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New Mexico State University

Dr. Manal Hamzeh, Associate Professor of Women's Studies

Professor Hamzeh
Image of Dr. Hamzeh

 

Office: Breland Hall, Rm. 122

Email: manahamz@nmsu.edu 

Spring 2013 Office Hours: W 2:30pm-3:30pm, TH 10:30am-11:30am and by Appointment

 

Academics

Education: Ph.D., Curriculum and Instruction, 2007 (New Mexico State University); M.S., Clinical Audiology, 1986 (Gallaudet University); M.A., Human Development and Early Childhood Special Education (George Washington University); B.A., Communication Disorders (Speech, Hearing, Language Sciences), 1983 (George Washington University)

Teaching & Research Interests: Anti-Racist/Decolonizing Educational Studies, Arabic Contemporary Literature written by Women/Queer Arabs, Muslim's Pedagogical Ethics at the time of War on Terror and Arab Revolutions, and the Egyptian's January 25th Revolution and the Politics of Gender and Sexuality.

Courses Taught: Transnational Feminism, arab-muslim Feminisms & Homosexuality in Islam, Feminist Research Methods; Representing Women across Cultures; Postcolonial Feminist Theories; and Women in arab/muslim Cultures.

Teaching Philosophy: Dr. Hamzeh's teaching and mentoring are guided by a commitment to social justice and by the tenets of critical postcolonial feminist epistemologies. With a commitment to social justice, Dr. Hamzeh is constantly looking for creative teaching approaches that help students critically question the interlockings of dominant systems of power. These systems are driven by the hierarchal differences of gender, sexuality, class, nation, language, race, ability, and body size. She uses approaches that are based on teaching/learning collaboratively while building dialogically democratic learning communities online, inside and outside the classroom. Dr. Hamzeh's teaching is NOT lecture-based and does not intend to instruct or indoctrinate. It does not expect learners to memorize and regurgitate. Instead, her teaching expects learners to be thoughtful, inquisitive, and curious. They are also expected to be actively learning using critical self-reflexivity throughout the semester. With Dr. Hamzeh's teaching, course participants have opportunities to independently drive their own learning process and work to become producers of knowledge, critical consumers of knowledge, and agents of social justice. Course participants learn in safe spaces that allow everybody to actively engage in the learning process while building authentic relationships within a community. She strives to develop a learning community that supports curiosity, critical thinking, and knowledge production. She also nurtures teaching learners how to listen to different perspectives and develop their commitment and activism towards social justice and equity.

As a critical postcolonial feminist, Dr. Hamzeh's teaching consciously engages with power differences with/among the learners. She uses critically self-reflexive methods with which she is constantly checking how her positionalities on gender, sexuality, class, nation, language, etc. may hinder and/or support learning/teaching very complex and tenuous provoking knowledges. Dr. Hamzeh strives to mainly expose the legacies and perpetuation of colonialism, racism, and hetronormativity in the education and research for/with the learners.

Research Interests: The past five years, Dr. Hamzeh's research has focused on gendering discourses shaping girls' experiences of their bodies, specifically in relation to physical activity opportunities. More recently, she explored how muslim girls' negotiate the hijab discourse, or the multiple and changing veils in their lives. Currently, her research explores muslim queer sexual ethics in pedagogy, the hidden alliances between the hetronormativity of Islamic nationalism and racist colonialism in sports and the pedagogies of revolutions specifically in Egypt.

 

Research

Book

  • Hamzeh, M. (2012). DeVeiling Pedagogies: Muslim Girls and the Hijab Discourse. Critical Constructions: Studies on Education and Society. Series Editor: Curry Malott, West Chester University. Charlotte: NC, Information Age Press.

Articles in Refereed Journals

  • Hamzeh, M., & Oliver, K. L. (2012). "Because I am Muslim, I cannot wear a swimsuit": Muslim girls negotiate veiled-off physical activities. Research Quarterly in Exercise and Sport, 83(2), 330-339.
  • Hamzeh, M. (2011). DeVeiling body stories: Muslim girls negotiate visual, spatial, and ethical hijabs. Race, Ethnicity & Education, 14(4), 481-506.
  • Hamzeh, M., & Oliver, K. L. (2010). Gaining research access into the lives of Muslim girls: Researchers negotiating muslimness, modesty, inshallah, and haram. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23(2), 165-180.
  • Oliver, K. L., & Hamzeh, M. (2010). "The boys won't let us play": 5th grade mestizas publicly challenge physical activity discourse at school. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 81(1), 39-51.
  • Oliver. K. L., Hamzeh, M., & McCaughtry, N. (2009). Girly girls can play games" "Las niñas pueden jugar tambien": 5th grade girls negotiate self-identified barriers to physical activity. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 28, (1), 90-110. Winner of the Exemplary Paper Award of the American Educational Research Association's Special Interest Group of Research on Learning and Instruction in Physical Education for 2009-April 30, 2010, Denver.

