Graduate Program in Women's Studies

Part 2

Course title: Women's Psychology

Objectives: The study of biological and psychological commonalities and the distinct traits of women and men.

Topics:

Women's afflictions, and preventive methods

Women's distinctive psychological traits

Distinctive perceptual, affectionate, social, and character traits

Appropriate psychological development

Mental health

Definitions of mental health

Socio-psychological necessities

Issues pertaining to women's psychological well-being

Living environments

Nutrition

Physical exercise

Psychological afflictions

Sexual difference and psychological afflictions

Anxiety

Depression

Obsession

Hysteria

Differences and commonalities between men and women

Physical and physiological differences

Social and psychological differences  

Course title:  Legal and Penal Rights

Objectives:  The study of women’s legal and penal rights in Islam, and issues of judicature, testimony, and laws of retaliation.

Topics:

Judgment

Religious jurisprudence in the Muslim sects.

Judgment of women

Qoranic and hadithic justifications

Women’s testimony

Religious jurisprudence in the Muslim sects.

Women’s testimony

Qoranic and hadithic justifications

Penance and discretionary punishment

Gender differences in penance and discretionary punishment

Religious jurisprudence in Muslim sects

Issues of penance and discretionary punishment

Qoranic verses and hadithic sayings

Laws of retaliation regarding women

Religious jurisprudence in Muslim sects

Issues of retaliation

Study of Qoranic verses and hadithic sayings

Course title:  Historical Analysis of the Muslim Woman

Objectives:  To familiarize students with women’s condition in Islam during the period of the Prophet and the Caliphs.

Topics:

Women during the Prophet’s time

Women’s social presence (contracts, wars,…)

Women’s labor

Male-female relations

Preeminent women

The Prophet’s orations regarding women

The Prophet’s counsels regarding women

Women during the Caliphs’ time

The Prophet’s daughter, Fatema, and Caliphic rule

The role of the Prophet’s wives after his death

Women’s social and ideological opposition after the Prophet

Women during the Imam’s time

The presence of women during Karbala

Women’s encounters with the rulers  

Course title:  Women’s History Pre-Islam

Objectives:  The study of women’s history during pre-Islamic and ancient periods.

Topics:

Period of Idolatry/Polytheism

Women’s condition in the family/household

Social status

Dress

The pre-Islamic Arab position regarding women

Women in Greece and Rome

Family

Social presence

Dress

Women in Ancient Egypt

Family

Matriarchy

Dress

Social presence

Women during Abbasid Era

The role of women in the arts and sciences

Women in poetry

Women in the Abbasid dynasty

Women’s social and political presence

Influential Muslim women

Learned women during the Muslim era

Female companions of the Prophet

Female narrators of the hadith

Muslim female poets

Women’s writings

Course title:  Women Throughout the Different Eras in Iranian History

Objectives:  The study of the condition of women throughout Iranian history.

Topics:

Pre-Islamic Iran

Medes

Family

Dress

Achaemenid

Marriage

Women’s social presence

Arsacides/Parthian

Marriage and conjugal living

Women’s social position

Dress

Sassanian

Marriage

Women and the state

Family

Dress

Women in Persian mythology

Post-Islam

Marriage

Women’s rule

Women’s social image

Women’s economic image

Safavid era

Women’s social condition

Marriage and the family

Dress

Qajar era

Women’s social presence

Women’s role in the Constitutional Movement

Women’s dress

Pahlavi era

Hejab and mandatory un-veiling

Role of women in national movements

Women’s social presence

Western influence on Iranian women’s identity

Course title:  Women’s Social and Political Rights in Islam

Objectives:  The study of women’s social and political participation and rights.

Topics:

Definition and study of concepts

Perspectives on social and political rights:

Absolute interdictions

Absolute permissions

Moderate approach

Study of Qoranic and hadithic justifications

Women’s social and political rights in the contemporary world

Women’s social participation

Professions

Athletics

Social organizing 

Women’s political rights

Women’s presence in the legislative branch

Women in political office

Women’s participation in elections and their political allegiances

Reasons for changes in women’s rights

Blood money:

Blood money in the religious jurisprudence of Muslim sects

Blood money in Qoranic verses and narratives  

Course title:  Women in Iran and Art

Pre-requisites required

Objectives:  Familiarization with representations of Iranian women and the roles they play in art.

