The Headscarf Controversy

Hilal Elver is a research professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, where she has been Distinguished Visiting Professor since January, 2002. Previously she was the UNEP Chair on Environmental Diplomacy at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies in Malta, and taught at the University of Ankara, Faculty of Law, where she received her law degree and Ph.D. She also has an SJD from UCLA Law School. Her publications focus on international environmental law and human rights, specifically in relation to women's rights.

• I. Point of Departure ; Part 1: Turkey ; II. Nature of the Headscarf Controversy in Turkey: Popular Discourse ; III. Understanding a Complex History ; IV. The Role of the European Court of Human Rights ; Part 2: Europe and the United States ; V. Anti-Islamic Discourses in the West ; VI. France ; VII Germany ; VIII. The United States ; IX. Conclusion ; Notes ; Bibliography ; Index

Hilal Elver ... is passionate about the issues, but writes without becoming emotional or overtly polemical. Her introduction is excellent, outlining the problems of the headscarf as they relate to secularism, human rights, racialization of Islam and Islamophobia, gender discrimination and the legal front. ... This book is thorough and comprehensive. The author excels is expressing clearly the multiple and compex issues arising from the headscarf controversy.