My name is Lana Sirri. As of Monday 15 August 2016 I am Assistant Professor in Gender and Religion at FASoS, Department of Literature and Art. Born in Yaffa, Israel/Palestine, I studied Sociology at Tel-Aviv University and worked as Women’s Projects Coordinator at the Arab-Jewish Community Centre in Yaffa. My research interests are: Gender, Queer, Postcolonial and decolonial theories and Islamic feminist studies.
I completed both my MA in Gender Studies and my PhD at Humboldt University in Berlin (HUB). My PhD thesis titled “Islam, Gender and Sexuality – Insights from the Interdisciplinary Discourse of Contemporary Muslim Feminists” involves a critical evaluation of Muslim feminist discourses. At HUB I taught seminars on Islamic feminism and on sexuality-sensitive and feminist interpretations of the Qur’an and Hadith. I analyse Islamic feminism as a field in which religion, as an analytical category of knowledge, intersects with other categories such as race, gender and sexuality. For my next project I aim at decolonising Arab feminist scholarship and will deal with questions of language and translation as mechanisms of both inclusion and exclusion from the main discourse and knowledge production on Islam, Gender and Sexuality. My research interests are: Gender, Queer, Postcolonial and Decolonial theories, Islamic feminist Studies.
I’m looking forward to fruitful collaborations and inspiring exchanges of ideas with you!