Narrating Gender in the Arab World

Semester and Year	FA 2012
Course Number	IDSEM-UG1715
Section	001
Instructor	Hoda El Shakry
Days	Mon,Wed
Time	2:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement	HUM, GLOBAL

Notes/Restrictions

Same as COLIT-UA 302.

Description

This course examines the work of contemporary female novelists and artists of the Middle East and North Africa. Our objective is to critically investigate how the categories of ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’ are narrated in the Arab context. We will ask the following questions: what, if anything, is particular to the representation of women in the Arab world? How are these texts symptomatic of and/or resistant to dominant narratives of gendered identity emerging from both the Arab world and West? What are the relationships between gender ideologies and the projects of colonialism, nationalism and globalization? How do gender and sexuality intersect with questions of race, class and religion? What archetypes, tropes and symbols do these works employ, complicate or challenge? How have these images shifted historically and what non-normative visions of gender and sexuality have emerged? Readings include fiction by Sahar Khalifa, Hanan al-Shaykh, Huda Barakat, Ahlam Mosteghanemi, Somaya Ramadan, Mansoura Ez-Eldin and Radwa Ashour. Readings will be paired with film, art and video installations, as well as theoretical selections on: feminism in the Arab world, women and Islam, Orientalism and Queer Theory.

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)