Description
Book SynopsisAn interdisciplinary collection of essays exploring the harem as it was imagined, represented, and experienced in Middle Eastern and North African societies, and by visitors to those societies.
Trade Review“Rarely have I encountered an edited collection as coherent and focused as
Harem Histories. . . .
Harem Histories offers concrete historical examples of the ways that gendered space is constructed and imagined, public and private overlap and merge, and cultural interaction has complex
dynamics and consequences. Although perhaps of most interest to historians and other scholars of the Middle East, these are issues of more general concern to sociologists as well.” - Leila J. Rupp,
Contemporary Sociology“[A] useful lens for understanding current narratives about Muslim women as well as earlier histories, stories, and the people who wrote them.” - M. Lynx Qualey,
Women’s Review of Books“[A] fascinating compilation. . . . Taken together, the articles demonstrate
major historiographical advances in the field—new approaches and new questions that enable us to better understand the role of gender played in imperial and household relations and how it changed over time and place.” - Nancy E. Gallagher,
Digest of Middle East Studies“The thirteen contributions to this volume illuminate the complex dynamics of producing, consuming, and inhabiting harem spaces by examining a number of Western and non-Western primary sources, including novels and
memoirs, historical and legal documents, as well as architectural layouts and photographs. This vast range of sources not only creates a comprehensive mosaic of the material but also bolsters our understanding of it by virtue of the dialogue amongst the authors and chapters themselves, which adds a level of nuance, depth, and liveliness.” - Nadine Sinno,
Clio“From the examination of the public acts of the female companions of Muhammad to the changing legal structure around sexuality in Ottoman imperial law, the volume extends conceptions of the relationship between women, the harem, and the public sphere in useful ways. The extraordinary ground covered by this volume means that any scholar, regardless of his or her area of specialization, can learn something, and perhaps many things, from it.” - Lisa Z. Sigel,
History: Reviews of New Books“
Harem Histories includes magisterial essays by a number of leading scholars at the top of their game, and it takes us through a series of insightful and inspiring examinations of the harem system. Delightful cultural analyses of literary and visual depictions of the harem link Western and Eastern cultural producers, drawing out the tensions and relationships between different socio-sexual orders.”—
Reina Lewis, author of
Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel, and the Ottoman Harem“A very important contribution to the literature on the harem, this collection will quickly become a standard text in cultural studies, Middle Eastern studies, gender studies, and the visual arts.”—
Mary Roberts, author of
Intimate Outsiders: The Harem in Ottoman and Orientalist Art and Travel Literature“[A] fascinating compilation. . . . Taken together, the articles demonstrate
major historiographical advances in the field—new approaches and new questions that enable us to better understand the role of gender played in imperial and household relations and how it changed over time and place.” -- Nancy E. Gallagher * Digest of Middle East Studies *
“[A] useful lens for understanding current narratives about Muslim women as well as earlier histories, stories, and the people who wrote them.” -- M. Lynx Qualey * Women's Review of Books *
“From the examination of the public acts of the female companions of Muhammad to the changing legal structure around sexuality in Ottoman imperial law, the volume extends conceptions of the relationship between women, the harem, and the public sphere in useful ways. The extraordinary ground covered by this volume means that any scholar, regardless of his or her area of specialization, can learn something, and perhaps many things, from it.” -- Lisa Z. Sigel * History: Reviews of New Books *
“Rarely have I encountered an edited collection as coherent and focused as
Harem Histories. . . .
Harem Histories offers concrete historical examples of the ways that gendered space is constructed and imagined, public and private overlap and merge, and cultural interaction has complex
dynamics and consequences. Although perhaps of most interest to historians and other scholars of the Middle East, these are issues of more general concern to sociologists as well.” -- Leila J. Rupp * Contemporary Sociology *
“The thirteen contributions to this volume illuminate the complex dynamics of producing, consuming, and inhabiting harem spaces by examining a number of Western and non-Western primary sources, including novels and
memoirs, historical and legal documents, as well as architectural layouts and photographs. This vast range of sources not only creates a comprehensive mosaic of the material but also bolsters our understanding of it by virtue of the dialogue amongst the authors and chapters themselves, which adds a level of nuance, depth, and liveliness.” -- Nadine Sinno * Clio *
Table of ContentsIntroduction / Marilyn Booth 1
I. Normative Images and Shifting Spaces
1. Early Women Exemplars and the Construction of Gendered Space: (Re-)Defining Feminine Moral Excellence / Asma Afsaruddin 23
2. Normative Notions of Public and Private in Early Islamic Culture / Yaseen Noorani 49
3. The Harem as Gendered Space and the Spatial Reproduction of Gender / Irvin Cemil Schick 69
II. Rooms and Thresholds: Harems as Spaces, Socialities, and Law
4. Caliphal Harems, Household Harems: Baghdad in the Fourth Century of the Islamic Era / Nadia Maria El Cheikh 87
5. Domesticating Sexuality: Harem Culture in Ottoman Imperial Law / Leslie Pierce 104
6. Panotopic Bodies: Black Eunuchs as Guardians of The Topkapi Harem / Jateen Lad 136
7. Where Elites Meet: Harem Visits, Sea Bathing, and Sociabilities in Precolonial Tunisia, c. 1800–1881 / Julia Clancy-Smith 177
8. The Harem as Biography: Domestic Architecture, Gender, and Nostalgia in Modern Syria / Heghmar Zeitlian Watenpaugh 211
III. Harems Envisioned
9. Harem/House/Set: Domestic Interiors in Photography from the Late Ottoman World / Nancy Micklewright 239
10. Dress and Undress: Clothing and Eroticism in Nineteenth-Century Visual Representations of the Harem / Joan DelPlato 261
11. Harems, Women, and Political Tyranny in the Works of Jurji Zaydan / Orit Bashkin 290
12. The Harem as the Seat of Middle-class Industry and Morality: The Fiction of Ahmet Midhat Efendi / A. Holly Shissler 319
13. Between Harem and Houseboat: "Fallenness," Gendered Spaces, and the Female National Subject in 1920s Egypt / Marilyn Booth 342
Bibliography 375
Contributors 401
Index 405
