Student engagement is a key component of the Program’s academic focus. In addition to course offerings and programming engagements, we provide research assistantship opportunities, student mentorship and advising, research grants, and an annual writing prize to recognize student excellence in academic research and writing.
Courses and Study Groups
Course Offerings 2024-2025
Gender, Law, and Society in the Middle East and North Africa
Fall 2024, Salma Waheedi
This course will examine questions of gender justice and the law in the Middle East and North Africa. We will discuss the evolution and development of law and legal frameworks across the region and their interaction with gender and social norms, taking into account the region’s diversity of sociopolitical contexts and historical experiences. Using a case study approach, we will also explore historical and present trends and responses to questions of gender inequality, including feminist movements, grassroots mobilization, strategic litigation, and advocacy through arts and media. The readings will center the voices and scholarship of Middle Eastern legal academics, feminist scholars, and activists.
Islamic Law and Human Rights
Spring 2025, Salma Waheedi
This course offers students the opportunity to engage with current and emerging debates on Islamic law, social justice, and human rights. After a brief introduction to Islamic law and jurisprudence, we will examine legal and practical human rights question at the intersection of Islamic law and its interpretation and application within contemporary Muslim states and societies. Through a number of case studies, we also will engage in a critical examination of different modes and discourses of domestic, regional, and global human rights advocacy across diverse geographic settings and themes.
Farmed Animal Law and Policy
Fall 2024, Kristen Stilt
This seminar will explore farmed animal law and policy, with a focus on high-profile issues concerning the use of animals for food, including current controversies over animal welfare, environmental degradation, public health, consumer protection, worker safety, and climate change. The seminar will examine the history and evolution of animal agriculture from early agrarian domestication to modern industrial farming, and highlight the major ethical, cultural, ecological, social and economic issues that shape farmed animal law and policy in the 21st century. The seminar will include an overview of key laws and regulations concerning farmed animals, as well as an exploration of current legislation, litigation, ballot initiatives and consumer-based campaigns to reform animal agriculture. The seminar will also compare farmed animal laws and regulations in different countries, and touch on the role of international trade agreements in both promoting and preventing legal protections for farmed animals.
Animal Law
Spring 2025, Kristen Stilt
This course will introduce students to the broad range of laws that affect non-human animals (“animals”), including companion animals, farm animals (with a particular focus on factory farms), animals used in the context of entertainment (such as zoos and aquaria), animals used in scientific experimentation, and wild animals. The course will focus mainly on the U.S. but will also include some attention to the laws of other countries and to international law.
The course will also engage with fundamental questions about animals and the law, such as: Are some animals more deserving of protection than others, and if so, on what basis? What role does culture and belief play in animal law—why are dogs considered pets in the U.S. and food in some parts of the world, for example? Does the status of animals as property pose an insurmountable barrier to increasing protections for animals? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the concepts of “animal rights” and “animal welfare”?
View past course offerings of the Program on Law & Society in the Muslim World.
Writing Prize
The Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World at Harvard Law School awards a prize of $1,000 annually to the Harvard Law Student writing the best paper in the field of law and society or law and social change in a Muslim majority or minority context. Papers eligible for consideration will be ones written during the current academic year at Harvard Law School. For more information on how to apply, please see the Writing Prize Submission Instructions.
View past recipients of the Program on Law & Society in the Muslim World Writing Prize.
Research Opportunities
The Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World provides paid research assistantship opportunities for Harvard Law School students interested in the Program’s work. We particularly welcome applications from students interested in pursuing research related to law and social change, human rights, gender, minority rights, LGBTQ issues, constitutional law, international law, and related fields. Please email Salma Waheedi, Executive Director of the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World, at [email protected] if you are interested in learning more about student research opportunities for students.