Dr. Barbara Stowasser

"Old Shaykhs, Young Women, and the Internet: The (Re) Writing of Women's Political Rights in Islam"

Dr. Barbara Stowasser is Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, and past Director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

She holds an M.A. in Near East Studies from UCLA and a Ph.D. in Comparative Semitics and Islamic Studies from the University of Munster, Germany. Her publications include ISLAMIC LAW AND THE CHALLENGES OF MODERNITY, coedited with Yvonne Haddad (AltaMira Press, 2004), a book length study on WOMEN IN THE QUR'AN, TRADITIONS AND INTERPRETATION (Oxford University Press, 1994), an edited volume entitled THE ISLAMIC IMPULSE (Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1987, reprinted 1989), articles published in American, German, Arabic and Turkish journals and periodicals, and book chapters in collected volumes. Two of her shorter think-pieces appeared as Center for Contemporary Arab Studies Occasional Papers: RELIGION AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT: COMPARATIVE IDEAS ON IBN KHALDUN AND MACHIAVELLI (1983, reprinted 2000), and A TIME TO REAP: THOUGHTS ON CALENDARS AND MILLENNIALISM (2000). The latter is the text of Dr. Stowasser's address as outgoing 34th president of the Middle East Studies Association (1989-1999). At present Dr. Stowasser is working on a book on Gender Discourses in the Tafsir and Fatwa Literatures and a textbook on the Islamic Tafsir.