On June 25, 2015, IWSAW held its annual Mary Turner Lane Award that aims to generate awareness on the importance of research in the field of gender and women studies.

Fourteen students from different fields participated in the two categories of the competition: research paper and creative writing, or journalistic piece on women/gender studies.

Winners

President Dr. Joseph Jabbra and IWSAW Director Dr. Samira Aghacy, addressed the students and distributed the awards to the two winners: Serine Jaafar for her paper titled Madness and Notions of Gender Within Alternative Spaces/Times in Mrs. Dalloway and The God of Small Things, and Yara Nahle for her paper titled Shirine Neshat at the Intersection of Overlapping Identities. The paper of Serine focuses on the boundaries between sanity and madness and the association of the feminine with space rather than time, while Yara’s paper revolves around Iranian notions of femininity in relation to the prevailing political and religious structures.

In addition to the monetary prize of $500, both papers will be published in Al-Raida Journal.

Dr. Aghacy took the opportunity to highly commend one of the participating students, Zeena Amkieh, for her spirited and courageous testimony on her traumatic experience with Bulimia Nervosa.

At the end of the event Dr. Aghacy stressed on the importance of participating in the competition because the involvement of young men and women “will truly make a good contribution to women and gender studies”.

More details about the ceremony are found in this LAU News article.

From Left: Dr. Aghacy, President Dr. Jabbra, and Serine Jaafar

From left: Dr. Aghacy, President Dr. Jabbra and Yara Nahle

Dr. Jabbra and Dr. Aghacy with the students who participated in the
competition, members of the selection committee, and LAU professors