Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research is a progressive, feminist journal on gender and sexuality in the Middle East, South West Asia, and North Africa regions. Kohl Journal is a biannual, multilingual, open access, and peer reviewed academic journal. It targets mainly, but not exclusively, graduate-level academics, fresh graduates, independent writers, activists, and researchers who are not affiliated with an academic institution. They also welcome submissions from seminal contributors in the field.

Based in Beirut, Lebanon, Kohl Journal originated from the belief that much of what is widely available for mainstream readership on feminism, gender, and sexuality in their regions is burdened with Orientalist misconceptions, shallow investigations, and a paradoxical mixture of over and under-researching. While particularly narrow, or “hot,” topics are popularized and explored in a myriad of ways, many important positionalities and contexts are left untreated. This journal hopes to trouble the hegemony of knowledge production, and ensure that their regions and communities play a central role in redefining their own intersections and challenges when it comes to feminist and sexuality research.

At Kohl, they intend to provide a non-exoticizing, non-minority platform to promote independent knowledge and knowledge by young and graduate-level academics, thereby bridging the gap between activist circles and academia. Kohl also encourages the free and equal access to information and resources. Feel free to read, share, and use their published material, provided you reference their authors and the journal.

Conceived in the corners of a class on Orientalism, Kohl is the realization of a political vision.