Women’s Rights Guest Speakers

Our Previous Guest Speakers

Previous WRRS guest speakers are listed here together with their chosen seminar topic.

  1. Tahereh Hadian, University of Oxford: Women in Iranian cinema
  2. Soraya Tremayne, University of Oxford: Women’s reproductive rights in Iran
  3. Nargess Tavassolian, SOAS, journalist and legal activist: Iranian women prisoners
  4. Anna Enayat, St Antony’s College: Iranian women’s rights and the sharia law
  5. Binesh Hassanpour, University Oxford: Iranian women’s rights and politics
  6. Nazila Ghanea, University of Oxford: Human Rights and Minorities in Iran: A focus on the Baha’is
  7. Ann Harrison, Amnesty International: Women’s rights in Iran
  8. Katja Zvan Elliot, University of Oxford: Modernizing patriarchy: The politics of women’s rights in Morocco
  9. Dorthe Engelcke, University of Oxford: Women and the family law reform in Morocco
  10. Marwa Daoudy, University of Oxford: Reflections on Women in and After the Arab Spring
  11. Shirin Saeidi, Cambridge University
  12. Mishana Hosseinioun, University of Oxford: The Globalisation of Universal Human Rights Norms: Implications for Women’s Rights Reform in the Middle East
  13. Mezna Qato: Women’s legal rights in Qatar
  14. Zahra Tizro, St John University of York: Sexual violence and marriage contract in Iran
  15. Marzieh Kaivanara, University of Bristol: Rhinoplasty and modernity in Iran
  16. Henriette Dahan, Ben Gurion University: Palestinian activism  in Israel: A Bedouin women leader in a changing Middle East
  17. Mastoureh Fathi, University of Southampton: ‘We are middle class in English standards’: Spatial belonging and classed identities of Iranian women migrants in Britain
  18. Monireh Mohammadi, University of Oxford: The paradoxes of representation and Iranian women
  19. Nadia Aghtai, Bristol University: Patriarchy and digital technologies
  20. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, University of Oxford: Gender, Islam and the Sahrawi politics of survival
  21. Iris Egmon, Israeli Visiting Scholar
  22. Atlas Torbati University of Southampton: Perception of Iranian men towards sexual violence with intersection of religion/culture, sexuality, gender and immigration status
  23. Helen Lackner, Consultant in social development: Gender issues in Yemen; women’s choices
  24. Kat Eghdamian, University of Oxford: Religion, gender and the experiences of displacement: Insights from Syrian Christian refugees in Jordan
  25. Leila Alikarami, Lawyer and legal advisor in human rights: Women and equality in Iran: Society and activism
  26. Mehri Zarifi-Kolyane Oxford Centre for Mission Studies: Women, peace-building and digitaltechnologies
  27. Zahra Maranlou, St. Antony’s College: Iranian women’s rights
  28. Sachiko Hoyosa, St. Antony’s College
  29. Mona Tajali, St. Antony’s College: Iranian women’s politicians and the elections
  30. Abouali Vedadhir, University of Tehran: Women and medical education: Is gender discrimination a myth or a reality in contemporary Iran?
  31. Sophie Chamas, University of Oxford: Demasculising Hezbollah: Women of ‘The Resistance’
  32. Sara Bamdad, Warwick University: Infertility and gender in Iran
  33. Zuzanna Olszewska, University of Oxford: The cyber-politics of Afghan women’s rights
  34. Marilyn Booth, University of Oxford: Cairo in Chicago, Chicago in Cairo, 1893: Arab women, Egyptian representations, and the World Columbian Exposition
  35. Marcia Inhorn, University of Yale: The ongoing Iraq War: Impacts on gender, health, and Society
  36. Basma Al-Motlaq, SOAS: Dancing with words: Subverting the master narrative in Saudi women’s literature
  37. Joanna De Groot, University of York: Gender, space and women’s rights in Nineteenth Century Iran:  Some reflections and questions
  38. Stephanie Berry, University of Sussex: Securitization of Muslim women in the European Court of Human Rights
