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), 2009: Women’s identity as reflected in Iranian films
  2. Anna Enayat (University of Oxford), 2010: Domestic violence in Iran: seriously battered refugees and the debate over the status of Iranian women in the British legal system
  3. Soraya Tremayne (University of Oxford), 2009: Population and reproductive health policies and women’s rights in Iran
  4. Binesh Hass (University of Oxford), 2010: Brainquake, boobquake
  5. Nargess Tavassolian (SOAS), 2010: The paradox of the Iranian woman in law and society: the clash of rules and customs
  6. Farhang Jahanpour (University of Oxford), 2011: The Green Movement, women, and the impact of the Arab uprisings on Iran
  7. Tariq Ramadan (University of Oxford), 2011: Women in Islamic law and jurisprudence
  8. Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Faculty of Law (University of Oxford), 2011: Art Exhibition
  9. Ann Harrison (Amnesty International UK), 2011: The family protection plan in Iran: a step backward for women
  10. Shirin Saeidi (Centre for Gender Excellence, Sweden), 2012: Reconsidering categories of analysis: possibilities for feminist studies of conflict
  11. Nadia Aghtaei (University of Bristol), 2012: The transgression of the rules of patriarchy by Iranian women through cyberspace
  12. Katja Zvan Elliot (University of Oxford), 2012: Morocco and its women’s rights discourse: between amelioration and the status quo
  13. Farniyaz Zaker (University of Oxford), 2012: The veil as architecture: conceptualisation and genderisation of the private and public space in Iran
  14. Dörthe Engelcke (University of Oxford), 2012: Family law reform in Morocco and Jordan: a comparative approach
  15. Parinaz Raisi (King’s College London), 2012: Islamic jurisprudence and the internal sources of women’s rights in Iran
  16. Zahra Tizro (York St John University), 2013: The archaeology of experience of domestic violence against women in Iran
  17. Nazila Ghanea (University of Oxford) & Sultana Afdhal, 2013: Women’s Rights in the GCC: a dialogue
  18. Nazila Ghanea (University of Oxford): Human rights and minorities in Iran: a focus on the Baha’is
  19. Marwa Daoudy (University of Oxford): Reflections on women in and after the Arab Spring
  20. Mishana Hosseinioun (University of Oxford): The globalisation of universal human rights norms: implications for women’s rights reform in the Middle East
  21. Mezna Qato: Women’s legal rights in Qatar
  22. Zahra Tizro (St John University of York): Sexual violence and marriage contract in Iran
  23. Marzieh Kaivanara (University of Bristol): Rhinoplasty and modernity in Iran
  24. Henriette Dahan (Ben Gurion University): Palestinian activism in Israel: a Bedouin women leader in a changing Middle East
  25. Mastoureh Fathi (University of Southampton): ‘We are middle class in English standards’: spatial belonging and classed identities of Iranian women migrants in Britain
  26. Monireh Mohammadi (University of Oxford): The paradoxes of representation and Iranian women
  27. Nadia Aghtai (Bristol University): Patriarchy and digital technologies
  28. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (University of Oxford): Gender, Islam and the Sahrawi politics of survival
  29. Iris Egmon, Israeli Visiting Scholar
  30. Atlas Torbati (University of Southampton): Perception of Iranian men towards sexual violence with intersection of religion/culture, sexuality, gender and immigration status
  31. Helen Lackner (Consultant in social development): Gender issues in Yemen: women’s choices
  32. Kat Eghdamian (University of Oxford): Religion, gender and the experiences of displacement: insights from Syrian Christian refugees in Jordan
  33. Leila Alikarami (Lawyer and legal advisor in human rights): Women and equality in Iran: society and activism
  34. Mehri Zarifi-Kolyane (Oxford Centre for Mission Studies): Women, peace-building and digital technologies
  35. Zahra Maranlou (University of Oxford): Iranian women’s rights
  36. Sachiko Hoyosa (University of Oxford)
  37. Mona Tajali (University of Oxford): Iranian women’s politicians and the elections
  38. Abouali Vedadhir (University of Tehran): Women and medical education: is gender discrimination a myth or a reality in contemporary Iran?
