[Discussion] Islam, Women, The Veil, and the West

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE in the Heart of the Rockies:
UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA (MISSOULA, MONTANA)
APRIL 28-30, 2005.
Islam, Women, The Veil, and the West:

A conference with international keynote speakers, including Yasmina
Benguigui, Shaheen Monshipoor, Anouar Majid and Slavoj Zizek.

Call for Papers: Scholars/ Researchers/ Professors/ Graduate Students
should send a one-page abstract and/or panel discussion topics.

Description:=A1=A7Gauming, gauging, gaping, gawking, and gazing at the
gauze=A1=A8"=B3 Meanings & Signifiying Practices and Problematics of the
Muslim veil.
The conference focuses on

   1. the socio-political, historical, analytical, psychoanalytical
      and/or feminist interpretations (impact, reasons, meaning,
      discourses, practices, liberation/assimilation / identificatory
      practice/oppression=A1K) of the phenomenon of the Muslim veil
      (burka, tchador, scarf=A1K) in society, literature, history=A1K, as
      well as,
   2. the deconstruction of the veil=A1=A6s Western discourse (aka the
      recent =A1=A7French law=A1=A8), as univocal, rationalist expression=
 of
      superiority (the =A1=A7evil veil=A1=A8,) ignoring its own complicit=
y in
      the matters of the veil, and, also,
   3. the semiotic complexity of the =A1=A7veil=A1=A8 (hymen, screen, lib=
idinal
      tissue/surface/ wrappings(=A1K), as cultural, psychological,
      religious phenomena.
      We need a semiosis of the veil, a deconstructive morphology of the
      veil cutting around disciplines, and not a First World repressive
      discourse about the =A1=A7medievalism of Islamic practices.=A1=A8
      The point is to undermine the Western Master Discourse through the
      Native Informant (Gayatri Spivak=A1=A6s expression), and the
      Patriarchal, Native, Master Discourse through what used to be
      First World Theory and has now mutated into postmodern,
      multicultural theories, by-passing the international division of
      labor.
      The conference addresses the problematics of the veil from a
      variety of positions and cultural politics, combining a systematic
      approach with an asystematic one, for as Schlegel wrote, =A1=A7It i=
s
      just as deadly for the mind to have a system as to have none. It
      will thus be necessary to decide to combine both.=A1=A8 Is the veil=
 an
      =A1=A7Oriental,=A1=A8 or an Orientalist problem/phenomenon=A1X-like
      pyramidology (cf. Hegel)?
      This conference especially welcomes the diachronic and synchronic
      approaches analyzing the positioning of the veil which functions
      as an aporia or a logical asymmetry in the Western discourse and
      as a visual and epistemic testimony to the problem of otherness.
      Lacanian, Feminist, Foucauldian, Multiculturalist, Deleuzian=A1K,
      approaches especially welcome.
       >>>> A selection of the Veil Conference papers will be published.

	Dr. Michel Valentin, Dept. of Modern and Classical Languages and
Literatures, The University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812; telephone
(406) 243-2301
Email: michel.valentin@umontana.edu <mailto:michel.valentin@umontana.edu>