Symposium on Femonationalism

The Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (CIGS) and the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism (CERS) at Leeds invite you to a ‘Symposium on Femonationalism’.  The seminar will be delivered by Sara R. Farris with responses from Adrian Favell and Ipek Demir

 “Symposium on Femonationalism”

Sara R. Farris (Goldsmiths)

Followed by responses from Adrian Favell (Leeds) and Ipek Demir (Leeds)

Chair: Karen Throsby (Leeds)

12.00 – 1.30pm Wednesday 26 May 2021

Abstract: In her presentation Sara Farris will discuss some of the themes laid out in her new book, In the Name of Women's Rights. The Rise of Femonationalism (Duke, 2017). Farris' book explores the ways in which feminist ideas are often exploited by anti-Islam and xenophobic campaigns. She coins the term ‘femonationalism’ to describe the practices and claims that, by characterising Muslim men as oppressors and by emphasising the need to rescue Muslim women, these anti-Islam groups use gender equality to justify their prejudice.

Bio notes: Sara R. Farris is a Senior Lecturer in the sociology department at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her work to date has focused on the orientalist underpinnings of sociological theory, and on theories of gender, race and social reproduction, particularly as they apply to the analysis of migrant women in Western Europe. Through these theoretical lenses and interests, Sara has published widely on theories of racism and nationalism; the specific gendered forms of Orientalist/Westocentric representations of women in the Western public discourse; the mobilization of women’s rights by right-wing nationalist parties within xenophobic campaigns and the multiple forms of exploitation and domination that characterize female migrant labor in the care and domestic sector in particular; the commodification of care and social reproduction and its links to processes of racialization. She is the author of Max Weber’s Theory of Personality. Individuation, Politics and Orientalism in the Sociology of Religion (Brill, 2013) and In the Name of Women’s Rights. The Rise of Femonationalism (Duke 2017).