October 22 — Discuss “French Gender Equality and the Islamic Headscarf” with historian Joan Scott.
Butler is bringing Joan Scott to Indianapolis for a talk about the politics of Muslim veiling in France. If we are fortunate, it may be open to the public.
This is from an announcement about a talk Prof. Scott gave earlier this year on “Cover-up: French Gender Equality and the Islamic Headscarf”:
There is much talk these days (in the context of the “clash of civilizations,” Islam vs. the West polemic) about the fact that secularism (separation of church and state) is a guarantee both of democracy and of equal rights between women and men. Joan W. Scott will interrogate that claim by looking both at historical and current examples. Joan W. Scott’s work challenges the foundations of conventional historical practice. Drawing on a range of philosophical thought, as well as on a rethinking of her own training as a labor historian, she has contributed to the formulation of a field of critical history. Written more than 20 years ago, her now classic article, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” continues to inspire innovative research on women and gender. In her latest work, Scott has been concerned with the ways in which difference poses problems for democratic practice. She has taken up this question in her most recent books: Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (1996) and Parité: Sexual Equality and the Crisis of French Universalism (2005).