Topics:

Definition and status of Iranian women and their national indexes

In the family

In society

In government

Iranian women in the process of historical unification and the multiple factors of environment, ethnicity, race, religion, norms and customs,…

Women in Iranian art

Visual arts (historical perspective)

Dramatic arts (historical perspective)

Women’s role in the creation and establishment of Iranian art

Famous artists in the visual arts

Famous artists in the dramatic arts

Non-Iranian cultural influences on the negation of women in Iranian art

Fundamental similarities and differences between representations of women in Iranian art and in the rest of the world

Course title:  Women in Religious and Philosophical Schools

Pre-requisites required

Objective:  To familiarize students with the status of women in religions and among the great thinkers, and with the manifestations of their representations in the prevailing belief and value systems in the contemporary world.

Topics:

Women in religion

Women in Zoroastrian doctrine

In Judaism

In Christianity

In other religions:

In primitive and ancient religions (during primitive and mythological periods)

In ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome

Women and the Aryan race, and pre-Zoroastrian religions

In Hinduism and Buddhism

Taoist doctrine

Confuscism

Shintoism

Sikhism

History of women in theory

From Plato to the Enlightenment

New thinkers, Kant, Rousseau, Hegel, Nietzsche

Socialists, Marx, Engels, Auguste Compte, Freud, Structuralists

Women and contemporary Muslim thinkers

Feminism

The history of feminism

Essential principles of feminism

Feminist theories

Liberal

Marxist

Psychoanalytical

Radical

Feminist-socialist

New generation feminism

New trends

Conforming to power (conservative)

Challenging power (radical)

Eliminating differences/ De-differentiating (reformist)

Rejecting the mother, accepting the mother

Course title:  History of Changes in the Family

Pre-requisites required

Objectives:  Familiarization with the concept of family and with the changes in its structure and place in society, its crises in Iran and the world, and Islam’s preventive measures to such crises.

Topics:

Structural changes, the status of the family in Iran and in the world

Worldwide crisis of the family and its contributing factors

The family during a transitional period

In the international arena

In Iran

The future of the family unit  

Course title:  Theories Regarding the Family

Pre-requisites required

Objectives:  To present the influencing factors on the family and the historical changes of theories regarding the family and family therapy, with an emphasis on the sex-based roles and responsibilities within the family unit.

Topics:

Family life and its influential factors

A short history of the changes and developments of perspectives regarding the family

Religious-Islamic viewpoints

Classic perspectives

Contemporary perspectives

Systemic perspectives

Problem-solving approaches within the family

Characteristics of the stable family

Marriage counseling

Family therapy

Prevailing behavioral and moral systems in family therapy

Quantitative and qualitative disputes within the family

Therapeutic strategies, methods, and techniques

Course title:  Family Rights

Pre-requisites required

Objectives:  The study of family rights, and the changes and developments within.

Topics:

The couple’s rights

Shared rights

Women and men’s specific rights

The couple’s responsibilities

Shared responsibilities

Women’s responsibilities

Men’s responsibilities

Heading the family

Changes and developments in the management of the family

Women and men’s status with respect to heading the family in the law

Islamic perspectives with respect to heading the household

Compliance and turbulence

Clarifying the imaginary boundaries of compliance and turbulence

Women and men’s compliance and turbulence

Paths of resistance

Custody and guardianship of children

Defining the concepts and differences between custody and guardianship

Age of custody of children

The limits of custody

The limits of guardianship

Granting custody and guardianship

Guardianship over adult children

Guardianship over the marriage of virgin girls

Guardianship over the marriage of minors

Divorce

Changes in divorce law

The different kinds of divorce

The right to file for divorce

Legal preventive measures to divorce 

Course title:  The History of Women’s Rights in Islam

Objectives:  The study of women’s rights in religious jurisprudence, the family, politics, and with regards to issues of judgment.

Topics:

Historical changes in family rights

Developments in family rights during the Ottomans, 1915

Family rights reforms in Egypt, 1930 and 1926

Family reforms in Jordan, 1951

Family conditions in Syria, 1953

Islamic Family Rights Decree in Pakistan, 1961

Family Support Law in Iran, 1364 (1985)

Family rights in Iran after the Islamic Revolution

Women’s rights in Shii jurisprudence

Political rights:

Women and elections

Permission to women to participate in governance

Legal rights

Sources with respect to the judgment of women

Prescriptions with respect to the judgment of women

Transl: MS and TZ

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