IWS Founders
Eileen Kuttab
Eileen Kuttab is an Associate Professor of Sociology and a faculty member at Birzeit University since 1981. She served as Director of the Institute of Women’s Studies from 1998-2008 and 2015-2017. She was the first elected woman to head Birzeit University’s Union of Instructors and Employees from 2011-2013. Her research has focused on the Palestinian women’s movement, social movements, gender and alternative development in a colonial context, higher education as a political practice, and empowerment through community-based organizations. She is a founding member of the Arab Council for Social Sciences, and is a core member in the Arab Families Working Group (AFWG).
Select Publications:
- “Reframing War: Women, Sanctions, and Impoverishment in Gaza.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 20:2 (2024): 252-260.
- “Reflections on education as a political practice: the Institute of Women’s Studies and the role of research as a vehicle for change in Birzeit University, Palestinian Territories.” In Universities and Conflict: The role of Higher Education in Peacebuilding and Resistance, ed. Juliet Millican. Routledge, 2017: 163-175.
- “Empowerment as Resistance: Conceptualizing Palestinian Women’s empowerment.” Development 53:2 (2010): 247-253.
Ilham Abu Ghazaleh
Ilham Abu Ghazaleh, an Associate Professor of Linguistics, joined the Department of English Language and Literature at Birzeit University in 1970. She has published on women’s revolutionary poetry, gender and discourse, and a two-book autobiography. She also translated into Arabic women’s poetry and edited with Penny Johnson a memorial volume on an early colleague of the Institute Hala Atalla: A Humane Life (1998).
Select Publications:
- “Gender in the Poetry of the Intifada.” In Palestinian Women of Gaza and the West Bank, ed. Suha Sabbagh. Indiana University Press, 1998.
- Discourse and Palestine: Power, Text and Context (co-edited with Annelies Moors, Toine van Teeffelen, and Sharif Kanaana). Het Spinhuis, 1992.
- I…You and the Revolution: Third World Women’s Poetry. Union of Palestinian Writers, 1990. In Arabic.
Islah jad
Islah Jad is an Associate Professor of Political Science and joined the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University in 1984. She served as Director of the Institute of Women’s Studies from 1997-1998, 2008-2013 and 2020-2021 and has been a faculty member since 1995. She has written books and papers on the Palestinian women’s movement and NGOization, the Islamist women’s movement, and feminism in the global south. She is a co-founder of the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC), of Birzeit University’s PhD program in the social sciences, co-author of the UN’s Arab Human Development Report on Women’s Empowerment (2005), and a core member in the Arab Families Working Group (AFWG).
Select Publications:
- Palestinian Women’s Activism: Nationalism, Secularism, Islamism. Syracuse University Press, 2018.
- “Islamist Women of Hamas: Between Feminism and Nationalism.” REMMM: Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Mediterranee, 2010: 137-165.
- “The ‘NGO-isation’ of the Arab Women’s Movements.” IDS Bulletin. Sussex University Press, 2004.
Lamis Abu Nahleh
Lamis Abu Nahleh is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics and joined the Department of Languages and Translation at Birzeit University in 1985 and then worked in the Department of English Language and Literature until 2020. She taught in the Institute of Women’s Studies’ MA Program in Gender, Law and Development since 1996 and served as Director of the MA Program from 2004-2006. Her research has focused on gender and development, gender and education, the Palestinian family and household, women’s micro-credit projects, community-based rehabilitation programs, and gender analysis and planning. She is a core member in the Arab Families Working Group (AFWG).
Select Publications:
- “Six Families: Survival and Mobility in Times of Crisis.” In Living Palestine: Family Survival, Resistance, and Mobility under Occupation, ed. Lisa Taraki. Syracuse University Press, 2006.
- “Society and its Contradictions: A Glance at Al-‘Amari refugee camp” (authored with Penny Johnson). In Small Places and Big Issues: Three Palestinian Neighborhoods Under Occupation. Institute of Palestine Studies, 2010: 50-95. In Arabic.
