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Lecture: Fall 2024 Lester Lecture: “Polyvalence, Ambiguity and the Politics of Islamic Studies” with Dr. Marion Katz, University of Colorado Boulder, November 14, 2024 @ 5:30 pm

Posted on October 31, 2024
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“Over the last several decades, polyvalence (in the sense of the simultaneous recognition of multiple potentially valid meanings) and the related phenomenon of ambiguity have become established themes –and implicitly central values- of the western academic study of premodern Islam. Conversely, accounts of the impact of colonialism and the transition to modern forms of Islamic thought have often thematized the rise of monovalent and unambiguous ways of reading and thinking. This trend has helpfully highlighted the diversity and richness of premodern Islamic thought. However, it has also become a trope with unexamined political valences.”

“Marion Katz is a Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. Her books include Prayer in Islamic Thought and Practice (2013), Women in the Mosque: A History of Legal Thought and Social Practice (2014), and Wives and Work: Islamic Law and Ethics Before Modernity (2022).”

“This event is free and open to the public. Snacks and refreshments will be served.”

For more details, see here.

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Program in Islamic Law Lecture :: Marion Katz, “Wives, Housework, and the Changing Boundary between Islamic Law and Ethics”

Posted on February 11, 2019
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Marion Katz , Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University
Lecture: “Wives, Housework, and the Changing Boundary between Islamic Law and Ethics”

Recent years have seen a rise in the study of Islamic ethics, from the “ethical turn” in the anthropology of Islam to the foundation of a Journal of Islamic Ethics.  The relationship between Islamic law and ethics has also become a focus of attention on both the historical and the constructive levels, with some scholars equating the two and others (including some Muslim feminists) arguing that legal thought must be reconstructed to better reflect the ethical concerns of the revealed sources.  This paper argues that the issue of domestic labor is one where legal scholars historically perceived a disjuncture between what they understood the law to require and what they understood to be morally good.  Historical shifts in doctrine in this area have been interpreted as reflecting the evolution of social practice in Muslim communities; this paper argues that they can also be interpreted in terms of the variable relationships between scholars’ legal and ethical projects. Lunch will be provided. RSVP to [email protected].