A #WomanQuestion thread about Brill's prestigious & long-running Studies Islamic Law & Society series. I'm looking at stats as I attempt to understad how gendered (& racialized) hierarchies of prestige operate to construct subfields w/in Islamic Studies

From its first in 1996 (Sherman Jackson on al-Qarafi) to its most recent in 2020 (Rudolph Peters' essays on Egyptian & Islamic law), the series includes 41 monographs & 10 edited volumes, of which 3 are festschriften.
Of the 41 monographs published over 25 years, 5 (12%) are by women. The first was Miriam Hoexter (#6 in the series), in 1998. https://t.co/NRtsclC1Gt
The next, the still-regnant study of maslaha by Felicitas Opwis, was published a dozen years & two dozen titles later (#31). https://t.co/N7Bn3ElIex
There was far less of a break before Sabrina Joseph's monograph exploring Hanafi regulation of tenants & sharecroppers in 17th-19th C Syria https://t.co/Mm7F60DytH
Carolyn Baugh's study of minor marriage (#41) is essential reading for those interested in the complex issues at play in the early legal tradition https://t.co/CriIrpjjWp
Finally, there's Lena Larsen's terrific How Muftis Think (#44), my overdue-but-in-progress review of which also considers Ron Shaham's book on Qaradawi's fiqh (#45) https://t.co/ccFLaAyFfW
Anyway, it's pretty clear that women are publishing an increasing proportion of work in the series: 1/27 monographs published between 1996-2007 but 4/14 from 2010-2020 (there were no publications in 2008 or 2009).
What about the ten edited volumes? Well, I'm still tallying up results but I expect the general trends I've noted in other work to hold: improvement in gender balance over time but gender of editors makes perhaps the most substantial difference.
If we take only the three anthologies published in 2018 & 2019, the two edited by a woman or a mixed-gender team have 30-50% substantive chapters by women. The volume edited by men has 0%. A manthology in the strictest sense of the term! Its contributors: https://t.co/5amPd7eeZO
Also, perhaps, worth noting that of the three festschrifts in the series (#28, #37, #42), all honor men. I'm shocked, I tell you.

More from Law

You May Also Like