The Women and Memory Forum co-organized the “Conference of Arab Women in the Twenties: Issues of Identity”, with the Lebanese Women Researchers (“Al-Bahithat”) in cooperation with the Center of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies in the American University of Beirut. The conference was held in Beirut, May 20 –23, 2001. WMF members participated in and held several panels in the conference. The conference’s main point of departure was a belief in the significance of the twenties of the last century to the Arab World, which went through drastic changes: politically, economically, and socially. The decade is also considered significant in the history of Arab modernity, which had a great impact on the conditions of women in Arab societies and on shaping women’s issues at the time and until now. Several Arab women researchers and academics from different Arab countries and from the U.S. participated in the conference, with papers that covered a variety of themes and that shed light on women’s history in Egypt, the Arab Peninsula, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Tunisia, Algeria…etc. Most researchers focused on the path of modernization process and its consequences on discourses, writing, law, political activities, journalism, women’s movements, lifestyle.

Proceedings of the conferece were published as: