Holt, Dr Maria
Telephone: +44-(0)20-7911-5000 ext. 7611
Postal: 32-38 Wells Street
London, W1T 3UW
Email: holtm@wmin.ac.uk
Biography
MARIA HOLT is a Senior Lecturer in the Democracy and Islam Programme, which is part of the Department of Politics & International Relations. She was educated at the Universities of Toronto, Exeter and York. Since completing her PhD in 2004 (on the effects of violent conflict on Shi’i and Palestinian women in Lebanon), she has been working on two research projects, the first focusing on Palestinian refugee women in Lebanon in terms of memory, identity and change,* and the other on the impact of Islamic resistance movements on women in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.* Her other research interests include the Arab-Israeli conflict, Muslim communities in the UK, political Islamist movements in the Middle East, and the final years of the British colonial period in southern Yemen. Besides her academic research, Dr Holt worked for many years as a political lobbyist on Middle East issues.
Recent publications
“Keeping the memory alive: Palestinian women in Lebanon narrate home, homeland and homelessness”, in edited volume Imagining Home (forthcoming).
“Moving from silence into speech: Palestinian refugee women in Lebanon speak about their lives”, in Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture (forthcoming)
“Challenging preconceptions: women’s experiences of Islamic resistance movements in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories”, chapter in EU, the US and Islamist Movements: Strategies for Engaging Political Islam, edited by Michelle Pace, Palgrave (forthcoming).
“Unexamined Lives: A Methodology of Women, Violence and War in Lebanon”, in
Participatory Research Methodologies: Development and Post-Disaster/Conflict
Reconstruction, edited by Alpaslan Ozerdem and Richard Bowd, Farnham: Ashgate,
2010.
“A world of movement: memory and reality for Palestinian women in the camps of Lebanon”, chapter in Palestinian Refugees: Identity, Space and Place in the Levant, edited by Are Knudsen and Sari Hanafi, Routledge,2010.
“A Crisis of Identity: Palestinian Women, Memory and Dissent”, in The Future of Palestinian Identity (papers presented at the Third International Conference held at the Centre for the Study of Palestinian Society and Heritage, Society of Inash El Usra), edited by Sharif Kanaana, Al-Bireh, Palestine, 2009.
“Women and Islamic resistance in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories”, in Global affairs in a turbulent world: perspectives and controversies, edited by Yannis A Stivachtis, Athens: Atiner, February 2008.
“Women and Islamic resistance”, in Muslim News, 28 November 2008.
“The Wives and Mothers of Heroes: Evolving Identities of Palestinian Refugee Women in Lebanon”, Journal of Development Studies, Volume 43, Number 2, February 2007.
“Palestinian refugees in Lebanon”, written evidence published in House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Global Security: The Middle East, Eighth Report of Session 2006-7, August 2007.
“Besieged in Beirut”, published in CSD Bulletin, Vol 14, Nos 1 & 2, Summer 2007.
Without glory in Arabia: the end of British rule in Aden (with Peter Hinchcliffe and John Ducker), London: I B Tauris, 2006.
Recent conference papers
May 2009 Memory, ‘the nation’ and resistance: challenges facing Palestinian women in the 21st century, at World Popular conference for the Support of Palestine, Istanbul
July 2009 Occupied space/diaspora space: Palestinian women and the politics of home, at BRISMES Annual Conference, University of Manchester
September 2009 “A plurality of resistances”: women, Islam and war in Lebanon
and the Palestinian territories, at Rethinking Jihad Conference, University of Edinburgh
March 2010 Violence against women in the context of war: experiences of women in Lebanon, part of Workshop “Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the MENA Region”, 11th Mediterranean Research Meeting, Montecatini Terme, Italy.
Research Projects
Click here to read a complete list of Dr. Holt's research projects.
Teaching
Dr. Holt is module Leader for
Dissertation Module
The Democracy & Islam module
