A #WomanQuestion thread about Brill's prestigious & long-running Studies Islamic Law & Society series. I'm looking at stats as I attempt to understad how gendered (& racialized) hierarchies of prestige operate to construct subfields w/in Islamic Studies

From its first in 1996 (Sherman Jackson on al-Qarafi) to its most recent in 2020 (Rudolph Peters' essays on Egyptian & Islamic law), the series includes 41 monographs & 10 edited volumes, of which 3 are festschriften.
Of the 41 monographs published over 25 years, 5 (12%) are by women. The first was Miriam Hoexter (#6 in the series), in 1998. https://t.co/NRtsclC1Gt
The next, the still-regnant study of maslaha by Felicitas Opwis, was published a dozen years & two dozen titles later (#31). https://t.co/N7Bn3ElIex
There was far less of a break before Sabrina Joseph's monograph exploring Hanafi regulation of tenants & sharecroppers in 17th-19th C Syria https://t.co/Mm7F60DytH
Carolyn Baugh's study of minor marriage (#41) is essential reading for those interested in the complex issues at play in the early legal tradition https://t.co/CriIrpjjWp
Finally, there's Lena Larsen's terrific How Muftis Think (#44), my overdue-but-in-progress review of which also considers Ron Shaham's book on Qaradawi's fiqh (#45) https://t.co/ccFLaAyFfW
Anyway, it's pretty clear that women are publishing an increasing proportion of work in the series: 1/27 monographs published between 1996-2007 but 4/14 from 2010-2020 (there were no publications in 2008 or 2009).
What about the ten edited volumes? Well, I'm still tallying up results but I expect the general trends I've noted in other work to hold: improvement in gender balance over time but gender of editors makes perhaps the most substantial difference.
If we take only the three anthologies published in 2018 & 2019, the two edited by a woman or a mixed-gender team have 30-50% substantive chapters by women. The volume edited by men has 0%. A manthology in the strictest sense of the term! Its contributors: https://t.co/5amPd7eeZO
Also, perhaps, worth noting that of the three festschrifts in the series (#28, #37, #42), all honor men. I'm shocked, I tell you.

More from Law

One of the judges this story mentions is William Cassidy, who was promoted from an Atlanta IJ position to a BIA member position in 2019 by the Trump DOJ. Cassidy has an awful history that has been well-documented, but I'm still enraged reading this reporting.


The story notes that the EOIR Director served as an ICE attorney in Atlanta and practiced before Cassidy for years. And it points to FOIA records unearthed by Bryan Johnson showing they remain friendly.

A trove of complaints against Cassidy was published by AILA in 2019 after FOIA litigation. They generally show misconduct, substantiated in the record, followed by "written counseling" etc.

One way Cassidy could avoid discipline is by turning off the recording device during the hearing. If he made a lewd or offensive comment off the record, all the EOIR would do is listen to the recording. If it's not there, the complaint is "unsubstantiated" https://t.co/wUeBPEEbpV


In that case, Cassidy joked about a detained immigrant saying he missed his wife. The complaint was dismissed because the ACIJ found "no levity or joking" in the comment.
1/n How come we still have academics sustaining narratives of #obesity rather than of how real people find value & meaning in everyday lives? Revisit @whatsthepont on @tobyjlowe / @snowded & accept criticising "neoliberal" does not make things

New out 🤯 A review which says lots about the academic context in which it was written - with its embedded behaviorist fixations on just implementing *better* - with complete disregard for the unintended consequences of treating "agency" as a dirty word

In all #becausehuman fields, we see justifiable professional kick-back at reductionist agendas driven by a focus on #obesity & nonsensical CMO guidance of 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day for healthy growth and development


What's fundamentally missing is not just a respect for complexity. It's respect for Homo-Narrans - for the ordinary, everyday story-telling folk all around us whose aspirations & dispositions provide the context in which we find meaning, purpose & value

We don't need spurious arguments against initiatives... but let's consider ethics & unintended consequences - on which, see @snowded (especially around epistemic justice) #becausehuman
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