- “Weddings and War: Marriage Arrangements and Celebrations in Two Palestinian Intifadas” (authored with Penny Johnson and Annelies Moors). Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 5:3 (2009): 11-35.
Lisa Taraki
Lisa Taraki is Emerita Associate Professor of Sociology at Birzeit University and joined the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences in 1976. Her research and publications have focused on Arab and Palestinian urban social history, the Palestinian national movement, Islamist politics, and Palestinian class and gender dynamics. She is also a founder of Birzeit University’s PhD program in the social sciences, and has served in several academic administrative capacities at the University.
Select Publications:
- “Ordinary Lives: A Small-town Middle Class at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” Jerusalem Quarterly 83 (2020): 83-105.
- “The Sociology of an Uprising,” Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filistiniyya. Institute of Palestine Studies 135 (Summer 2023). In Arabic.
- “Enclave Metropolis: The Paradoxical Case of Ramallah/Al-Bireh.” Journal of Palestine Studies 27:4 (2008): 6-20.
Penny Johnson
Penny Johnson served as co-editor of the Institute of Women’s Studies’ Annual Review of Women’s Studies since its first volume published in 2003. Her publications and research interests have explored women’s narratives of the Palestinian present, violence, kinship and Palestinian family dynamics. She is a contributing editor to the Jerusalem Quarterly, and a core member in the Arab Families Working Group (AFWG).
Select Publications:
- Seeking Palestine: New Palestine Writing on Exile and Home, ed. with Raja Shehadeh. Olive Branch Press, 2023.
- “Displacing Palestine: Palestine Householding in an Era of Asymmetrical War.” Politics & Gender 6:2 (2010): 295-304.
- “‘Violence All Around Us’: Dilemmas of Global and Local Agendas Addressing Violence against Palestinian Women.” Cultural Dynamics 20:2 (2008): 119-131.
Rema Hammami
Rema Hammami is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and has been a faculty member in the Institute of Women’s Studies since 1995. She served as Director of the Institute’s MA program in Gender, Law and Development from its founding in 1996 until 2004. Her research publications cover a range of themes in the Palestinian context including spatialities of domination and embodied agency, popular movements and NGO-ization, gender politics of liberal state-building, and neo-humanitarian intervention. She is a founding member and co-director of Insaniyyat, the society of Palestinian Anthropologists, and author of From Crown Anemone to Bushy Bean Caper: a field guide to wildflowers of Palestine (2021).
Select Publications:
- The Cunning of Gender Violence: Geopolitics & Feminism (co-edited with Lila Abu-Lughod and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian). Duke University Press, 2023.
- “Follow the Numbers: Global Governmentality and the Violence against Women Agenda in Occupied Palestine.” In Governance Feminism: Notes from the Field, eds. Janet Halley et al. University of Minnesota Press, 2019: 479-504.
- “Destabilizing Mastery and the Machine: Palestinian Agency and Gendered Embodiment at Israeli Military Checkpoints.” Current Anthropology 60 (2019): S87-S97.
Rita Giacaman
Rita Giacaman is a Professor of Public Health and a faculty member in Birzeit University since 1978. She is also a founder of the Institute of Community and Public Health at the University. She has chronicled the effects of Israeli military occupation on the life and health of Palestinians, with an emphasis on psychosocial health, women’s health, and the development of measures to assess health and well-being in conditions of protracted political violence.
Select Publications:
- “Palestinians Under Israeli Settler Colonialism and ‘Anglo-Centric’ Colonization of Knowledge Production.” International Journal of Social Determinants of Health and Health Services (2023): 1-8.
- “Reframing Public Health in Wartime: From the Biomedical Model to the ‘Wounds Inside.’” Journal of Palestine Studies 47:2 (2018): 9-27.
- “’Our Life is Prison’: The Triple Captivity of Wives and Mothers of Palestinian Political Prisoners” (authored with Penny Johnson). Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 9:3 (2013): 54-80.
