PULLMAN – Noted writer and filmmaker Elizabeth W. Fernea will present a lecture during Women’s History Month at the invitation of the History Department at Washington State University. “Iraqi Women, Then and Now,” will be presented at 7 p.m. March 21 in the Smith Center for Undergraduate Education (CUE), room 203.
The author of the highly popular book “Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village,” Fernea will sign books preceding and following the lecture.
Fernea will also take part in a brown bag lunch lecture on “Iraqi Women” at 12:10 p.m. March 21 in Murrow 53/55.
Fernea has produced six documentaries and a dozen books focused primarily on women and families in the Middle East. Her most recent film, “Living with the Past: Historic Cairo,” was produced in 2001 and is an intimate portrait of the neighborhood of Darb al-Ahmar, in the heart of the old city of Cairo. Other documentaries by Fernea include “A Veiled Revolution: Women and Religion in Egypt” and “The Struggle for Peace: Israelis and Palestinians.”
Fernea’s latest book, “In Search of Islamic Feminism” (Anchor/Doubleday), was called “a remarkable, stereotype-shattering, gender bending study of Middle Eastern women” by Kirkus Reviews.
Fernea has taught at the University of Texas at Austin for 25 years and is a professor emeritus of English and Middle Eastern studies. She was one of the founders of the UT women’s studies program.
Other Women’s History Month lectures include a brown bag lecture with Brigit Farley entitled “Soldiering through the Earthquakes: Maria Bochkareva in War and Revolution, 191720” at 12:10 p.m. March 27. Farley is an associate professor of history at the WSU Tri-Cities campus. Her talk can be heard in CUE 518 on the Pullman campus.
Amy Canfield and Julie Neuffer, doctoral candidates in history, will take part in a brown bag lunch lecture, “Out of the Kitchen and Back: Feminist and Traditionalist Interpretations of Household Work, 1942Present,” at 12:10 p.m. March 28 in Murrow 53/55.
A brown bag lecture by history doctoral candidate Laurie Whitcomb is scheduled for March 30 at noon in CUE 518. Whitcomb’s talk is titled “Encountering the Unexpected: Conversations with Women Survivors of the Holocaust.”
All events are free of charge and open to the public.
