HIME 100A

Introductory Seminar

The Harem and Beyond in the Middle East

The harem (seraglio) occupies a particular significance in western perceptions of Muslim sexuality and gender relations. Yet, the myth of harem life in travelogues, musicals, paintings, and fiction do not reflect accurately the historical realities of this important institution. Rather than an accurate historical depiction, they represent the changing power relations between Europe and the Ottoman empire and the growing western preoccupation with Ottoman and Muslim decadence, oppression of women, and sexual impropriety.

This course will first examine the actual history of the institution of harem, its political function and evolution in the Middle East. The second part will discuss western narratives of the harem by European men and women, paintings, musicals and modern fiction. The harem became a metaphor for absolutism and oppression to the enlightenment authors.

The final part will review a sample of writings and autobiographies representing indigeneous feminist voices from the harem in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries calling for an end to this institution.

Requirements: Short response essays, midterm, paper

Books

Leslie Peirce, Imperial Harem, Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters

Montesquieu, Persian Letters

Jenny White, The Sultan's Seal