Lilia Labidi

Professor of Anthropology and Psychology, University of Tunis

Lilia Labidi is an anthropologist and psychologist, holding a doctorate in Psychology and a Doctorat
d’Etat in Anthropology, both from Université Paris VII.

In Tunisia, Labidi cofounded several research associations, directed a program on The Construction
of Public Morality in the Arab World and Africa (Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, and Egypt), and
from January to December 2011 was Minister for Women’s Affairs in the provisional Tunisian govern-
ment following the fall of the Ben Ali regime. She has held fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton, and at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, and has been
a visiting professor at the American University in Cairo, Yale University, and the Middle East Institute at
the National University of Singapore.

Her writings on the Arab world have treated subjects such as the history of the feminist movement, the
construction of identity, attitudes toward death, and the work of women artists in the aftermath of the
Arab Spring. Her major works include Çabra Hachma: sexualité et tradition (1989); Joudhour al-harakat
al-nisa’iyya: riwayaat li-shakhsiyyaat tarikhiyya [Origins of Feminist Movements in Tunisia: Personal
History Narratives] (3rd edition, 2009); ‘Islamic law, feminism, and family: the reformulation of Hudud
in Egypt and Tunisia’ (in V. Moghadam (ed.) From Patriarchy to Empowerment: Women’s Participation,
Movements, and Rights in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, 2007); ‘Le Printemps arabe en
Tunisie: constitutionnalisation des droits des femmes’ (in J. Baubérot, M. Milot, P. Portier (eds.) Laïcité,
laïcités: Reconfigurations et nouveaux défis, 2014); and ‘Political, aesthetic, and ethical positions of
Tunisian women artists, 2011–2013’ (in The Journal of North African Studies, 2014).

At SCAS, she will be working on women artists in today’s Arab world.

This information is accurate as of the academic year 2016-17.