SOCIALDIFFERENCE ONLINE VOL. 1 DEC. 201 JOURNAL OF THE CENTER FOR THE CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL DIFFERENCE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY D CENTER FOR THE CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL DIFFERENCE
SOCIALDIFFERENCE-ONLINE EDITOR'S NOTE Since we began this great adventure into the "critical analysis of social difference" in April 2008, we have nurtured five collaborative research projects. We have hosted dozens of international scholars, six visiting fellows, and countless other university faculty, artists and practitioners from Columbia and from neighboring institutions in New York City and beyond. We have partnered with arts insti- tutions, foundations and universities across the globe and we have staged dozens of public events, conferences and roundtables. To date, five new graduate and undergraduate courses have evolved out of the collaborative research and thinking initiated here. Out of the synergy produced by dozens of creative, inquisitive and engaged people given the space to think and a community in which to develop an ongoing conversation, we have generated books, articles, podcasts, videos and now an online journal, SocialDifference-Online. SocialDifference-Online is an attempt not just to further that conversation, but also to take it beyond the seminar room and the lecture hall. An advanced research center that promotes interdisciplinary scholarship on the global dynamics of gender, sexuality, ethnicity and race, CCASD is the research arm of five institutes and centers at Columbia: the Institute for Research in African-American Studies; the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race; the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society and the Barnard Center for Research on Women. An essential part of our mission is to explore innovative ways to disseminate the work that we do and to open up the exchange of ideas, research, approaches and practices. This first issue of SocialDif- ference-Online makes available working papers originally presented at the CCASD Liberalism and Its Others conference "Religious Law, Local Practice, and Global Debates about Muslim Women's Rights" at the Columbia University Global Center in Amman, Jordan. Many thanks in advance to our readers who will, we hope, continue to complicate and extend the urgent critical conversation begun there. Laura E. Ciolkowski New York City 2011
SOCIALDIFFERENCE-ONLINE Women's Rights, Muslim Family Law, and the Politics of Consent Working Papers Guest Editors Lila Abu-Lughod and Anupama Rao The following working papers were delivered as part of the workshop "Religious Law, Local Practice, and Global Debates about Muslim Women's Rights: The Politics of Consent," organized by Professors Lila Abu-Lughod and Anupama Rao and held at Columbia University's Global Center in Amman Jordan, April 9-10, 2011. This workshop was jointly sponsored by the Columbia University Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference (CCASD) and the School of International and Public Affairs' initiative on Religion and International Affairs, through the Center for Democracy, Toleration and Religion, and with generous support from the Luce Foundation. Maya Mikdashi and Menna Khalil provided expert organization and editorial assistance. A workshop report and a full program are available on the CCASD website: http://www.socialdifference.org/