“Women and the Veil in Islam” presentation at SCCC

Newton —Join an evening presentation with author Dr. Paula Drew at Sussex County Community College on Friday, Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. in the Sussex Bank Theater. Dr. Drew will delve into the highly elaborated female sphere made possible by Islamic traditions of segregating the sexes into two barely overlapping worlds. As her book, “Women and the Veil in Islam” tells, the veil often facilitates the separation. Public admission for the presentation is $3. The presentation will explain the many forms of the veil and its varying levels of concealment and paramount practicality under various social and climatic conditions. Dr. Drew will explore the veil’s association with Islam, and its use as a means of social control, its recent resurgence among the young and militant as a political statement of rejection of Western influences and its re-imposition by fundamentalist regimes. Dr. Paula Drew is a former professor at the University of Tabriz, N.W. Iran and the National University of Iran. In these universities, she taught Iranian women French, German, English, and psychology in Persian. For three years, she served as academic and personal advisor to female students in the humanities. She also ran a clinic for mothers and babies in an Iranian oasis community for almost ten years. Field-note observations formed the basis for her doctoral thesis in anthropology, Arranging Marriages in Iran, at Rutgers University. She taught Anthropology at Rutgers University and Fairleigh Dickinson University, before a career switch to teaching modern languages for the Parsippany school district. Join us for an enlightening presentation. For more information, call 973-300-2120.