  39. Sophie Chamas (University of Oxford): Demasculising Hezbollah: women of ‘The Resistance’
  40. Sara Bamdad (Warwick University): Infertility and gender in Iran
  41. Zuzanna Olszewska (University of Oxford): The cyber-politics of Afghan women’s rights
  42. Marilyn Booth (University of Oxford): Cairo in Chicago, Chicago in Cairo, 1893: Arab women, Egyptian representations, and the World Columbian Exposition
  43. Marcia Inhorn (University of Yale): The ongoing Iraq war: impacts on gender, health, and society
  44. Basma Al-Motlaq (SOAS): Dancing with words: subverting the master narrative in Saudi women’s literature
  45. Joanna De Groot (University of York): Gender, space and women’s rights in 19th century Iran: some reflections and questions
  46. Stephanie Berry (University of Sussex): Securitization of Muslim women in the European Court of Human Rights
  47. Ezgi Başaran (University of Oxford): Women in ‘new Turkey’: the story of how we lost ground
  48. Nicola Pratt (University of Warwick): Gendered paradoxes of socio-political transformations in the Arab World after 2011
  49. Zep Kalb (University of Oxford): Schooling society and state: women and the teachers movement in Iran
  50. Mariam Memarsadeghi, E-Collaborative for Civic Education: women and the struggle for democracy in Iran
  51. Deena Alasfoor (University of Oxford): Tale of two Omani women
  52. Elife Bicer-Deveci (University of Oxford): Women’s movement from late 19th century until 1930s in Istanbul
  53. Naysan Adlparvar (Universities of Yale): Between love and lineage: elopement, rights and violence in an Afghan valley
  54. 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
  55. Shahla Tizro (York St John University):  The archaeology of experience of domestic violence against women in Iran
  56. Marilyn Booth (University of Oxford): Jeanne d’Arc, Arab hero? Warrior women, gender confusion
  57. Ozlem Galip (University of Oxford): From Kurdistan to Europe: Kurdish literary, artistic and cultural activism by Kurdish women intellectuals
  58. Behnaz Hosseini (University of Vienna): Trafficking and slavery under ISIS: trauma and rehabilitation of Yezidi female survivors
  59. Tomoko Yamagishi (Meiji University): Women’s football and futsal in Iran: their challenges and struggles
  60. Lea Taragin-Zeller (Woolf Institute): Sisterhood revisited: Jewish-Muslim feminist alliances in the UK
  61. Hilary Kalmbach (University of Sussex): Where are the women? Education, authority and gender in Egypt 1870-1950
  62. Hilary Burrage (Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics), 2020: Patriarchs and proxy perpetrators? Men and female genital mutilation
  63. Nadia Aghtai (University of Bristol), 2020: Faith and the search for justice: Sharia councils and gender-based violence
  64. Mine Yildirim (Norwegian Helsinki Committee’s Freedom of Belief Initiative project), 2020: Challenging the limited view: the case of the Women in Mosques Movement
  65. Benjamin Dubreulle (Maison Française d’Oxford), 2020: ‘God does not Discriminate’: inclusive mosques politics in France and the United Kingdom
  66. Mawahib Abubakr (Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics), 2021: Qatari women and the labour market: towards an empowering alternative
  67. Irene Schneider (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen), 2021: Debating the law, creating gender
  68. Marie Ladier-Fouladi (French National Center for Scientific Research / Centre d’Études Turques, Ottomanes, Balkaniques et Centrasiatiques), 2021: Women’s rights on the altar of a strategic stake: the new population policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran
  69. Lina Tori Jan (University of Oxford), 2021: Exclusion and resistance: The betrayal of the Afghan peace process
  70. Maral Sahebjame (University of Washington), 2021: Social change through presence: white marriage in Iran
  71. Janet Afary (University of California Santa Barbara), 2022: Informal unions in MENASA: a new form of cohabitation?
  72. Esther Hertzog (Zefat Academic College), 2022: Threatened motherhood in the Israeli welfare state: the discourse and the practice behind the disqualification of disadvantaged women’s motherhood
  73. Nacim Pak-Shiraz (University of Edinburgh), 2022: The right to move: Gender and space in Iranian Cinema
  74. Ramina Sotoudeh (Yale University), 2022: A match made in heaven: love and piety in Iranian spousal selection 
  75. Rosa Rahimi (University of Oxford), 2023: Deviant women: citizenship, political participation, and incarceration of the secular left in post-revolutionary Iran (1979-1990)
  76. Mona Tajali (Agnes Scott College), 2023: Women and electoral politics in Iran and Turkey: undemocratic structures and feminist resistance
  77. Sahar Maranlou (Royal Holloway, London University), Naghmeh Sohrabi (Harvard University), Pardis Asadi Zeidabadi (City, University of London), 2023: MEC & OSGA present “Women, protests, revolutions: Iran uprising after five months”
  78. Sultan Doughan (Goldsmiths, University of London), 2023: Palestinian women on demonic grounds? When gender is undone by the German security discourse
  79. Roel Meijer (Radboud University), 2023: Women’s movements and citizenship in the Middle East   
  80. Tugba Bozcaga (King’s College London), 2024: The gender effect in intra-party meritocracy
  81. Nermin Allam (Rutgers University), 2024: The afterlife goes on: the consequences of women’s participation in the 2011 Egyptian uprising
  82. Amal W Nazzal (Birzeit University), 2024: Feminism in Palestine
  83. Heba El-Shazli (George Mason University), 2024: Reflections on Tunisian women’s continued fight for respect, dignity and rights
  84. Sarah Bush (University of Pennsylvania), 2024: Economic diversification and climate change in the Middle East