Women In The Mediterranean

Women in the Mediterranean have helped constitute new meanings of knowledge whilst simultaneously providing a wealth of material that is now part of the knowledge archive of the area. The inception of types of knowledge that differ from the conventional necessitates a re-definition of the concept of ‘knowledge,’ an issue which is addressed in this volume. Employing a range of theories and methodologies, this book explores four main domains in which women’s knowledge is attested: women and written knowledge; women and oral knowledge; women and legal, religious, and economic knowledge; and women and media knowledge. By presenting untapped women’s expressions of knowledge in these domains, this book opens new avenues of research in fields such as sociology, history and literature, amongst others. This book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of the Middle East, Women and Gender studies and Mediterranean Studies.

The book addresses the challenges faced by women on the two shores of the Mediterranean from a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspective. While in the European Union’s (EU) Mediterranean countries inequality is mostly linked to the social sphere and, in particular refers to labour market dynamics, in the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) area, the situation is more complicated as the social and private spheres are blended and cultural and religious factors have a great impact on women autonomy and opportunities beyond the family perimeter. The different challenges women are facing on the two sides of the Mediterranean have sometimes originated incomprehension and misperceptions. Western-supported policies devoted to fill the gap between men and women in the MENA area have overlooked countries’ peculiarities simply exporting models tailored for EU’s member states. The EU’s attempts to strengthen relations with the Mediterranean countries on a multilevel basis have not rescued women from marginalisation. Nevertheless, during the 2011 awakening, women played an important role in activating civil society. They are still considered as a key part of the fight against terrorism and radicalisation, although in some countries their condition has worsened after secular regimes have been downturned. The number of migrant women has increased and, not differently from men, they are looking for opportunities and better conditions of life while Western media tend to present them in a stereotyped way either as traumatized victim and/or as caring mother. There are other misleading common places, which need to be better conceptualised and understood, such as the alleged incompatibility between Islam and women rights. Unfortunately, women’s rights are still under attack even in European countries where they are considered consolidated. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of the Journal of the Balkans and Near Eastern Studies.

This pioneering work explores the theme of women and violence in the late medieval Mediterranean, bringing together medievalists of different specialties and methodologies to offer readers an updated outline of how different disciplines can contribute to the study of gender-based violence in medieval times. Building on the contributions of the social sciences, and in particular feminist criminology, the book analyses the rich theme of women and violence in its full spectrum, including both violence committed against women and violence perpetrated by women themselves, in order to show how medieval assumptions postulated a tight connection between the two. Violent crime, verbal offences, war and peace-making are among the themes approached by the book, which assesses to what extent coexisting elaborations on the relationship between femininity and violence in the Mediterranean were conflicting or collaborating. Geographical regions explored include Western Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic world. This multidisciplinary book will appeal to scholars and students of history, literature, gender studies, and legal studies.

Women in the Mediterranean have helped constitute new meanings of knowledge whilst simultaneously providing a wealth of material that is now part of the knowledge archive of the area. The inception of types of knowledge that differ from the conventional necessitates a re-definition of the concept of ‘knowledge,’ an issue which is addressed in this volume. Employing a range of theories and methodologies, this book explores four main domains in which women’s knowledge is attested: women and written knowledge; women and oral knowledge; women and legal, religious, and economic knowledge; and women and media knowledge. By presenting untapped women’s expressions of knowledge in these domains, this book opens new avenues of research in fields such as sociology, history and literature, amongst others. This book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of the Middle East, Women and Gender studies and Mediterranean Studies.

This engaging and accessible textbook provides an introduction to the study of ancient Jewish and Christian women in their Hellenistic and Roman contexts. This is the first textbook dedicated to introducing women’s religious roles in Judaism and Christianity in a way that is accessible to undergraduates from all disciplines. The textbook provides brief, contextualising overviews that then allow for deeper explorations of specific topics in women’s religion, including leadership, domestic ritual, women as readers and writers of scripture, and as innovators in their traditions. Using select examples from ancient sources, the textbook provides teachers and students with the raw tools to begin their own exploration of ancient religion. An introductory chapter provides an outline of common hermeneutics or "lenses" through which scholars approach the texts and artefacts of Judaism and Christianity in antiquity. The textbook also features a glossary of key terms, a list of further readings and discussion questions for each topic, and activities for classroom use. In short, the book is designed to be a complete, classroom-ready toolbox for teachers who may have never taught this subject as well as for those already familiar with it. Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean is intended for use in undergraduate classrooms, its target audience undergraduate students and their instructors, although Masters students may also find the book useful. In addition, the book is accessible and lively enough that religious communities’ study groups and interested laypersons could employ the book for their own education.

This book uses the stories of early modern women in the Mediterranean who left their birthplaces, families, and religions to reveal the complex space women of the period occupied socially and politically. In the narrow sense, the word “renegade” as used in the early modern Mediterranean referred to a Christian who had abandoned his or her religion to become a Muslim. With Renegade Women, Eric R Dursteler deftly redefines and broadens the term to include anyone who crossed the era’s and region’s religious, political, social, and gender boundaries. Drawing on archival research, he relates three tales of women whose lives afford great insight into both the specific experiences and condition of females in, and the broader cultural and societal practices and mores of, the early Mediterranean. Through Beatrice Michiel of Venice, who fled an overbearing husband to join her renegade brother in Constantinople and took the name Fatima Hatun, Dursteler discusses how women could convert and relocate in order to raise their personal and familial status. In the parallel tales of the Christian Elena Civalelli and the Muslim Mihale Šatorovic, who both entered a Venetian convent to avoid unwanted, arranged marriages, he finds courageous young women who used the frontier between Ottoman and Venetian states to exercise a surprising degree of agency over their lives. And in the actions of four Muslim women of the Greek island of Milos—Aissè, her sisters Eminè and Catigè, and their mother, Maria—who together left their home for Corfu and converted from Islam to Christianity to escape Aissè’s emotionally and financially neglectful husband, Dursteler unveils how a woman’s attempt to control her own life ignited an international firestorm that threatened Venetian-Ottoman relations. A truly fascinating narrative of female instrumentality, Renegade Women illuminates the nexus of identity and conversion in the early modern Mediterranean through global and local lenses. Scholars of the period will find this to be a richly informative and thoroughly engrossing read.