Call for Papers / Creative Works: “One Hundred Years of Family Law Reform in Parliament, in Court, and on Screen” Workshop, the Aga Khan University Institute (28-29 May, London)

Workshop | Screening | Discussion (2/2020)

London, 28-29 May 2020

One Hundred Years of Family Law Reform in Parliament, in Court, and on Screen

On the Centennial of Law 25 of 1920, the workshop considers the past one hundred years of family law reform in Egypt (and beyond) from the vantage point of the relations between governance and popular culture. The aim is to explore how changes in the social practices related to the family are a function of legislative interventions, court decisions, and expectations generated in popular culture.

Popular culture tends to be the prominent absent in the narrative of changes in family law, and the workshop intends to reflect on how to build a broader, common narrative where films and television productions can feature as powerful agents of societal practices, alongside legislative interventions and court decisions.

The Governance Programme at the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC) invites academics and practitioners to submit papers and/or creative works on governance and film and television

Call for Papers / Creative Works One Hundred Years of Family Law Reform in Parliament, in Court, and on Screen

We welcome submissions addressing changes of societal practices related to the family that may help building a broader, common narrative of family law reform as a function of legislative interventions, court decisions, and popular culture (film and television productions, in particular).

We welcome submissions in the disciplines of cultural studies, law and comparative law, legal anthropology, legal history, sociology, politics, media and film studies.

A screening and keynote panel with four confirmed speakers will focus on Egypt, but submissions are welcome also on other jurisdictions in West Asia and North Africa.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron

Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron is a senior researcher at the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD). She holds a PhD in Public Law from Paris X University and wrote her thesis on the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court and the protection of human rights. Her main fields of interest are the transition processes in Egypt and in the Arab world after 2011, personal status law reforms as well as the judiciary in Egypt and in the Arab world. From 2010 to 2014 she was the co-director of the Institut d’études de l’Islam et des sociétés du monde musulman (IISMM) at EHESS (Ecole des Hautes études en sciences sociales) in Paris.

Hanan Kholoussy

Hanan Kholoussy is Associate Professor of History at The American University in Cairo. She is the author of For Better, For Worse: The Marriage Crisis That Made Modern Egypt (Stanford, 2010) and co-editor of Domestic Tensions, National Anxieties: Global Perspectives on Marriage, Crisis, and Nation (Oxford, 2016). She has published several articles on marriage, gender, Islamic law, and Egyptian history and has been a frequent media commentator on Egypt’s marriage crisis.

Enas Lotfy

Enas Lotfy is a scriptwriter since 2011; she wrote short films, theatre plays, and radio series for children. Bashtari Ragel (2017) was her first feature film. In 2019, under the supervision of MEMi, Enas participated in INTERSECT LAB, a workshop for Arab screenwriters, and she is now writing the script for a television series currently under production. Enas obtained a diploma in CAM from the Dawwar Foundation, and is now enrolled in a programme of the Theatre of the Oppressed. She has facilitated many workshops on free writing and self-storytelling. Enas has training in journalism and media production, and since 2007 she blogs on 3Azatklm (I Want to Talk).

Nadia Sonneveld

Nadia Sonneveld has an academic background in anthropology, Arabic, and law. She is affiliated to the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Society, Leiden University, the Netherlands. The common factor in all her research activities is the focus on gender and law in Muslim-majority countries, particularly in Egypt and Morocco. In her most recent research project Living on the Other Side she focuses on the rights of migrants in Morocco through the lens of family law. Nadia is the author of Khul‘ Divorce in Egypt: Public Debates, Judicial Practices, and Everyday Life (2012), and the co-author with Monika Lindbekk of Women Judges in the Muslim World: A Comparative Study of Discourse and Practice, (2017), and with Doris Gray Women and Social Change in North Africa: What Counts as Revolutionary? (2018).

Logistics:

Please send an abstract proposal of 300 words (excluding bibliography) or a sample of a creative work to: ismc.governance@aku.edu by 15 March 2020.

Notifications of acceptance decisions will be sent out by 31 March 2020.

A limited fund to support scholars who do not have access to institutional funding will be available to cover travel and accommodation costs. Please indicate if you need this financial support when applying.

The workshop will take place on 28-29 May 2020 at the Aga Khan Centre (10 Handyside Street, London N1C 4DN, UK)

#1/2020 (London) Shehr e Tabassum / City of Smiles;

#2/2020 (London) One Hundred Years of Family Law Reform;

#3/2020 (London) Islam, Film, and Social Change;

#4/2020 (Tunis) Tunisian films and the legal professions;

#5/2020 (Beirut) The Frontiers of Legal Transplants: Film and Television;

#6/2020 (Cairo) Lawyers on Screen;

#7/2020 (Karachi) Refugees and Pakistani Film;

Follow us on Instagram: framing.governance Further info available at: https://www.aku.edu/govprogramme/about/Pages/home.aspx