Anita Weiss (1975)

Anita M. Weiss received her doctorate in sociology from UC Berkeley in 1983 and is now professor and head of the Department of International Studies at the University of Oregon. She has published extensively on social development, gender issues, and political Islam in Pakistan. Her books include Pathways to Power: the Domestic Politics of South Asia (co-edited with Arjun Guneratne, Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming 2014); Development Challenges Confronting Pakistan (co-edited with Saba Gul Khattak, Kumarian Press, 2013); Power and Civil Society in Pakistan (co-edited with Zulfiqar Gilani); Walls Within Walls: Life Histories of Working Women in the Old City of Lahore; and Culture, Class, and Development in Pakistan: The Emergence of an Industrial Bourgeoisie in Punjab. Recent publications include “Crisis and Reconciliation in Swat through the Eyes of Women” in Beyond Swat: History, Society and Economy along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier (edited by Magnus Marsden and Ben Hopkins); Moving Forward with the Legal Empowerment of Women in Pakistan (USIP Special Report 305, 2012); and “Population Growth, Urbanization and Female Literacy” in The Future of Pakistan, edited by Stephen P. Cohen and others. Her current project, Interpreting Islam, Modernity and Women’s Rights in Pakistan (in preparation; Palgrave Macmillan 2014) analyses how distinct constituencies in Pakistan, including the state, are grappling with articulating their views on women’s rights. Professor Weiss is a member of the editorial boards of Citizenship Studies and Globalizations, is on the editorial advisory board of Kumarian Press, has been s a member of the Research Advisory Board of the Pakistan National Commission on the Status of Women, and is just concluding her term as vice president of the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS).