Apostles of knowledge: Feminine modernities and the travelling schoolmistresses of interwar Iraq

Abstract During the interwar era, nearly all of Iraq's secondary schoolmistresses journeyed to Iraq from other corners of the Arab world. This article examines their extraordinary lives, impact on their students and the feminine modernity that these women represented. Policymakers, officials and intellectuals sought to spread women's education, linking it to a global vision of modern domesticity. In contrast, the schoolmistresses of interwar Iraq, the first women in the region to receive higher education, tied their journeys to their gender, underscoring that travel and a ‘modern’ education created a different type of ‘new woman’ who was to be, and to remain, exceptional.