Women, Writing and the Iraqi Ba'thist State: Contending Discourses of Resistance and Collaboration
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:30 pm to 7:00 pm
- Venue
- Virtual Event
About this event
Women, Writing and the Iraqi Ba‘thist State: Contending Discourses of Resistance and Collaboration, 1968-2003 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) traces the turbulent history of Ba'thist discourses on women and state patronage of the novel, and explores various literary responses from a wide spectrum of Iraqi women writers. It attempts to show the correlation between 'progressive' discourses on women and the rise of a nationalist novel, both of which were used as markers of culture and progress by the State. It also argues for the inclusion of a broader range of texts in literary analyses, and offers the novels of Saddam Hussein and the didactic religious romances of Shia authors as examples of 'transtextuality' that help us better understand the cultural landscape of Iraq even after the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Recording
About the speaker
Hawraa Al-Hassan is a Visiting Researcher at the Centre of Islamic Studies, Cambridge University. She gained her PhD in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Cambridge and her MA in Comparative Literature (English, Arabic and French literatures) from University College London and SOAS. She is interested in researching the cultural history of the modern Arab world in as far as it relates to propaganda, nationalist literature and religious and sect-based identities.
Registration
This webinar will take place online via Zoom. After registering, a separate Zoom registration link will be emailed to you closer to the date of the webinar. Online registration
* The webinar will also be live-streamed on our Facebook page for those that are unable to participate via Zoom.
Chair: Narguess Farzad (SOAS)
Organiser: SOAS Middle East Institute
Contact email: smei@soas.ac.uk
