Memory, Voice, and Identity : Muslim Women’s Writing From Across the Middle East

"Muslim women have been stereotyped by Western academia as oppressed and voiceless. This volume problematizes this Western academic representation. Muslim Women Writers from the Middle East from Out al-Kouloub al-Dimerdashiyyah (1899-1968) and Latifa al-Zayat (1923-1996) from Egypt, to current diasporic writers such as Tamara Chalabi from Iraq, Mohja Kahf from Syria, and even trendy writers such as Alexandra Chreiteh, challenge the received notion of Middle Eastern women as subjugated and secluded. The younger largely Muslim women scholars collected in this book present cutting edge theoretical perspectives on these Muslim women writers. This book includes essays from the conflict-ridden countries such as Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and the resultant diaspora. The strengths of Muslim women writers are captured by the scholars included herein. The approach is feminist, post-colonial, and disruptive of Western stereotypical academic tropes"-- Provided by publisher Muslim women have been stereotyped by Western academia as oppressed and voiceless. This volume problematizes this Western academic representation. The approach is feminist, post-colonial, and disruptive of Western stereotypical academic tropes. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 List of Contributors 11 Acknowledgments 18 Introduction 20 SECTION 1: Memory and Matriarchy 28 1 Memory of Latifa al-Zayyat between Influence and Ambivalence 30 2 Rebuilding Baghdad: Placing Memoir in the Archive in Marina Benjamin’s Last Days in Babylon (2007) and Tamara Chalabi’s Late for Tea at the Deer Palace (2010) 43 3 Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem: Re-memory and the Storied Geography of Subalterns’ Telling of Their S/Place 53 4 “Don’t Get in my Face Like Ashiq Peri”: The Legacy of Azerbaijan’s Most Famous Woman Bard 65 5 “Exilic Consciousness”: Memoirs of Iranian Women Émigrés 76 6 Feminist Ethnography, Revisionary Historiography, and the Subaltern in Assia Djebar’s Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade 88 SECTION 2: Body and Politics 100 7 Spheres of Piety: Politicization of Muslim Women in Turkish Novels 102 8 Muslim Face, White Mask: Out al-Kouloub al-Dimerdashiyyah’s Ramza as a Mimic (Wo)man 113 9 Same-sex Relations in Modern Arabic Fiction between Empowerment and Impossibility: A Case Study of Samar Yazbek’s Cinnamon 125 10 Writing Veiled Bodies Anew: A Study of Maya al-Haj’s Burkini: Iʿtirāfāt Muḥajjaba 137 SECTION 3: Identity and Crossing Boundaries 148 11 “A Girl Is Like a Bottle of Coke”: Emptied and Recycled Identities in Always Coca-Cola 150 12 Shaping a Female Identity: Feminism & National Identity in Suad al-Sabah’s Poetry 158 13 “An Islam of Her Own”: A Critical Reading of Leila Aboulela’s Minaret 170 14 Mobility, Survival, and the Female Body in Laila Lalami's Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits 180 SECTION 4: Moving to Wider Spheres 190 15 An Intersectional Feminist Reading of The Dove’s Necklace and Hend and the Soldiers 192 16 Language and Identity in Postcolonial Mauritanian Muslim Women’s Writing 203 17 Documenting Refugee Crisis and Post-migration Living Difficulties in Ebtissam Shakoush’s In the Camps and Social Media Representations: A Postcolonial Perspective 215 SECTION 5: Returning to the Scheherazade Within 228 18 Djebar and Scheherazade: On Muslim Women, Past and Present 230 19 Cultural Trauma and Scheherazade’s Gastro-national/Transnational Discourse in Tamara al-Refai’s Writings 242 20 Revolutionizing Scheherazade: Deconstructing the Exotic and Oppressed Muslim Odalisque in Mohja Kahf’s Poetry 253 Index 266 Ambivalence;,Rebuilding,Baghdad;,Exilic,Consciousness;,Politicization;,Cultural,Trauma;,Revolutionizing,Scheherazade Ambivalence,Rebuilding Baghdad,Exilic Consciousness,Politicization,Cultural Trauma,Revolutionizing Scheherazade