  39. Ezgi Basaran Karli, St Antony’s College: Women in ‘new Turkey’: The story of how we lost ground
  40. Nicola Pratt, University of Warwick: Gendered paradoxes of socio-political transformations in the Arab World after 2011
  41. Zep Kalb, University of Oxford: Schooling society and state: Women and the teachers movement in Iran
  42. Mariam Memarsadeghi, E-Collaborative for Civic Education: Women and the struggle for democracy in Iran
  43. Deena Alasfoor, University of Oxford: Tale of two Omani women
  44. Elife Bicer-Deveci, University of Oxford: Women’s movement from late 19th century until 1930s in Istanbul
  45. Naysan Adlparvar, Universities of Yale: Between love and lineage: Elopement, rights and violence in an Afghan valley
  46. Kamiar Alaei, Institute for International Health and Education: Between Conservatism and Pragmatism: Crafting a human rights-based approach to HIV/AIDS related services for women in the Middle East
  47. Shahla Tizro, York St John University:  The Archaeology of Experience of Domestic Violence against women in Iran
  48. Marilyn Booth, University of Oxford: Jeanne d’Arc, Arab hero? Warrior women, gender confusion
  49. Ozlem Galip, University of Oxford: From Kurdistan to Europe: Kurdish Literary, Artistic and Cultural Activism by Kurdish Women Intellectuals
  50. Behnaz Hosseini, University of Vienna: Trafficking and slavery under ISIS: Trauma and rehabilitation of Yezidi female survivors
  51. Tomoko Yamagishi, Meiji University: Women’s Football and Futsal in Iran – their Challenges and Struggles
  52. Lea Taragin-Zeller, Woolf Institute: Sisterhood Revisited: Jewish-Muslim Feminist Alliances in the UK
  53. Dr Hilary Kalmbach, University of Sussex: Where are the Women? Education, Authority and Gender in Egypt 1870-1950
  54. Professor Hilary Burrage, Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics: Patriarchs and Proxy Perpetrators? Men and Female Genital Mutilation
  55. Dr Nadia Aghtai, University of Bristol: Faith and the Search for Justice: Sharia Councils and Gender-Based Violence
  56. Dr Mine Yildirim, Norwegian Helsinki Committee’s Freedom of Belief Initiative project: Challenging the Limited View – the Case of the Women in Mosques Movement
  57. Benjamin Dubreulle, Maison Française d’Oxford: ‘God does not Discriminate’: Inclusive Mosques Politics in France and the United Kingdom
  58. Dr. Mawahib Abubakr, Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics: Qatari Women and the Labour Market- Towards an Empowering Alternative
  59. Professor Irene Schneider, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen: Debating the Law, Creating Gender
  60. Professor Marie Ladier-Fouladi, French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)/ CETOBaC (Centre d’Études Turques, Ottomanes, Balkaniques et Centrasiatiques): Women’s Rights on The Altar of a Strategic Stake: The New Population Policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran
  61. Lina Tori Jan: Exclusion and Resistance: The Betrayal of the Afghan Peace Process
  62. Dr Maral Sahebjame: Social Change through Presence: White Marriage in Iran
  63.  Janet Afary: Informal Unions in MENASA: A New Form of Cohabitation?
  64. Esther Hertzog: Threatened Motherhood in the Israeli Welfare State: The discourse and the practice behind the disqualification of disadvantaged women’s motherhood
  65. Professor Nacim Pak-Shiraz: The Right to Move: Gender and Space in Iranian Cinema
  66. Ramina Sotoudeh: A Match Made in Heaven: Love and Piety in Iranian Spousal Selection 
  67. Dr. Sahar Maranlou, Dr. Naghmeh Sohrabi, Dr. Pardis Asadi Zeidabadi: MEC & OSGA present – Women, Protests, Revolutions: Iran Uprising after Five Months
  68. Dr Sultan Doughan (Lecturer in Museum Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London): Palestinian Women on Demonic Grounds? When Gender is Undone by the German Security Discourse
  69. Dr Roel Meijer (Radboud Universiteit, The Netherlands): Women’s Movements and Citizenship in the Middle East