Good Hijab, Bad Hijab: Material Discourse as Political Participation in Iran
Berkley Center Postdoctoral Fellow Lecture & Lunch:
Elizabeth Bucar
March 13, 2007
McShain Lounge, McCarthy Hall
In this presentation, Dr. Bucar discussed how two distinct cases of public hijabi practices--performed by two distinct groups of women--can teach us about the productive power of the veil. Bucar invesitgated how the veil shifts political and ethical norms in post-revolutionary Iran and even how the veil can tell us something about our own assumptions of proper feminist politics and ethics. Her presentation included a number of images for Bucar's fieldwork in Iran in 2004.
Elizabeth M. Bucar holds a B.A. in government from Harvard University, a M.A. in religious studies from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in religious ethics from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Her research and writing focuses on clerical rhetoric and women’s social movements within two religious traditions: Roman Catholicism and Shi`a Islam. Her dissertation, Creative Obedience: Feminist Ethics From the Rhetoric of Pope John Paul II and Ayatollah Khomeini explores how women shift the norms of their tradition’s moral discourse even as they operate within its parameters. Bucar’s publications include the edited volume, "Does Human Rights Need God?" (Eerdmans, 2005) and “Speaking of Motherhood: The Epideictic Rhetoric of John Paul II and Ayatollah Khomeini,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics (fall/winter 2006).