Performance, Gender, and Sexuality in the Middle East

Course Description

Summary

This course will explore the construction and experience of gender and sexuality in the Middle East through a performative lens. Drawing on research in ethnomusicology, queer and gender studies, anthropology and Middle Eastern history, the course will examine performance (music, dance, theater, poetry and more) as a process of representation, assertion, and sometimes transgression of sexuality and gender identities. This course will delve into the ways that performance, gender, and sexuality relate to ethnicity, nationalism, modernity, colonialism, and religion. We will question stereotypes about femininity, masculinity, and same-sex desire in the region, highlighting modes of performance that create new kinds of feminine, masculine, non-binary, and trans identities and spaces.  We will also pay special attention to Islamist mobilization, the experiences of LGBTQ performers and listeners, family, weddings, neoliberalism, women’s labor, and the role of women musicians in recent uprisings and social change. Some of our topics will include queer performance and harem lives at the Ottoman court, gendered hierarchies in Bedouin oral poetry performance, women’s music festivals in Iran, Lebanese indie music and LGBTQ rights, rap and resistance among Saudi women, performing masculinity in Arab musical films, bellydance and gendered spaces in Egypt, sentimental performance in Turkish pop, rave culture among young Palestinians and much more.