ICTC Faculty Research Presentation with Dr. Nova Robinson

Thursday, Oct. 13, 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Hunthausen Hall 100, lunch provided
Please RSVP by Monday, Oct. 10

This talk will explore the impact Catholic feminist thought had on the development of the international women’s rights system between 1920 and 1960. St. Joan’s, a feminist Catholic organization, was founded in London in 1911 to encourage Catholic women to support the fight for suffrage in the United Kingdom. The organization later spread throughout the British Empire and took up the larger cause of women’s equality. Given its global reach, it was well positioned to participate in conversations about international women’s rights at the League of Nations and later the United Nations. Unlike some of the major secular women’s organizations, such as the International Council on Women or the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, St. Joan’s advocated for representation from the colonized world.

Nova Robinson is a historian of the modern Middle East with a geographic specialization in Syria and Lebanon. Her research is positioned at the intersection of Middle Eastern history, women’s history and the history of international governance. Her first book, Truly Sisters: Arab Women and International Women’s Rights, exposes how Syrian and Lebanese women’s transnational activism in the early twentieth century contributed to the construction of international women’s rights norms. Her second book, The Woman Question: The League of Nations and the Shaping of the International Women’s Rights System, explores the role of women from the global south in shaping the current system of international women’s rights. She is also co-editor with Bonnie G. Smith of the Routledge Global History of Feminism. Recent articles have been published in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, the Arab Studies Journal, the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, and Signs: Journal of Women in Society and Culture.