Outlaws and Scofflaws: Pirates and the Making of the Mediterranean – Judith Tucker (Georgetown University)

Monday, October 10th, 5:00 pm
IHC McCune Conference Room (HSSB 6020)

How did the Mediterranean emerge as a coherent and recognizable place in the early modern period? By looking to the semi-licit world of piracy and to the development of its laws and practices in particular, we can trace a convergence of understandings and agreements across Mediterranean space. Ironically enough, these outlaws and scofflaws of the time played major roles in forging the critical connections that drew the shores of the Mediterranean closer in a time of turmoil on the seas. Should we give pirates significant credit for the making of the modern Mediterranean?

Judith E. Tucker (PhD, History and Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, 1981) is Professor of History at Georgetown University and former Editor of the International Journal of Middle East Studies (2004-2009). She is the author of many publications on the history of women and gender in the Arab world, including Women in 19th Century Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 1985), In the House of the Law: Gender and Islamic Law in Ottoman Syria and Palestine (California University Press, 1998), Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and co-author of Women in the Middle East and North Africa: Restoring Women to History (Indiana University Press, 1999). She has authored numerous articles for professional journals, edited volumes, and encyclopedias. Her research interests focus on the Arab world in the Ottoman period, women and gender in Middle East history, Islamic law, women, and gender, and most recently the Arab World, the Mediterranean, and global connections in the eighteenth century.