JP Dr. Serena Tolino

Serena Tolino is Junior Professor for Islamic Studies at the University of Hamburg since April 2016.

She was awarded a Ph.D. and the title of Doctor Europaeus from the University of Naples “L’Orientale” and the Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle Wittenberg (summa cum laude). She received her Bachelor and Master degrees in “Sciences of Languages, History and Cultures of Islamic and Mediterranean Countries” from the University of Naples “L'Orientale”. While studying for her MA, she moved to Cairo, where she spent three years learning Arabic at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies Dar Comboni and at the University of Cairo. Alongside her studies, she also worked as a teacher of Italian as second language and as a project assistant. After completing her MA, she was awarded a full-time Ph.D. grant from the Graduate School Society and Culture in Motion, Halle-Wittenberg. She wrote her Ph.D. on “Homosexual acts and Homosexuality in Islamic and statutory Law: some notes on the Egyptian case, with some references to the Lebanese case”. From 2012 to 2016 she held a post-position at the History Department, University of Zurich, where she worked on “The masculinity of Court eunuchs in the Fatimid Empire”, while in Fall 2013 she was awarded a fellowship from the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard University.

Research Interests

Islamic Law, Gender and Sexuality in the Islamicate world, Near and Middle East History, History of the Fatimid Empire

Curriculum vitae

Publications (selection)

Books

1. Omosessualità e atti omosessuali tra diritto islamico e diritto positivo: il caso egiziano con alcuni riferimenti all’esperienza libanese. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane

Edited Volumes

2. Almut Höfert, Matthew M. Mesley, Serena Tolino (eds.): Celibate and Childless Men in Power: Ruling Eunuchs and Bishops in the Pre-Modern World. London and New York: Routledge
3. Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in the Constitutions of the Middle Eastern and North African Countries, special issue of Oriente Moderno, 98, 2.
4. Carlo De Angelo, Serena Tolino (eds.): Minorities and Islamic Law, special issue of Journal of Islamic and Arabic Studies
5. Aymon Kreil, Lucia Sorbera, Serena Tolino (eds.): Sexual Norms in the Arab World: Desire and Transgression in Islamic Cultures. London: I.B. Tauris (under contract; forthcoming)

Articles in peer-reviewed journals

6. “Gender Equality in the Egyptian Constitution: From 1923 to 2014”. Oriente Moderno, 98, 2: 140-165.
7. “Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in the Constitutions of the Middle Eastern and North African Countries. Introduction”. Oriente Moderno, special issue edited by Serena Tolino: 127-139.
8. “Crossing Borders: Women, Gender and Islam in Italian Scholarship”. Daimon. Annuario di diritto comparato delle religioni (Publication expected by late 2018)
9. “Transgenderism, Transsexuality and Sex-Reassignment Surgery in Contemporary Sunni Fatwas”. Journal of Arab and Islamic Studies, 17: 223-246
10. With Carlo De Angelo. “Minorities as Subjects and Minorities as Producers of Islamic Law: Past and Present”. Journal of Arab and Islamic Studies, 17: 143-155
11. “The Approach to Homosexuality in Contemporary Fatāwā: Sexual Practices or Sexual Orientation?”. Zeitschrift für Recht & Islam, 1: 141–158
12. “Homosexual Acts in Islamic Law: Siḥāq and Liwāṭ in the Legal Debate”. GAIR-Mitteilungen, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Arabisches und Islamisches Recht, 6 (2014): 187-205
13. “Homosexuality in the Middle East: An Analysis of Dominant and Competitive Discourses”. DEP. Deportate, Esule, Profughe, 25 (2014): 72-91
14. “Identità omosessuale in tribunale nell’Egitto e nel Libano contemporanei”. Genesis. Rivista delle Storiche Italiane, 11, 1-2 (2012): 115-140

