PIETERNELLAVAN DOORN-HARDER, Contemporary Coptic Nuns, Studies in Comparative Religion (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995). Pp. 262.

Abstract

As van Doorn-Harder rightly states, recent research on women in the Arab world has focused nearly exclusively on Muslim women. In this study of contemporary Coptic nuns, van Doorn-Harder offers us richly detailed observations of the lives of a rarely studied group of Egyptian women. Situating this discussion in the context of Coptic revival in Egypt, van Doorn-Harder gives a sense of the dynamic and evolving functions of the Coptic church, and how these have been reflected in Egyptian convents since the mid-1950s.