Publications In-Progress

  • Hamzeh, M. Deveiling a double hijabophobia: How the discursive tactics of the Islamic nations and FIFA dually accomplice in the ban of muslim women soccer players wearing a "headscarf". SIGNS: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.
  • Hamzeh, M. Queer muslim ethics at the intersections of homophobia and Islamophobia. Journal of Curriculum Inquiry. 
  • Hamzeh, M. The 2011 FIFA ban of the hijab: Jordan's women football national team negotiates Islamophobic and Islamist discourses. Sport of Sociology Journal. 
  • Hamzeh, M. & Sykes, H. Ultras & Egyptian Tahrir: Practicing Revolutionary Masculinities and Gender Relations? 

 

Presentations

Select Conference Papers (Peer-Reviewed): 2010-2012

  • Hamzeh, M. (2012). Deveiling a double hijabophobia: The alliance of Islamic nations and FIFA in the ban of muslim women football players wearing a "hijab." Paper Session, "Decolonizing Knowledges" Themes at the National Women's Studies' Association Annual Conference: "Feminism Unbound: Imagining A Feminist Future", Oakland, November 2012.
  • Hamzeh, M. (2012). Teaching arab-muslim feminisms and sexualities: Queer ethics at the intersections of homophobia and Islamophobia. Paper Session, "Border Crossings: Intercultural Explorations of Gender and Sexuality in Families and Schools," at the Queer Studies SIG, American Educational Research Association Annual Conference: "Non Satis Scire: To Know is Not Enough", Vancouver, April 2012.
  • Hamzeh, M., Pelak, C. F., & Sykes, H. (2011). Hijabizing sexism and Islamophobia: FIFA's ban of the Iranian Women's Soccer team, Issues Affecting Muslim Women in Sports panel. Paper presented at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sports (NASSS) Annual Conference on Revolutionizing Sporting Bodies: Technologies in Practice, Minneapolis, Nov. 3, 2011.
  • Hamzeh, M. (2010). An insider-(in)betweener arabyyah-muslimah feminist interrogating the hijab discourse. Paper presented at the "Outsider" Feminisms: Challenging Western Interpretations of Muslim Feminist Analysis session of the National Women's Studies Association Annual Conference: Difficult Dialogues, Denver, Nov. 12, 2010.
  • Hamzeh, M. (2010) Beyond the headscarf: Interrogating the hijab discourse. Paper presented at the Postcolonial Educational Studies-SIG 2010. The American Educational Research Association Annual Conference: Understanding Complex Ecologies in a Complex World, Denver, May 2, 2010.
  • Hamzeh, M., & Oliver, K. L., (2010)"Because I am Muslim, I cannot wear a swimsuit": Muslim girls negotiate veiled-off physical activities. Paper presented at the Research on Learning & Instruction in Physical Education-SIG 2010. The American Educational Research Association Annual Conference: Understanding Complex Ecologies in a Complex World, Denver, May 1, 2010.

Guest Lectures and Interviews

  • A lecture (via Skype): Muslim Female Athletes and the Hijab Debate at the Sports Workshop on Islam, Sport and Muslim Communities, sponsored by the Bigli University, Istanbul and Oslo University, Norway, May 7, 2012.
  • A lecture: Pedagogies of deveiling: muslim girls and the hijab discourse at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at the University of Concordia, Montreal, Canada, Oct. 7, 2011. 
  • A lecture: DeVeiling the Hijabs. Invited guest lecturer for The Global Women's History Project at the Westfield State University, Westfield, Massachusetts, April 14, 2011. 

Creative Work In-Progress

Hamzeh, M. & Khoury, J. (in progress, to launch in June 2013). Documentary film & theatrical production: Doctora Hijab. It will feature Hamzeh speaking both in on camera interviews, as well as footage of her speaking before audiences in Chicago. Khoury, playwright of Silk Road Rising Theater in Chicago, will write 5 - 6 actors monologues featuring young muslim women negotiating the hijabs. Those monologues will become the theatrical/dramatized component of the film about Hamzeh's work on the hijab discourse.

 

Awards

  • Christmore Teaching Faculty Award, New Mexico State University (2011-2012). This award is an annual award that recognizes and rewards superb junior tenure-track faculty members for excellence in teaching.
  • Lillian Robinson Scholar of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at the University of Concordia, Montreal, Canada (2011-2012).
  • Recipient of the Exemplary Paper Award of the American Educational Research Association's Special Interest Group of Research on Learning and Instruction in Physical Education for 2009.
  • Lawrence F. Locke Outstanding Dissertation Award-AERA, PE-SIG of March 2008.

 

In a Student's Words: "Almost everything we've done in this class has caused me to change my thoughts and assumptions-particularly on gender, sexuality, class, and nationality.
I cannot express what an impact your course has made on me until this very day. I am actually currently engaging the interests I developed over the course of the class through various little projects."

Pedagogies of DeVeiling
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Video of Students Discussing Dr. Hamzeh Courses

 

 

 

Learners' Blurbs on Dr. Hamzeh's WS Course_Feminist research Methods @ NMSU, Spring 2012 from manal hamzeh on Vimeo.

 

Learners' Blurbs on Dr. Hamzeh's WS202 Course_ Representing Women across Cultures_@NMSU, Spring 2012 from manal hamzeh on Vimeo.