-
“Engendering Critique: Postnational Feminism in Postcolonial Syria,” Women Studies Quarterly 42.3/4 (2014): 209-229.
- Author(s):
- Rebecca Ruth Gould (see profile)
- Date:
- 2018
- Group(s):
- Cultural Studies, Feminist Humanities, Gender Studies, Global & Transnational Studies, Postcolonial Studies
- Subject(s):
- Syria, Postcolonialism, Nationalism, Feminism, Developing countries, Arabic literature, Women authors
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- Postcolonial culture, Global south, Gender studies, Gender and sexuality, Women writers
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M67D2Q66G
- Abstract:
- The tension between feminism and national liberation is a commonplace of political mobilization across the postcolonial world. This essay traces how postcolonial nationalist and transnational feminist agendas were brought into conflict during the defense of a thesis on the novels of the Syrian writer Ghada al-Samman (b. 1942) that took place in Damascus, Syria in 2010. As an Arab woman writer whose writing and life deviates from her culture’s dominant mores but who also incorporates nationalist discourse into her writings, Ghada al-Samman is a controversial figure in her Syrian homeland. This essay considers why the Syrian academic establishment failed to engage with al-Samman’s transnational feminism, and instead channeled its energies into excluding feminist critique from postcolonial nation building.
- Notes:
- Awarded the Women’s Caucus for the Modern Languages Association’s Florence Howe Award for Feminist Scholarship in the field of foreign languages (2015).
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 5 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
- Share this:
An online community for MLA members
gould.pdf