Marnia Lazreg


Marnia Lazreg was an Algerian academic. Her work focused on women in the Muslim world, with a particular focus on Algeria.

Early life

Lazreg was born in Mostaganem, and grew up in colonial Algeria, raised by her mother, a homemaker, and her father, a dry goods seller. As a child, she refused to wear a headscarf. Lazreg was able to attend a school for French children, and earned a French Baccalauréat in Philosophy and Mathematics in 1960, during the Algerian War of Independence. Following the war, her family moved to Algiers, where she worked for the city's municipal administration.
She went on to receive a Licence-ès-Lettres in English Literature from the University of Algiers in 1966. After graduating, she began working for Sonatrach, and was sent to work at its New York office in 1967. While working in New York, she attended New York University, earning her master's degree in 1970 and her PhD in sociology in 1974.

Academic career

In the 1970s, while completing her dissertation about class differences in Algeria, Lazreg began teaching sociology at Hunter College. She published her first book, The Emergence of Classes in Algeria, in 1976, which was based on her dissertation.
Over the next decade, she taught at Brooklyn College, Hampshire College, The New School, and Sarah Lawrence College, before returning to Hunter College in 1988 as a sociology professor.
In 1995, Lazreg spoke at the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women.
From 1999 to 2000, Lazreg worked with the World Bank on programs which aimed to advance opportunities for women and girls.
Her 2017 book, Foucault's Orient, argued that Foucault was biased toward Western intellectual traditions.
In 2019, Lazreg published her first and only novel, The Awakening of the Mother, under the pen name Meriem Belkelthoum. The French-language novel was based on her childhood in Algeria.
Lazreg retired in September 2023.

Personal life

Lazreg had two sons from a marriage with Mark Woodcock, whom she divorced. She died in Manhattan on January 13, 2024, at the age of 83, while undergoing treatment for cancer.

Publications

Books

  • The Emergence of Classes in Algeria
  • Questioning the Veil

  • Chapters

  • Articles

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