2009 Lucy Somerville Howorth Lecture:
“Women, Islam and Democracy in the Middle East: The Case of Iran”
Presented by Nayereh Tohidi, Ph.D. |
Nayereh Tohidi is Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at California State University, Northridge and a Research Associate at the Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA, where she has been coordinating the Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran since 2003.
Tohidi earned her MA and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BS (with Honors) from the University of Tehran in Psychology and Sociology. Her teaching and research areas include sociology of gender, religion (Islam), ethnicity and democracy in the Middle East and post-Soviet Central Eurasia, especially Iran and Azerbaijan Republic. She is the recipient of several grants, fellowships and research awards, including a year of Fulbright lectureship and research at the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan; post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard University; the Hoover Institute of Stanford University; the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and the Keddie-Balzan Fellowship at the Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA. She has held visiting positions at Universities of Iowa, Minnesota, Harvard, UCLA, and USC. Tohidi’s publications include editorship or authorship of: Globalization, Gender and Religion: The Politics of Women’s Rights in Catholic and Muslim Contexts; Women in Muslim Societies: Diversity within Unity; and Feminism, Democracy and Islamism in Iran.
Dr. Tohidi has been a consultant for the United Nations (UNDP, UNICEF, ILO, and WIDER) on projects concerning gender and development, and women and civil society building in the Middle East and post-Soviet Eurasia. She represented women NGOs at both the third and fourth World Conferences on Women in Nairobi (NGO Forum 1985) and Beijing (NGO Forum 1995) on gender issues in Iran and the post-Soviet Caucasus and Central Asia.
Professor Tohidi has integrated her human rights activism and community organizing with excellence in academic work and scholarship. She is frequently consulted by the media and invited to speak on women and gender issues, democracy and human rights in Islamic societies at community events and national and international conferences. In 2001, she ran a weekly radio program on “Women and Society in Iran” broadcast to Iran, Central Asia, and Europe through Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Some of her writings and interviews have been translated and/or reprinted in other languages and in different countries, including Iran, Russia, France, Austria, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Britain, Spain, India, Japan, Lebanon, and Brazil.
Co-Sponsors: Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, Croft Institute for International Studies
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Lecture will be on October 8, 2009. at 7:00 p.m. in Bryant 209
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| Lecture Resources:
Abstract 
Press Release
Articles written by Dr. Tohidi:
- "Women and the Presidential Elections: Iran's New Political Culture" in Informed Comment, September 3, 2009: http://www.juancole.com/2009/09/tohidi-women-and-presidential-elections.html
- "Iran's Women's Rights Activists Are Being Smeared," in Women's e NEWS, 9/17/2008: http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3743
- "Iran's Women's Rights Movement and the One Million Signatures Campaign," in (November & December 2006) issues of: In English: http://www.we-change.org/spip.php?article208 & http://www.payvand.com/news/06/dec/1174.html
http://www.iranian.com/BTW/2006/December/Women110/index.html
- "Muslim Feminism and Islamic Reformation" in Feminist Theologies: Legacy and Prospect, edited by Rosemary Radford Ruether (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007), 93-116+161-164. http://books.google.com/books?id=lOFBColkprkC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=nayereh+tohidi&source=web&ots=LdsPnqvFJ0&sig=hRclHvAqGPJr26igFXnwqlZ7qsw
- "Modernization, Islamization, and Gender in Iran" in Gender and National Identity: Women and Politics in Muslim Societies, edited by Val Moghadam, (London & Karachi: Zed Books & Oxford University Press, 1994), 110-147. http://books.google.com/books?id=MYCVkaM1alQC&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=nayereh+tohidi&source=web&ots=bxFfX4f0R3&sig=LSRwwOjXmUhq4GPT37fploaPm9Q
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About Lucy Somerville Howorth
To honor her long career in public service and her enthusiastic support of women's rights, the Lucy Somerville Howorth Lecture Series was established at the University of Mississippi (UM). The endowed series brings distinguished speakers to the campus in the area of women's studies.
A native Mississippian born July 1, 1895, Howorth received her undergraduate degree from Randolph-Macon Woman's College and her law degree from the UM School of Law. One of only two women in her law school class, she had the highest average in the 1922 graduating class and delivered the commencement address. She practiced law in Cleveland and Greenville and later in Jackson with her husband Joseph.
In 1924 she was appointed by the Governor to the State Board of Law Examiners, an extraordinary appointment for a woman at that time. She served as chairwoman from 1924-1928. From 1927-1931, she was US Commissioner for the Southern District of Mississippi. In1932 she became Hinds County's first female representative in the Mississippi Legislature.
In 1935 President Franklin Roosevelt appointed her to the Administrative Court of the National Board of Veterans' Appeals. She later became the first woman to serve as general counsel for the War Claims Commission. From 1955-1957, she served on the Commission on Government Security.
Howorth was one of nine American women selected to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award for her lasting impact on American society on the 40 th anniversary of the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Radcliffe College. Randolph-Macon Woman' College awarded her the Alumnae Achievement Award, and she was inducted into the UM Alumni Hall of Fame in 1984. Friends further honored her by establishing the Howorth Award at UM's Sarah Isom Center to annually recognize the best graduate research paper on women's issues during the annual Howorth Lecture Series. The first award was presented in 1985.
Howorth served 10 years on the national board of the Business and Professional Women's Club and is a former national vice-president of the American Association of University Women, which raised $90,000 to establish the Lucy Somerville Howorth Endowed Fund. The fund assists women in reaching their potential through education.
Howorth died August 23, 1997, at the age of 102.
Recent Lecturers:
Recent Howorth Lectures have been “A Women’s Agenda: Having Our Say in 2008 and Beyond” by Avis Jones-DeWeever, “Do That Voodoo You Do So Well: New Interpretations of an Old Spirituality” by Martha Ward, Research Professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies, University of New Orleans; “Images of the Disabled in Popular Photography” by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, Emory University; and “Our Civil Rights and the Future,” by Sarah Weddington, attorney who won the landmark case Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the U.S. in 1973. |
