The status of LGBTQ rights in the Muslim world today is perplexing given that Islamic history is characterized by its relative tolerance of sexual diversity and same-sex desire.

Didem Havlioglu is a new Turkish Lecturing Fellow in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke. She did her MA and PhD at the University of Washington in Near and Middle East Studies. She works on gender and women in literature.

Ellen McLarney argues against the misconception of Muslim women as “oppressed by Islam,” with her examination of the lives and activism of women who write about Islam as liberating them from sexual and political oppression, ignorance, exploitation...

A scholar's response to Reza Aslan and Hasan Minhaj’s “Open Letter to American Muslims on Same Sex Marriage”

Since December 17, 2013, the AKP has further established the purity of a one-party state, in which, ironically, strong election returns have justified anti-democratic measures.

Is Sigmund Freud a stranger to the robust intellectual scenes of the modern Middle East? Is there mutual ignorance between Islam and psychoanalysis? Do only secular Arab thinkers invoke Western discourses of suspicion, such as psychoanalysis?

Columbia University graduate student Sarah Wall interned this summer at a youth center in Indonesia where sexual education and reproductive services were administered to at-risk teens.

Deena Mohamed, a nineteen-year-old Egyptian graphic design student, does more than draw or doodle: She is creating a legend.

Sinan Goknur, a graduate student in the Literature Department at Duke University, addresses queer and feminist opposition in Turkey as part of the roundtable — “If I Can’t Dance, It’s Not My Revolution.”

by MIRIAM COOKE, ERDAĞ GÖKNAR, CLAUDIA KOONZ, BRUCE LAWRENCE, and WALTER MIGNOLO for ISLAMiCommentary and TIRN on APRIL 23, 2014: This revolution is a beginn

Provided all goes as planned, the Afghan people will go to the polls April 5 and elect a new President. It will be the nation’s first proper democratic transition between governments in its modern history. A WSJ reporter speaks with Duke professors.

The veil is a piece of fabric that is politicized like no other. It is the persistent topic of fiery political debates and possibly the most stigmatized, praised, banned, and enforced article of clothing...

Last month I attended the World Social Forum — my first – in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. I study social movements and teach about the WSF and the very different and more established annual scrum of the powerful in Davos — the World Economic Forum.

A divided Egyptian public will vote this Saturday and next on a new and controversial constitution championed by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Two Duke scholars, from different fields of study, lay out what they see is at stake.

Below, see "Africa Forum" and "IFE/INFO Policy Roundtable" in the Diplomatic Spotlight section of The Washington Diplomat (May 2011) — including a close-up image — for photos and captions by Julie Poucher Harbin. Below, see "Women Media Leaders" in…

Special to the Diplomatic Pouch (April 2011 edition) by Julie Poucher Harbin Top women media executives and journalists from Canada,Britain, Uganda, Peru, Germany, Norway and the United States were among the guest speakers at an International…

Tens of thousands of Eastern European women are falling victim to the Balkan sex trade. (Julie Harbin and Nidzara Ahmetasevic contributed to the research in Bosnia-Herzegovina)

Although the numbers are still small, women are increasingly turning to the courts to end their marriages. (I guided the journalist Suhaila Muhseni and edited this piece)

A European activist and a liberal religious scholar differ on the roles women can play in Afghan society. (I guided the journalists Suhaila Muhseni and Shahabuddin Tarakhiland edited their final piece)

Record numbers of women in Bosnia-Hercegovina have entered the political arena, but they still face an uphill struggle.