Institute for Middle East Studies

State power is amplified at and through managing the sexual and sectarian intersections of political difference in Lebanon. In this lecture Maya Mikdashi employs ethnographic and archival research to frame religious conversion as a site through which to better understand this governance at the intersections of political difference, and what it may teach us about sovereignty, secularism, and state power. She suggests that bringing feminist political and legal theory into conversation with academic work on sectarian and religious difference in the Middle East allows for new perspectives on the making and management of political difference.