Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Nadje Al-Ali

Nadje Al-Ali is Robert Family Professor of International Studies and a professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies at Brown 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

MER Article

The Challenges for Women Working at Iraqi Universities

Ten years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, Iraqi women suffer from pervasive hardships -- the overall lack of security, gender-based violence, the feminization of poverty and poor access to basic services. Women working at universities face all these challenges, as well as others particular to hig

Nadje Al-Ali • 4 min read

MER Article

Conspiracy of Near Silence

Shortly before the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, the administration of President George W. Bush began paying a great deal of public attention to the suffering of Iraqi women under the regime of Saddam Hussein. In speeches and meetings with Iraqi women in exile, the Bush administration

Nadje Al-Ali, Nicola Pratt • 13 min read

MER Article

Women in Iraq

At a press conference two weeks before the US-led invasion of Iraq, flanked by four “Women for a Free Iraq,” [1] Paula Dobriansky, then undersecretary of state for global affairs, declared: “We are at a critical point in dealing with Saddam Hussein. However this turns out, it is clear that the women

Nadje Al-Ali, Nicola Pratt • 17 min read