of this in class, also.

Format:

• The paper should be at least 8 typed, double-spaced pages long.
• Provide a simple, paper cover page which includes your name, the title of the paper, the name of the course, and the date. Please do not provide fancy covers.
• STAPLE and NUMBER your pages, beginning with the text, NOT the cover page. These are all pet peeves of mine. I will not accept any papers that do not conform to these rules.
• Use a simple font, preferably 12 cpi.

Please see me or contact me at any time about this project. Please do see reference librarians.  Kathy Webb specializes in Women's Studies at the library and would be very happy to help you. .

Don't wait until it's too late and you are confused or rushed!

III. Evaluation

Your paper constitutes 85% of the paper grade. The group presentation will be worth 15%. The paper will be evaluated on:

• Your writing: organization, quality and clarity.
• Your thinking: the development of a theme and your analysis; the quality of your argument of a thesis; demonstration of your understanding of various historical factors.
• Your use of sources: specific use of sources; quality of the sources; support of your argument from the sources.
• Your following the assignment as directed.
• Your effort as reflected in all of the above.