Representations of Resistance

This is the website for WGS340 Women & Revolution in the Middle East (Women & Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto), an interdisciplinary examination of the critical and creative crosscurrents of gender and sexuality and resistance in the Middle East. Alongside their examination of the histories, memories, political imagination, creative output, and current practices and struggles of feminist and queer movements in the Middle East, students were ask to challenge the simplistic media narratives of the region’s oppression of women and sexual minorities. Like the course’s themes, readings, films, and discussions, this website takes the students of WGS340 “beyond” the classroom, publishing one of their two major assignments-an Op-Ed. The website’s Op-Eds offer readers a thoughtful analysis of the political and social consequences of the (mis)representation of women’s and/or queer resistance in the Middle East. Each Op-Ed investigates the impact of (mis)representation on the lives, activism, and political imagination of women and/or LGBTQ+ peoples in the Middle East.