CAIS Lecture Series: Dr. Hanadi Al-Samman

Mobility and Authorship in Arab Women’s Diasporic Writings

Since the early 1900, Arab women writers have been part of the mahjr/exile literary movement in North and South America. For them, Diaspora is a positioning that encapsulates the inherent perpetual tension between the discourse of “home” and “dispersion.” At once embodying the idea of scattering and the enactment of “multiple journeys.” Yet, despite their wanderings the homeland remains front and center in their writings, and Arabic is still the language of choice in penning their literature. For them mobility gives them a bird’s eye view of their countries’ predicaments, yet the dream of return is never relinquished. Rather it is celebrated as part of the nonfixity, the back-and-forth mobility, that guarantees constant rejuvenation. In their writings, they resurrect localized feminine literary tropes that celebrate female authority and authorship. It is through the interplay of roots, routes and rhizomes, filiation/affiliation, deterritorialization/reterritorialization, departure/return, and loss/retrieval that Arab diaspora women writers rewrite their foremothers’ legacy.

On Zoom: https://asu.zoom.us/j/3813141796

Organized and Moderated by Dr. Souad T. Ali, CAIS Founding Chair

 https://cais.asu.edu/