Drawing on a reading of MERIP's articles related to women's and gender studies over the course of its 50-year history, this piece reflects on how MERIP's forays into this field formed part of its overarching aspiration to place scholarship in the service of progressive political projects. I explore how intellectual trends and political commitments worked together to shape the topics and approaches related to gender that appeared in MERIP's pages. The political purposes of knowledge production were omnipresent in the minds of authors and editors, and we see evidence of a conscious program of critique of past scholarship on women and gender in the region, as well as sustained attention to research and writing that could connect, or perhaps even be useful, to struggles in the Middle East region and the amelioration of U.S. policy. The framing of issues varied over time, from a focus on political economy to political action to broader cultural questions, in rhythm with shifts in scholarly paradigms and events on the ground.