Book chapters

15. “Eunuchs in the Fatimid empire: Ambiguities, gender and sacredness”. In: Celibate and Childless Men in Power: Ruling Eunuchs and Bishops in the Pre-Modern World, ed. by Almut Höfert, Matthew M. Mesley, Serena Tolino. London and New York: Routledge, 246-266.
16. “Le molestie sessuali nello spazio e nel discorso pubblico egiziano”. In: Conflitti di Genere. Società, religione e cultura, ed. by Carlo De Angelo, Sabina Fontana, Souadou Lagdaf. Lugano: Agorà & Co, 197-220
17. “The History of Prostitution in Egypt (1885-1949): from Regulation to Prohibition”. In: Muslim Bodies: Körper, Sexualität und Medizin in muslimischen Gesellschaften, ed. by Susanne Kurz, Claudia Preckel, and Stefan Reichmuth. Münster: LIT, 131-154.
18. “Discourses on Homosexuality in Egypt: When Religion and the State Cooperate”. In: Homosexuality in Africa, vol. II, Public Religion and the Politics of Homosexuality in Africa, ed. by Adriaan van Klinken, Ezra Chitando. New York and London: Routledge, 49-62
19. “Le tutela dei minori in Egitto: il Qānūn al-ṭifl alla luce degli emendamenti del 2008 e il ruolo delle organizzazioni non governative.” In: La tutela dei minori di cultura islamica nell’area mediterranea. Aspetti sociali, giuridici, medici, ed. by Agostino Cilardo. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 377-418
20. “The anti- female genital mutilation discourse in Contemporary Egypt.” In: Islam and Bioethics, ed. by Berna Arda, Vardit Rispler Chaim. Ankara: Ankara University Press, 207-221
21. “Being LGB in the Middle East.” In: Worldwide Perspectives on Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals: History, Culture and Law, 3 voll., ed. by Paula Gerber, Westport CT: Praeger Press, 2018 (accepted; forthcoming)

Encyclopedia Entries

In Islam: a Worldwide Encyclopedia, ed. Cenap Cakmak. Santa Barbara: ABC CLIO, 2017

22. Circumcision (vol. I: 294-297)
23. Depravity (vol I: 268-270)
24. Lut (vol. II: 950-952)
25. Muwaṭṭā’ (vol. II: 1137-1139)
26. Sunna (vol. IV: 1493-1496)
27. Uṣūl al-fiqh (vo. IV: 1613-1615)
28. Ibn Qayyim al-Ğawziyya (vol. II: 513-515)

In Encyclopedia of Islamic Bioethics, ed. Ayman Shabana. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019:

29. Transgender (accepted, forthcoming).
30. Castration (already published on the online version)
31. Pregnancy (already published on the online version)

Published Translations from Arabic

32. Hanan al-Shaykh, Fresco sulle labbra, fuoco nel cuore, trans. by Serena Tolino, Ashraf Hassan. Milan: Piemme, 2013
33. Hanan al-Shaykh, Mio signore, mio carnefice, trans. by Serena Tolino, Ashraf Hassan. Milan: Piemme, 2011
34. Hanan al-Shaykh, La sposa ribelle, trans. by Serena Tolino, Ashraf Hassan. Milan: Piemme, 2010

Book Reviews

35. Mohammed Hocine Benkheira; Avner Giladi; Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen; Jacqueline Sublet, La famille en islam d’après les sources arabes. Paris: Les indes savantes, 2013, Der Islam, 94, 1 (2017): 279-283.
36. Hans-Peter Pökel, Der unmännliche Mann. Zur Figuration des Eunuchen im Werk von al-Ǧāḥiẓ (gest. 869). Würzburg: Ergon, 2014, Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 111, 6 (2016): 505-509.
37. 2013. Deborah Scolart, L’Islam, il reato, la pena. Dal fiqh alla codificazione del diritto penale, Roma: Istituto per l’Oriente C.A. Nallino, 2013, Studi Maġrebini, N.S. 11 (2013): 283-285.

Memberships of Scientific Societies

Board member of ISILS (International Society for Islamic Legal Studies)

Member of DAVO (Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vorderer Orient für gegenwartsbezogene Forschung und Dokumentation)

Member of Istituto per l’Oriente Carlo Alfonso Nallino, Rome

Member of SIS (Italian Society of Women Historians)

Member of UEAI (Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants)