Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Judith Tucker

Judith Tucker is professor emeritus in history at Georgetown University.

Gender, Politics and Scholarship—A Roundtable — A demonstration at the Third World Conference on Women, in Nairobi, Kenya, July 1985. (William F. Campbell/Getty Images)

MER Article

Gender, Politics and Scholarship—A Roundtable

On March 3, 2025, MERIP and the University of Exeter's Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies partnered with Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies to host a roundtable on the past, present and future of feminist approaches to Middle East and North African Studies. The event

Deniz Kandiyoti, Judith Tucker, Mounira Charrad, Suad Joseph, Maya Mikdashi, Nadje Al-Ali • 23 min read

Joseph (Joe) Stork—A Tribute — Joe Stork (L), Beshara Doumani (holding MER) and Jim Paul (top right) visiting Beita village in June 1988. The cover image of issue number 152, held up by Doumani, was taken in Beita earlier in the year. Photo by Rick Reinhard.Joe Stork (second from left) with MERIP comrades Priscilla Norris (L), Esther Merves (R of Joe), and MERIP interns at a demonstration in the 1990s. Photo courtesy of Esther Merves.

MER Article

Joseph (Joe) Stork—A Tribute

For much of the first 25 years of his professional life, Joe Stork and MERIP (the Middle East Research and Information Project) were virtual synonyms. He co-founded the organization in 1970 and dedicated himself to its development until he stepped down in 1995. He shaped MERIP as a journal and

Judith Tucker • 8 min read

Shifting Approaches to Women and Gender in Labor, Politics and Society — MERIP Reports issue number 50, August 1976.Middle East Report number 138, January-Febraury 1986. Cover photo by Hannes Wallrafen.Inside Middle East Report 268, “Gender Front Lines,” Fall 2013.

MER Article

Shifting Approaches to Women and Gender in Labor, Politics and Society

It took MERIP some five years and 50 issues before it finally addressed women and gender in its pages. In August 1976, the two feature articles explored questions about working women, my own “Egyptian Women in the Work Force” and “The Proletarianization of Palestinian Women in Israel” by Najwa Makhoul

Judith Tucker • 6 min read

MER Article

Insurrectionary Women

The study of women and politics has usually focused on the participation of women in the formal political arena -- that is, in politics as practiced by political parties, by people holding political office or, at most, by political opposition movements. In the Middle East context in particular, the

Judith Tucker • 16 min read

MER Article

Looking for Sadat Square

Visiting Egypt this spring -- my first since the assassination of Anwar al-Sadat -- I was immediately struck by the extent to which symbols of the Sadat era had already faded or been pushed into oblivion. Only one small, inconspicuous plaque informs the passerby that Cairo’s main square is “Anwar al

Judith Tucker • 3 min read

MER Article

The Prisoners of Israel

The Israeli Defense Forces have taken some 9,000 to 10,000 Palestinians and Lebanese prisoner in south Lebanon. Because the Israelis have not released lists of names or figures, the exact number of prisoners currently held cannot be determined. The IDF itself has released its estimate of 7,000 to 9,

Judith Tucker • 8 min read

MER Article

The War of Numbers

How many people have been killed and wounded in the course of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon? Precise numbers have been hard to assemble because of unsettled conditions, lack of free access to all areas, the incomplete recovery of bodies buried under the rubble, censorship and the tendency on the p

Judith Tucker • 9 min read

MER Article

Sadat's Moment, Egypt's History

David Hirst and Irene Beeson, Sadat (London: Faber and Faber, 1981). Ghali Shoukri, Egypte, la contre-revolution (Paris: Editions Le Sycomore, 1979). These two assessments of the past decade in Egypt pose the question of approach: Can we most conveniently comprehend the period by studying the role

Judith Tucker • 6 min read

MER Article

In the Footsteps of Sadat

Israel invaded Lebanon on June 6, 1982, the fifteenth anniversary of the June war of 1967. Then, Egypt was the main Arab combatant state in a war that redrew the geopolitical map of the Middle East. Today, Israel is again redrawing the map, with Palestinian and Lebanese blood. This time Egypt has fi

Joe Stork, Judith Tucker • 11 min read